That’s what feedback is for. Write some sort of description for the character, whether it’s simpler or more detailed, then get feedback on it. Hear from those people whether it works or not. Ask what they visualize and see if it lines up with what you intended.
Of course that’s not going to always work 100% for every reader, but it’s better than taking the easy way out.
I’m just curious— are there four specific types you have in mind?
It’s a very common quartet: The Kind One, The Funny/Sassy One, The Stoic One and The Antagonistic/Tsundere One. Thought execution may be different, but these four are a foundation for numerous romantic/otome games.
Oh, right, and The Hidden Best One
You forgot about the secret yandere in otome games, one of these dudes are crazier than the others. Unless it’s Diabolick lovers, where all the love interests are bat shit(no pun intended) insane.
Stumbling upon a yandere otome was what got me playing otomes, which is what led me to playing IF/COG (all because I switched to a laptop with a shit graphics card). I swear that’s the one genre where I find it amusing to see how many different ways my poor MC can get murdered by her psycho lover.
I still go back and play Boyfriend 2 Death when I need good, wholesome yandere violence. And now there’s a WIP called Yandere Love that’s fun as hell.
I’m not sure yanderes have the same effect in text games, though. There’s something about seeing that nutso look on their faces in the VNs.
It could work, you just need to be super descriptive or at least put character artwork in pivotal places. The problem is I don’t know what type of story a yandere would fit in a choice script story…
Honestly there are a couple of things I dislike in interactive fiction, though the top thing for me refers to gender selectable romance options or, to be more precisely, how it often makes no difference which gender you pick for them except for pronoun changes. Ok, maybe you get a different description right after choosing their gender but thereafter there is mostly no difference. Especially infuriating is it if the author had one particular gender in mind while writing these characters. Some time ago I played an IF on Itch.io in which you could also change the gender of all ROs, but it was clear as day that the author intended to write them as male characters. For example, one of those ROs (which I changed to female) was described as having really large breasts which could barely be contained by her clothes and which the MC was marveling at in her introduction right after picking her gender. So normally you would think that this would be something that would mentioned again later on, especially during intimate scenes since the author thought it was important enough to mention. But no, once one of those private scenes came along suddenly all my straight MC could focus on was her crotch and how what he saw made him extremly flustered/aroused. Overall, there was no further mention of her breasts, which my MC was apparently so impressed by, or even any indication that that particular RO was female. The other ROs in that story weren’t any better either in that regard. So why include that option to pick their gender at all if you still get the male one just with different pronouns?
All in all, I noticed quite often that male ROs and characters seem to have a larger presence in many new WIPs and stories. Even if most ROs are gender selectable there always seems to be that one extra male character thats a lot more interesting than all other ROs combined. Personally I just think female ROs get the short stick most of the time. Honestly, I can’t really think of a single gender-locked female RO in any interactive story and WIP in the past few years that actually managed to stand out. Most were simply too bland or uninteresting for me.
But back to the actual topic. In my opinion its not even that hard to fix this problem with the ROs. Just maybe sprinkle some small flavour texts here and there that make it clear what gender the character you try to romance has or maybe some unique private/intimate scenes. The best example I can think of that actually managed to make this with the gender selectable ROs right is Samurai of Hyuaga. There it actually makes a difference what gender the ROs have. From unique scenes and interaction to intimate scenes that actually make it clear what gender and private parts your partner has and not leaves it ambigious or worse. Hell, one character even gets a completely different backstory if they are female.
