I have very ambivalent feelings. While I don't think I would not recommend this to someone, I can't overlook these issues that give it a 2★/5:
- +1★ for amazing media (graphics & audio/presentation)
- +1★ for decent unfolding story
- -1★ for overpricing (this isn't worth >$10 due to the UI issues)
- -1★ for clunky UI
- -1★ for bugs/typos
What would raise my rating to 5★ (and for people who have never played, there are spoilers present):
- Make it clearer (on any level at all!) how much food you should feed Talma, even just a stomach-growling sound, before you actually need it. Someone in a Steam review said that Talma can't die from starvation, which seems unfair to players trying to actually survive as opposed to those just trolling around and still getting to see the same ending (I'm guessing).
- Add a "Click to open" instruction for at least the first unopened letter that you check. It was not clear that you have to click any space in letter addresses to read them; I ended up with 3 unopened letters until I finally decided to click around in my confusion. Players' understanding shouldn't be neglected like this.
- Give a settings option to highlight whatever-thing-you-clicked-that-Talma-is-currently-going-to-interact-with, including movement spots, and keep it lit until Talma reaches the spot.
- Be able to queue at least one action ahead of time, while midway through passive actions (for example, if you click a gate while Talma's filling a watering can, she should go to interact with the gate next; as it is, your click is wasted and you have to manually wait until the can is done watering). I know that this can be easily done because the gate-swinging already queues clicks, and it's important because there is idle time that can be used more efficiently (for example, the well cover actually closes itself; Talma can start walking while it's closing, but people might not know that).
- Fix the bug that causes a goat to occasionally "skate" with no walking animation while you try to milk it, which currently breaks your milking and forces you to re-milk. I also encountered other goat-interaction issues (not being able to milk nor pet with no dialogue as to why).
- Fix the mid-action mouse-over icon bug:
- Water a plant, or plant a seed
- Put the cursor over the next plant-to-water/seed-to-plant while Talma is performing the first action, above
- The water/seed icon should appear once Talma is done and ready for another action, but it doesn't show.
- Give a settings option to invert the inverted scroll wheel when reading letters, and make it scroll faster.
- While milking a goat, it doesn't visually make sense why you have to milk one more time even when the white progress bar is already full.
- It was confusing to see mail disappear out of your hands if you took it from Laszlo and proceeded to grab something else without reading it. It would help to have a brief text notice saying that you pocket the letter to read in the house.
- It was super-awkward to see a wolf get stuck and glitch its movement behind the tree stump behind your house.
- When conversing, I would put Laszlo's mail icon in the front or middle, because it could get forgotten due to bartering.
- One-time text that pops up saying that your watering can can keep watering plants until it's empty would be really helpful.
- It was really awkward to see the billy goat teleport instantly to Laszlo's side instead of it walking over to him (even if it'd have to walk through the gates)...
- Fix the numerical count typo "These 1 cheeses..."
- Fix the clicking issue when you click to fully read something that Talma comments on: gamers typically do this to read the full batch of text at once instead of waiting for it to spill out, but Stillness causes the commentary to re-spill itself.
- Talma began to awkwardly laugh randomly the night after the takeover dream... is that intentional?
- Fix Laszlo's footstep sound (he once came from the right side, but the footstep audio came from my left speaker).
- Be able to count somewhere how many shotshells you have left. There is literally no way to know apart from memorization or discovering that you've run out.
- Be able to see an overview of your letters. If I want to check through them to see if I got any from Eimi, I don't want to have to keep click-dragging down to click the "previous mail" back arrow one at a time per letter.
- Make it clearer that the bucket can hold multiple goats' worth of milk at a time; it takes on the same graphical appearance of fullness, which is deceiving.
- Add a muzzle flash to firearm use.
- "Reset item positions" shouldn't take at least your currently held item out of your hands!
- It would be a nice touch if the sound of rain was muffled whenever Talma is indoors.
- The credits for Laszlo's voice actor incorrectly doubles the word "by."
- It would be nice if holding left-click would scroll through the credits faster instead of immediately exit the game.
It was also never explained why the chickens gradually disappear: old age? Wolves weren't always present...