Thanks, this is very useful feedback. I'd be extremely curious to hear your thoughts on the prologue rewrite and expansion so far since most of what you're talking about has been the primary focus for the past few updates. After releasing the last Steam demo I've been focusing on improving flow in the early story by cutting as much unmotivated dialogue as possible, improving pacing, showing clearer character motivations, and adding a new choice system that's based on heuristics with no clear right or wrong answers. We've also added in a lot more near nudity type scenes and paced them to ramp up the tension and eroticism on the romance paths, and we heavily expanded and reflowed the sex scenes. Still haven't gotten around to making a proper guide or tutorial yet but that's planned for when the story crystallizes.
Have you ever played Wildermyth - at least the pre-Omenroad campaigns - or picked up the Lone Wolf series by Joe Dever? I think you should. You may find a few insights or more about how best to approach the pacing of your game. Especially with how Pyre and its surrounds are designed or explained to the player. The best part about Dever's work is that most of it is available for free at Project Aon online and it won't cost you money, only time. Greanted this is mostly SFW-ish stuff (unless you bolt on Stanfreed's Spicy Events mod to your version of Wildermyth) but I think it is time well spent on your end and for the future of Refuge of Embers.
It's clear this was a work of love and that it has potential, this game you're making. Please don't squander it and all your hard work. On the other hand if you need a reviewer or a copy editor and translator .....