to be clear: i truly was not triggered at all by the game. i honestly think this is kind of impressive. as i said, i really found Iana menacing and evil, but in a way that did not manifest actual bad feelings at all. i didn't even know this was possible, and i can't really explain it, but there you have it. it's pretty neat!
if anything, the only thing that might bring up bad memories was my own choice to write about abuse, sometimes that can be a bad idea lol. but that's ok, i wasn't sure if i wanted to say anything, but i figured the perspective was useful. like, it is true that Iana is basically an abuser, and i would say i am motivated to get the hell out of there by that fact. but, idk. i guess that wasn't triggering, it just feels like a really engaging and interesting story. i really have no idea why.
to be fair, i find i have a relatively high tolerance for specifically sexual violence in fiction. i think there were some scenes i read that i could describe as outright rape, and that is likely worth a trigger warning, but it didn't really phase me. idk. unfortunately my perspective is quite limited in that regard.
so as far as trigger warnings and such go: i don't really know lol. i wasn't really negatively affected by anything in the game. i mean, i really did find it a very good experience to play through, maybe even because it's sort of a safe way to experience standing up to an abuser. (although i guess that's less true if there's no good endings lmao).
i definitely appreciate the consideration though!
with respect to the map: i did sort of figure it was topologically a ring, and this definitely was very clear by the end, but during the scenes where you encounter other characters along the ring you seem to only be able to dive into a side room, and then you can only leave the side room into one of the two sides of the hallway, so it gets confusing if you're still moving along the ring in the same direction or not. but, on the other hand, this does mean that the hallway encounters provide a very real blocker to your progress--if you dive to the side and then leave, you won't be able to go back, and that has gameplay consequences. (the encounters are basically a "one way wall" in the ring, which seems perfectly fine).