MJ already said a lot of what I was going to say, lol, so I’m not going to repeat it, but simply state that I agree with their critique. However, I think I can shed some light on why engagement suffered so much.
I see on your game page that you used AI, which was my suspicion as I read the text of the nodes. AI (particularly GPT) as a flair for trying to be poetical (“Your boots remember the stones”, or something like that from one of the transits -> hallmark AI.). I myself use AI heavily during dev, so this is not a knock on you; When asking AI to create text content, I honestly wonder whether the juice is worth the squeeze sometimes, because I end up having to rewrite so much to make it more engaging. My guess is that you relied a lot upon AI to assist you in constructing some of your vision, and it 1) may have gone a little off the rails in this regard and 2) been the source of your bugs.
With working with AI in game dev, one of the things I am learning to do is bite sized approaches, and laying out as much of the game ahead of time as possible so that the AI doesn’t mess it up. The AI can be a great helper, but it’s also going to steer you wrong if you let it (i.e. AI slop). I have in my head to make a tutorial on AI use in game dev one of these days to talk about the strengths and limitations of it, and best practices in using it.
I think the game concept is very strong, and you showed some real polish - a great menu system, sound controls, etc - This is one thing that I see lacking often, and I am glad to see it here. Same with music and systems. Game narrative and writing, however, need to be examined more closely. Please let me know if this was helpful, I am looking forward to your next entry!