So, after playing this for three hours, I can say that I've pretty much gotten every ending to my knowledge. You could say it was... a tough stroll! Jokes aside, it did become an annoying and frustrating stroll for me having to go back and do everything all over again to get each and every ending. Rather, the "friend" route just angered me. I knew I wouldn't like that kid, and I didn't. Every time I went down that path, it just angered me unlike all the other routes. I don't know why, but I was surprised of his redemption arc. Some arcs made sense. Other endings were just completely out of left field. I would have preferred a tragic ending to the girl if you choose to study with the male friend. I noticed that certain routes can lock you into two bad endings or two good endings. Sometimes I liked that. Other times, I didn't. Otherwise, I could follow the stories in my mind as they went along. Yet, sometimes the player walking through the woods aligned with what the main character was doing. Yet, for the most part, what the player was doing had nothing to do with what was going on narratively. That wasn't an issue for me, and I understood that it would have taken more time and assets if this narrative experience was portrayed as a standard visual novel or if the player experience aligned with the events of the various stories the player can go down. I think it would have been an easier stroll if there was a branching tree map of the choices that were already chosen where the player can fast track to different routes without starting all over again. However, I understand that would have defeated the purpose of calling this and making this a tough stroll, as is the game's title. All in all, I rate this a 6.5/10 because the narrative was a bit all over the place for me, and I started to dislike the routes the more I discovered more of them for whatever reason. It's not the fault of the writer or his intentions with this branching narrative. It's just my personal feeling of going through this game. I did like the music, though. Loved the graphics and changes in the atmosphere. I felt the glowing, yellow sign depicted a good outcome while the glowing, purple sign depicted a bad outcome, even though that was not the case at all. Yet, I wasn't a fan of those color choices, nor was I fan of those floating rectangles behind the signs. I understood they were there to signal to the player to go over to either sign, but they kept looking like dollar signs to me, which would throw me off. Furthermore, a tough stroll sounds like a bit of an oxymoron because both words contradict one another. Yet. it works for this game.
For me, I've written a lot of visual novels with different choices and endings, even making a light walking simulator game through RPG Maker MZ that was essentially a visual novel, too. So, whenever I've done branching storylines, it was always within the context of the main character's goals, motivations, or conflicts, whether they were their own character or a blank slate of a character. Usually, such endings ended with different nuances of the same situations, or I created different plots with completely different story beats from beginning, middle, to end. So, I say that all to say that I may have my own biases here at play. I don't know. Then again, I wasn't a fan of the visual novel Class '09: The Re-Up, which had a skip function and different plotlines that led to different outcomes within the context of the main character's situation. Ironically, I liked the narrative walking sim 7th Chance, and that one involved long walks through nature to find objects related to the main character's past, which had nothing to do with the setting. Yet, I liked that game more because I had to hunt for the items in different locations, and there was some thinking involved when it came to making certain decisions. However, some people didn't like that game because of the same reasons of walking too far away to get the different items to reach a simple ending in their words. Even so, I didn't feel that way because I felt like I was on a treasure hunt, and it told a more compact and confined story while yours felt boring and annoying to me because of the outlandish storylines and having to walk down one long path when the walking itself didn't necessarily need to be there to tell the stories, which were separate from the gameplay, I felt anyway. On the other hand, in my walking sim game Dreary, Dismal Days, where you walked and when you walked somewhere determined what conversations and outcomes you would get in the game. Likewise, a game where I had 27 different endings, I had branching paths and choices that didn't involve walking because it was a visual novel, but because of the medium I was telling those stories in, it allowed for less time to be wasted with the skip and load functions being available to the player. It was a visual novel I published on my profile here called Mother if you want to check that out as well as my other games. Thus, I think I was wanting that instant gratification in your game, maybe being so used to playing and making visual novels myself. I don't know. Regardless, I was glad to be able to play this game with its flaws and all. I also didn't mind the music overlapping or continually playing after going through a route in the game. It was a bit hard to read certain text at times due to its dark color and the dark background, but I was able to read through those moments anyway. I hope to see more games from you. Good job!