Hey Marshall, thanks for your comment!
This game was built as a master's project with the central theme of promoting intra-diegetic immersion, which is what led to a few design choices like the removal of checkpoints, a save system etc. The core concept was to create an experience you'd sit down for and finish in one go, or die and come back to later, rather than picking it up intermittently, with the idea being it would improve immersion to not have breaks in the story.
This is also the reason for a lack of clear direction, outside of what is given to the player in the dialogue. A lot of the sequences reward a player reacting naturally to the situation, e.g. trying to use the phone to call the police, which was an experiment to see if the situation could guide player action as oppose to it being driven by linear instructions. Whether that worked or not is up for debate, but I hope that helps explain the thought process.
With regards to scripted events failing it's entirely possible, but some also have variants based on what actions you've taken, so what may seem like a failure may infact be an alternate event happening. I did test all events thoroughly prior to the last build so they should all be functional.
Sequence breaks should also have been compensated for but if I get the chance I will revist the project and apply a lot of fixes i'd been interested in making. Unfortunately during the past year I was under a contract that prevent me from further developing the project, and so now it's a case of finding a stable build and picking that back up if I get the time.
Glad to hear you enjoyed elements of the game though!