Thanks for taking the time to leave some thoughtful feedback!
Fair points on the colors/textures and game design. I was thinking a bit too mechanical; "do thing" -> gain/lose stress/merit and hadn't considered more engaging mechanics.
Regarding the tickets, that highlights a communication issue on my part. The intention is that the 125m fare is a single fee that covers the whole party, and most of the activities reward per-player, so for 1-2 players they would be short, but 3-4 players should be able to afford to leave.
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No, that's just me not thinking carefully. Of course the players can pool tickets. Although with the arcade games, one of them setting a high score makes it harder for the others to beat it. It does create a separate issue for small groups as you say.
There is also the trap of buying a souvenir and only being told afterwards that you needed those tickets to leave, which could set even a larger group short. Overall, the idea of being trapped in a supposedly relaxing location until you have exhaustively done all the things and pretended to have a good time is thematically strong but maybe a bad gameplay experience, so I'd build in more shortcuts for a bored party (unless the desired outcome is that they murder the mascot or raid the ticket-printing facilities).