Originally, this blog post was going to be about "delayed" bad endings, in which the critical choice locks you into an unwinnable scenario. Further choices are presented, but they are all futile; they do not allow you to avoid the bad ending. When writing, however, I thought more about the overall effect of the ways to lead to and present bad endings.
I think what this comes down to is this: does a particular choice present you with a different story, or does it simply make you lose the game?
The visual novel is often looked at as a type of video game. There's nothing wrong with that; video games have been a storytelling medium for a long time now, on par with very good stories in other media such as print novels or films. They may not have achieved the level of academic recognition that Citizen Kane has, but in many cases the stories are very well done and the most important part of the game.
That said, the visual novel can also be looked at as a new medium that is an offshoot of video games, similar to television being an offshoot of film. They use the same technologies and have similar presentation in many ways, but there are still fundamental differences.
A visual novel that is not a video game is using the interactivity to explore the multiple paths that a story can go down. For example, take Fate/Stay Night; if you strip away all the bad endings, you are left with a story that examines three possible sets of events based on the same foundation, but a small number of crucial differences. Spoilers below.
If Saber wounds Archer early on, he's not around to help out in the battle against Berserker shortly afterward. Saber is then wounded in the battle, traumatizing Shirou and compelling him to see her as someone that needs to be protected, thereby deepening their relationship. Shirou and Rin team up, forcing Archer to fight on their behalf against Berserker later on, leading to Archer's death.
If Saber does not wound Archer, he is fully functional and able to intervene in the battle with Berserker, showing his hostility toward Shirou in the process. He is in fighting condition for the rest of the story, allowing him to take the steps which drive the central conflict in the Unlimited Blade Works route.
In neither of these cases do you lose the game. You simply watch as events unfold in entirely different ways. They are both different permutations of the same story.
Contrast this with a choice which leads to Shirou's sudden death (and there are a lot of them). In these scenarios, the story comes to an abrupt end, much like running out of health in a video game. There is no real resolution to the story. Game over; load your save and play again.
In light of this, Lunatic Summer is on the "video game" side of things, like Fate/Stay Night; in both cases there are abrupt endings to the story which prompt the player to go back and reconsider his or her choices.
Perhaps a future work will dispense with the abrupt bad endings entirely, removing the "game" aspect. In fact, I should make it a point to do that. I really do want to.
Having raised the issue, I also want to say that Lunatic Summer's routes will ultimately follow the same model as Fate/Stay Night and many other visual novels; the basic foundation of the routes will be the same, but a small number of crucial differences will lead to the drastically different events of each route.
Specifically, Ray's relationships with the heroines will be the driving factor. There will be a series of choices identifying which heroine Ray gets along with best, and this will influence certain events in ways that snowball.
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