Briefly

— Why is it so difficult to get to good endings?

— That was the plan.

More detailed

Perhaps we didn't make this point clear enough earlier, but we deliberately made Degraman a difficult game where everything doesn't come down to choosing "Jack or John".

A "difficult visual novel" in our understanding is a novel where:

Sometimes the player has to adjust to the nature of the love interest. Not all of them are ready to accept any player's choice

Endings are determined based on a large chain of choices

Happy endings (where everyone is happy and alive) should be hard for the player to get, and this of course should be plot-based

The player has not only pleasant emotions from only good endings

About point 2. We have spent a lot of time and effort specifically on this point. It means that there is no one choice that determines the fate of the character (although there may always be the last straw). And it also means that we have tried very hard to make sure that there are no choices in the game that do not affect anything at all.

Every developer of a visual novel is balancing between two poles. Let's say there are 100 choices in the game:

In a difficult pole, the player needs to choose the right option in all 100 choices in order to get to a good ending. In this case, the game will be absurdly difficult

In a simple pole, the player needs to make only 1 (any, not a specific) correct choice. In this case, the game will be very easy, and at the same time getting to the "bad" ending will turn into a challenge

Each developer chooses for himself the right balance between these poles. Our deliberate choice was to be closer to the difficult pole, but we tried to do it without extreme.

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Perhaps not everyone expects difficulties from otome game. However, we, in fact, began to make Degraman, because we ourselves lacked a dark otome with a complex plot.

We are really sorry if the game did not meet your expectations, however, this is not a bug, but a feature.

had a realization the other day