Sadly, this is a constant problem I’ve noticed in more and more new IFs/WIPs both here and on Itch.io. And it is not only limited to the ROs. Even the Player Characters in most new stories suffer from this in their own way. What I mean by this is that is oftentimes left ambigious what gender the Player Character has, even if you get to pick your gender during character creation. This is especially a problem in stories where you can write in your own pronous. While it is nice that authors include such options in their stories so that everyone can play as their perfect character, it sadly comes at the cost of uniqueness and gender specific scenes. I noticed that in stories with all these options for genders, pronouns and orientations that the authors usually settle on writing the MCs as neutral as possible, except for maybe some small flavour texts somewhere at the start of the game. Once again I have an example for this from an IF on Itch.io. In that story you could choose the MCs gender in the Prolog of the story and with what pronouns they would like to called by and once that scene was over the other present characters actually adressed me by those chosen pronouns. However, once that scene was over suddenly all the other characters only refered to me as “they” or “them”, which especially during dates and outings with specific characters became quite a bit vexing (and before any of you ask, no that wasn’t a bug. That particular story was already updated several times and was around eight chapters long). If I, lets say decide to play as a male character with male pronous I would really like to be adressed as he or him and not just they. That always makes me feel like my character is nothing more than an featureless blob. Honestly, I can understand that it is more or less impossible for any author to write unique scenes for every possible gender and pronoun combination out there. In my opinion this could be fixed by maybe limiting the gender and pronoun options for the player even if that means that some readers can’t play as their dream character. At the end of the day, you can’t really satisfy everyone.
Honestly, I really wish that there might be more IFs where the gender you choose for your character actually influences the story and gives you a slightly different but unique experience. My favourite IFs of all time are Samurai of Hyuaga, Slammed and Waywalker University. In these stories the gender choice actually had some weight to it and altered the story in varying, mainly small but still noticable, ways. From unique interactions with the ROs and almost entire different scenes and segments to how other characters perceive and talk to the MC. In these games it was clear that the gender choice was more than just some cosmetic option. And thats what I’m missing in a lot of new stories.
Well, that would be all. I apologize for the long rant.
I’ve discovered that I absolutely hate in any IF when an RO is allowed to be a mean murderous asshole, but as soon as I want to take part in the fun asshole ‘kill my enemies and their allies’ train, I get locked out of romance paths and get told to go fuck myself 
I just finished Arcadie and this literally happened to me bruh. Man’s literally offs my whole family and gets supporters out the ass, but when I choose to do the same to his family everyone’s looking at me like… 0_0 “wtf is wrong with you? You’re a lunatic I don’t agree with you for doing that and you’re going to be alone for the remainder of this game for that” like damn alright double standard lookin asses 
To be fair, the Arcadie ROs don’t support Stan, so in this particular situation it’s not really a double standard thing.
Hun my point is despite the fact that he does what he did (ya know to drive the plot) there is still an option to get together with him, but if mc acts outta pocket then you get told to go fuck yourself 
By whom?
Wow, local characters who do not support the murderous antagonist do not support a murderous protag, that’s new.
Again, this isn’t double standards. C and W ALSO don’t like it when Stan goes around committing war crimes, because they’re the (ostensibly) GOOD GUYS, so I’m not sure why you’d expect them to like it when you do. Like, W tells Stan to go fuck himself over it right at the beginning of the game. If anything, you’re objecting to the LACK of double standards.
And now I like C and W more.
I remember one of the first Yandere vn’s that I stumble across when I was a teen it was disgusting it so many ways including the deaths though that mc certainly deserve it.
I mean I’m not saying they in particular have to like it. It would just be nice to have an ro that is accepting of a pure evil mc for a change than the other way around. I like to play evil asshole main characters because this is fiction. I like playing pretend. Kinda like how people who play GTA like to shoot and run over people 
my statement isn’t mainly aimed at Arcadie, it’s just the most recent example of my particular ick with IF. But since we got some die-hard fans in the chat I’ll drop the discussion on this. Glad to know at least a few people agree with me on evil mc’s getting their happy endings too 
I mean, these exist, but by definition they’re evil ROs. You’re just out of luck in Arcadie, where the only possibly-F ROs are good guys. Have you tried Relics of the Lost Age? Feels like Maria would be up your alley.
I have and I love her 
praying we get some more baddies like her in future stories. Lord knows we need em’ 
I see you and I understand …… what’s the name? For scientific research……
The first world in the title is quite literally Yandere not saying anymore then that since it might get me ban and I don’t think you do. I very much doubt you will like it unless you are into guro. It’s one of the things that really made me not like yanderes
