I feel kind of silly, am I missing something? Is there a timer? Does it loop? Is there an ending? Am I supposed to be able to talk to some characters I can't currently talk to? Not to be rude, I'm just wondering if I'm looking at the wrong thing.
I want to play. The art is fantastic, the character designs are crystal clear, and the city is nice to navigate (are those decals and signposts??). It's a really wholesome idea where the goal of the game is to help others who are suffering understand more about what a fulfilled life would be. It's quite clever too because players who might be playing might get good ideas. Going around wandering, talking to others in the city, picking up items, finding secret areas, and seeing the city change and the others evolve as I learn about them and choose to help. Plus the creator picture goes so freaking hard.
Constructive Criticism: There's a lot of very obvious bugs that I'm sure are known about (oh man I can relate with my own jams, still pog job programmers). I can make a video if you'd like. Honestly a nice skybox, fixing walk animations, layering the sprites to not jarringly block the rat, and adding some sounds would add a lot. Some minigames don't seem to complete, that's the main one to double check.
On a gameplay level, I feel like I don't know when I'll be done (once again maybe I'm missing a timer please let me know), and I see these three slots which makes me think I can pickup items (collectibles!) in the world like trash and throw them away, but I don't seem to be able to do that? I guess I'm not sure about the intention enough to reflect upon it.
On a philosophical level, I wonder if some of the chat and minigames are too surface for a deeper reflection and personal exploration. It could be a good starting point as a reference to events that are harder hitting. Understanding the magnitude of how much you helped, or not, with a simple action, especially with context of prior relationship and why the rat might not have helped before, could add a lot. Something that hit me when reading online is something like 'bring a pizza to a friend who's loved one has died, who's not in their right mind to ask for it, and who I've never helped so directly it's emotionally vulnerable' which is much deeper but has that sentiment where I can consider what I could've done for others. I feel like helping someone hold too much and helping someone find glasses could be really resonant, but since it's so context specific where nothing really stops you from helping and there's no new way of thinking about it (like sharing advice that worked for you) that it didn't resonate much with me. I think that's what you were going to go for on the loop, so at most I'm just spitballing.
Anyways, well done!