This was a fun game, thank you for making this. Very elegant!
I completed about 95% of it -- I thought I had a solution for the final (top-right, "Live") puzzle but later realized I don't, but, don't have the time to keep working on it. Here's a SPOILER-FULL picture of my final solve, dirty and full of temporary markings: spoiler warning in this imgur link
I enjoyed most of it. especially enjoyed the yellow and orange areas (after solving orange I had to retreat to yellow to fix some stuff!). Red had a good twist but I couldn't figure it out and had to spoil myself with a hint, because of some minor UX issues that I complained about at the time but probably can't be improved. Purple was annoying and also required me to spoil myself on the twist, but, that's because it felt too "gamey" -- I think I would not have figured it out either way. Black, final area, was excellent -- but the nonlinear form of it confused me (and I still have some lingering doubts about e.g. what to do with uh, Lithops Marumorata and Charge/Change).
Despite your wishes not to make this into an interactive videogame -- I really truly think it would be better that way. Some of the revelations would be worse, sure, but some would be better and it would be WAY more accessible. (the fact that it isn't an interactive videogame is why two of my friends gave up -- friends who did enjoy other image-only puzzles).