Tricky! Two reports of the flashlight being weird now today. I have never had issues with it and cannot replicate any on three different computers running both Windows 10 and 11. So it will be really hard to fix... The flashlight is also completely unchanged from my previous game and I didn't see any issues there either. Weird.
Are you on AMD GPU? Graphics drivers up to date? Windows emulator?
IDK at this point.
As for checkpoints I don't think I would want to implement any. The idea of just blitzing through different endings by skipping the bulk of the game does not sound compelling to me. The game's description contains some of my thoughts on multiple ending games if you're interested.
long story short, I agree that replaying over and over is tedious. I have never enjoyed it in any itch horror game, which is why I don't recommend it lol