The basis of the story (keeping it very spoiler free) is that you play as an assassin turned glorified babysitter for the kingdom's princess after a failed assassination attempt on the king's life there are bigger things at play here ofc. According to my mutual the tags are: Fantasy, Horror/Thriller(?), and Mystery.

but... yeah that's generally the basis.... Uhhh for more information these are the vague spoilers I can give without spoiling too much, there's a timeloop where the loop resets differently after "CERTAIN" events take place (which also kind of serves as a sort of point a to point b thin) and also a countdown to the world ending with increasingly weird and horrific things happening the closer that clock turns to 1

There's also only a small number of cast members with only 4 that I consider to be the "main characters" and only like 6 other NPCs (so a total of only 10 characters in total if we don't count 5 other mysterious characters who's roles are beyond the story itself)

The most unconventional thing here I think is that it's not a romance based if in fact if anything romance is the last thing it has, while there's ONE character I can consider an RO—to put it vaguely as to not spoil anything—but they're already inexplicably intertwined with you the mc from the very beginning. Yes you can date them but it's not needed or even necessary in the first place. (In fact you can even hate their guts!)

The MC also already has a sort of semi-set personality which is that they're sensitive and soft to the point of tears, yes you can at least choose for why and how in situations and even not cry, and also be introverted/extroverted, etc but the mc I had in mind are that they are an easily shaken and emotionally volatile person. The only two stats in this game are literally emotional volatility (which by default to the MC is already at 60) and self awareness which acts like insight similar to bloodborne (which at its default is at 0)

The MC having a semi-set personality and the not-really-an-RO thing are two key factors that are very important to making my story and its themes work and quite frankly I won't change it regardless of how many asks I get sent but I also understand as a result that many people might get put off and not play it which is kind of depressing to me but I do really want to share it with others..... I'm just not very sure if people want to see this sort of thing.....

On unconventional stories: stories and games that go outside a shape that a majority of narratives stick to can bring many people plenty of joy, whether or not they thought they were "their thing" at a glance. I am sure that whatever you make, there will be those who fall in love with it. I do not believe that a large cast of romanceable characters is a core requirement for interactive fiction, and I believe an interesting structure, such as your time loop idea and the scary countdown, can bring a lot of intrigue and tension!

I do think as well that because IF is a relatively small niche, there is so much space for innovation. What might be considered a "typical" narrative shape - eg, a fairly forgiving, stat-light story that branches occasionally before convening for a big climax, and has a selection of romanceable characters to choose from - is not actually a vast majority. (Choice of Games titles for instance are structured in a way that has more plot branching than some of the Hosted Games titles or non-CoG ones.) I would recommend having a look at other kinds of IF, such as those seen in the IF Comp, Spring Thing, or Ectocomp archives, or from the @/neo-interactives game jams, as well as other work from the authors who have entered their work there. You will find lots of complex and varied narrative structures there!

(Certainly I do enjoy the thought of a scary clock that increases unsettling phenomena as it counts down!)

On that note I do not think you need to worry too much about having a small cast: it will mean you can really dig into what makes those characters tick.

Where I would sound a note of caution is in combining a set personality with certain personality stats. I do not think it's necessarily a bad thing to have a PC who is always emotionally volatile, or to start high as default, but it will give readers pause if they see a stat called Emotional Volatility and the narrative always includes a great deal of sensitivity even if their Emotional Volatility is marked as 10. So I would advise being careful not to assume that the PC is in a highly emotionally volatile state - when you're writing their inner voice, feelings, or speech, picture how an Emotional Volatility 5 PC might be behaving. If that does not feel right, and you feel very drawn to an always-highly-sensitive PC, I would recommend rethinking that stat.

On the interwined possibly-romanceable character: there can be an expectation of a selection of romanceable characters, so you may lose some readers in having only one. But if that character is intensely entwined with the PC and you feel drawn to write this kind of story, why not? All of your decisions when writing will either pull in or push away readers (and sometimes might even do both to the same reader, depending how they are feeling!), so embrace owning your choices and go for what speaks to you. I rather suspect that you will find a wider audience than solely you and your friends - but if that ends up being the case, is that such a bad thing? Not every piece of writing has to be for all readers. You will learn from the creative process either way.

Best of luck with your project, Aspring Writer Friend! I hope you are having a good December.