I'll be using an unfinished game of mine as an example. I wanted it to be subversive and edgy, but I ended up abandoning it for other things (such as NaNoWriMo and homework).
Say you have an otome game. Say that there are 4-5 guys whom you can pursue, but there is only one true route. Say that the main character dies on every route except the true one, which puts her with one guy. I realize that it's possible to have a game like this (such as CLANNAD or that fan-made prequel), but in CLANNAD at least Tomoya ended up with a girl at the end, right? What I'm getting at is that this MC would end up dating a guy but would die if it wasn't on a particular route. This has nothing to do with a true love aspect, but deals with what happens in this guy's route overall.
I fully realize that there is the very real possibility of people hating this game because of the outcome--i.e. the author is basically shoehorning you into one route, whether you like it or not--but I think this deals with the question of authorial direction over a visual novel. I know visual novels are interactive and you're supposed to provide choices, but can't you just mess with your readership a little in the process? I guess a good example here would be
Then again, I am looking at this from the standpoint of an author and not as a reader. I think it's fun to twist the expectations that your audience has, i.e. you make Guy A really nice and agreeable but he ends up being a complete jerk once you start pursuing him. Or, like the KS example, you decide to
Just wondering how other people look at this issue :-3