Hi lilithkismet! Thanks for all of this detail, it's really useful. Sorry you've had issues, and thanks for your patience!
I think there are two things going on here. The first thing, with Bonbon not appearing and the game logic not progressing as it should, is due to a problem with how the game streams content from disk, especially on older machines. If you're still having this issue, use the steam key you got with your purchase on here to grab the steam version, which is a slightly newer build and usually fixes this issue. (I'm not currently able to put the steam version on itch. If you don't have your steam key, check the link in the purchase email. If you got Bonbon in the bundle, let me know.)
The other issue I think, is that there are parts of the game which are quite physics heavy, with lots of simulated toys around. Unreal's physics can get a bit sketchy on older machines. I think the problems with the robots were due to that. I'm glad that turning down the settings helped the game to run better. :-)