Somehow I missed your post at the time, but I wanted to belatedly thank you for this thoughtful take!
I love A Dark Room! The "I wonder what's going to happen next?!" angle is huge for me. Numbers going up are fun, of course, but I love how the game keeps revealing more and more of itself – "unfolding", as you say.
I wanted to get a little of that spirit of discovery in Truffle Wizard, even though it's mechanically a lot simpler than A Dark Room.
(And, all going well, there will be more of it in the upcoming commercial revamp of Truffle Wizard as well!)