Good morning!
Thank you for clarifying; I believe the issue has been resolved. The game was not resetting itself (at all) after a playthrough, which caused the problem. I am, frankly, astounded at my own oversight. Regardless, I owe you my gratitude for pointing this out to me. Not only was this a frustration for the player, testing it helped me encounter a game-breaking bug that has also been squashed. I went through the game three times and everything now seems to work as it should.
Thank you very much!
-Lars