Reminded me a little bit of a badger game I used to play in school, I cant remember what it's called but it felt very nostalgic but also I think I can see the more modern influences! The art is defo the standout, every character and mini game fir in the world you built! A lot of the mini games were so fun as well, so very well done.
The ending had me stressed for a second lol
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Thanks for playing and your comment, appreciate it!
In terms of inspiration, narratively, the main goal was a study based on a conversation I had recently about "earned" vs "unearned" emotional payoffs in writing, specifically with only a short amount of time to lay groundwork. The only very successful example that came to mind was the intro to the film Up.
Apart from that I guess the primary influence is late 90/00s JRPGs, obviously not the full gameplay, just certain story telling techniques. I think it was in FF9 they used this thing a few times where they'd interrupt your normal scene transition to show a scene happening elsewhere - with a temporary tonal shift - revealing something to the player but not the relevant characters and it really stuck with me as an effective tool for laying emotional beats.
Oh and Echo from Hades 2 influenced how Parrot talks, not identical but a similar vibe because it fit very well and I thought it was super cool.
Genuinely love that you appreciated this stuff! Probably spent a little too long fussing over it, making sure I had gotten the player used to the "normal" transitions, then constantly tweaking and testing the timing to get the feeling right when it did something different. The extra beat to make people realise "hang on something is wrong" but not too long to make them think it is a bug/broken, the music fading out and then into the dialogue sequence, and trying to carry that "something is off" feeling into the actual story/narrative.
Makes the effort worth it to hear it landed the right way!