Thank you so much for your kind words. I'm so glad you liked the lore. I've been building this world off and on for decades now. Previous incarnations always felt unsatisfactory, so I spent more time than I've ever spent before making backgrounds and planning the overall look of the game. I had hoped that it would pay off. I also don't usually like minigames or stat raising if they keep me from progressing the story but I wanted to try to enhance the sense of exploration. I'll continue to work on tweaking the systems to make it less burdensome for the player. Thank you again for your time and feedback.
I'd say it absolutely paid off because it all looks gorgeous :3
I definitely think you succeeded in enhancing the sense of exploration the way you made it! And I wouldn't necessarily say that I felt any of it was burdensome to me personally :3 I'm just lazy when it comes to putting in effort towards puzzles, haha. I have to say though, I did enjoy the sort of vibes from the puzzles and such. It actually reminded me a little of some of the types of puzzles in Deemo!
Anyways, I'm definitely excited to see more of the world you've created because it's very intriguing and beautifully pieced together :3