Ok I wasn’t even aware of half of those. But that’s probably just the demo part.
I got that 2. was a pretty big part of the story, but I figured the point was that that’s juggled with school.
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A BIG part of Witchcraft U is the fact that the magical world finds no fault in flaunting mundane laws whenever they so please. In particular, the Trine are more than happy to violate people’s brains to suit their needs, consequences be damned.
Even blowing the whistle on my boss and her competitor only accomplished them both being in jail for a couple of days and then being released with barely a slap on the wrist for my efforts.
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Okay, I’ve had some sleep and want to go into more detail why I hate this mechanic so much.
It’s usually not implemented well. It could just as well read:
“Here’s where the overarching plot comes to a screeching halt and nothing really important happens, because I don’t know which of these micro stories you’re actually going to pick and in which order, and because of that, they have to be self contained and without consequences for the main plot. But enjoy your date with your crush in the park; maybe I’ll reference it in a throwaway line later on in an attempt to stitch everything together.”
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Yes and no, the Trine are definitely looking to recruit from the student body, and they have their fingers in the school’s cookie jar, but it’s treated as more of a global conspiracy sort of thing.
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I don’t mind this mechanic for games where time management, or investigation, is a central part. It works fine for Evertree and Sordwin, because you have a limited time frame to find out as much as you can before all hell breaks loose.
But again, those stories make sense for it. Other stories, like you said, have no good reason for those to even be there.
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I get what you mean, I hate it when some stuff is mutually exclusive for no reason.
Artificial replayability is just the worst (also kind of why I love poly options because the added replayability from ROs is very artificial to me, especially in actual RPGs, like just let me romance everyone, we both know I’m not replaying a 50+ hour game just to pick another RO)
Also I just don’t like being on a timer or time management in general.
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That’s why I said “It’s USUALLY not implemented well”. 
The Evertree Saga has mastered this. There’s cross-references to your choices and stuff to be found that affects the main plot everywhere! But Evertree treats this mechanic as an integral center piece and the result reflects that. With many other games, I have the impression it’s an afterthought or / and handled lazily.
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Talking about demos, something else I hate is when demos end before anything actually happens, which is painfully unhelpful in making me form an opinion about the game.
There are a few like that but the worst offender I can remember is Super Star Soccer Striker, where the demo ends before I can even touch a single ball, meaning I don’t have the slightest clue about how the game handle it’s main theme and appeal. Meaning the demo wasted my time.
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Eh, that’s true, but I still think it’s worse when they are all very relevant to the plot and must all happen for the game to progress, and yet they’re still presented as choices. I don’t want to agonize over a choice that isn’t really even a choice.
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I greatly appreciate the WIPs which give you, like, the first five or so chapters (dependent on the author, mind - the Odessa Dating Games WIP cut itself off at, what, chapter six or so, I think? But it’s slated to be much longer than that, says the author), so you can get a solid feel for how you like the game so far and whether you want to go any deeper than that. I think the only time I ever got sold by a free demo to buy the full game was when Luminous Underground published, because that game has been pretty fun so far. (I need to get back to that game, actually. I’ve been putting it off and playing other games, I’ll probably have to start my whole save over again, dammit.)
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Oh, this is something I can’t stand either!
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I don’t mind it when I can do them all but I do dislike not being told that I can do them all from the start. Same when it doesn’t say I’m supposed to just chose one. It either end up with me agonizing about a choice that isn’t there or picking the ‘wrong’ option because I thought I could try them all.
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I haven’t finished the game, but Diaspora has scenes like this that aren’t investigative, but do at least affect your stats. So they do something. Maybe that’s actually not good though, since they’re optional, so choosing not to do them is missing out on stat changes…
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In particular, when the options that you’re expected to cycle through are almost always full of information that you don’t care about.
I see no good reason for a story to scream to a halt so that I have to cycle through five chapters of worldbuilding before I’m allowed to continue the plot. Does any of that worldbuilding matter, or am I reading about stuff that won’t ever come up again?
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I think I haven’t played this one, but wouldn’t that just fall in the category of setting priorities and focusing on a particular skill set / character traits for your job or whatever it is you use your stats for? Because in that case I find it plausible why you have to choose.
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It could be interpreted that way, but at least for me, it’s more often been “I hate this character and don’t want to talk to him, and since I don’t have to, I won’t.” But the game doesn’t know I hate him because I haven’t opted to tell that to his face.
And if you were just playing to increase useful stats, you’d just do all of them. They’re mainly relationship stats though. Though, I am hoping those stats do something because some of them are related to pretty important choices for how the characters interact with you. In particular, without spoiling too much, there’s an option to give someone blanket permission to do a particular thing when you aren’t present, when the default is that you’d need to be there. I could be misremembering, but I think you give them that during one of the optional scenes.
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Another one for me, but I can see why others might disagree:
Flirting treated like an obvious mechanic instead of subtly implemented into the narrative. And if you really want to kill my immersion AND the mood, you narrow it down to bold / shy (because there’s no other ways to flirt, apparently), place heart markers next to it AND make the flirting as cringy and unrealistic as possible.
It basically looks like this:
“Umm… Hi… Haha hi… 
BLUSH BLUSH”
“Yo babe, hurr durr… 
WINK WINK”
I do not know a single, adult person who unironically winks while flirting. And while some people do blush easily, IF would have you believe, it’s everyone (who doesn’t prefer winking).
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Honestly, I have no idea how people normally flirt because I just don’t.
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It’s true. As far as my experience with flirting goes, a lot of being on the receiving end is trying to figure out if the person in front of you is actually flirting or not. Making it as simple as ‘They just pressed the option with the heart shape in front, set my romance variable to true’ does not help characters feel real.
Not that I have a lot of experience with flirting. I don’t even think I’ve ever initiated flirting… or maybe I have? See, it’s not simple at all!
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That one is probably why I enjoyed how you could treat your RO so much in that one eldritch abomination WIP.
After so many case of your MC having to bend the knee no matter what, being able to put your foot down and basically get your way was very cathartic, the fact that you could be borderline abuse too was also interesting. Cause obviously an eldritch being getting abusive when faced with a weaker entity trying to go against what they want is a very likely possibility and yet I wasn’t expecting it.
The fact that you could tell them ‘no’ and weren’t forced to pick every option praising them under the threat of the relationship meter going down was cool too.
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