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.