Personally, how do you guys feel about the idea that you have to play through every other route first in order to unlock the last one?
In my project, I am going to have four routes: The first three are those of the three heroines in the story while the last one is the main protagonist's own route. The routes are decided by who the protagonist chooses to follow for the rest of the story. Although the heroines' routes can be played in any order, completing them all is necessary in order to complete the protagonist's own route, as they provide hints and answers that are necessary for you (The reader) to use in order to help the protagonist resolve everything. Should the reader try to access the protagonist's route without finishing the others first, it will only result in a premature bad end that lectures the reader about averting their eyes to the crisis at hand.
I wanted to design my game this way because in my story, the protagonist needs to unveil the true identity of the thing that's haunting the small town where he and his family are called to. Since the protagonist will not be able to uncover information present in the other routes on his own without avoiding the death of someone, you as the player will need to proceed through those routes and get those information. Armed with the clues you've gotten by playing through those other routes, you will use them to guide the protagonist at the right place and at the right time in order to not only take him to where he needs to get his answers, but to avoid the consequences that resulted in the other routes because he was too late or too early to obtain such information.
I guess you can say it's sort of like what they did with 999, but not exactly the same. What I mean is,
the protagonist won't just magically know all the stuff he knew in the other three routes because of something supernatural,
the protagonist will find the answer to the mystery by you paving the road for him, using the hints given to you during the other routes.And so I ask again. What are your opinions on this idea?