Thank you so much for playing and your honest feedback.
It was a HUGE HUGE HUGE risk doing the "hidden ending" in the way that I did. I knew there was a chance someone would stumble upon it, but to me, I found that to be a risk worth taking. If you've ever played "Her Story," there was a very similar risk that the player could figure it out within seconds, and that actually happened to me. MY experience was worse as a result, but the experience as a whole I felt had more depth, and to me, that's worth alienating a few players. That sounds harsh, but that's where I landed.
As for the CONTENT of the hidden ending, yes. That was a struggle. That was something I knew I wanted based on the theme, but getting my point across and making it land was very difficult with the time constraints. I wish I could have done it better, but I'm still of the mind that the hidden choice is meaningful to the character's arc, and "different" based on the context of where he started. I agree it could have been done better.
You need not apologize for hating the UI. As someone that was very intimately aware of what the story was, even I find it annoying to navigate. The reason I did it this way is because the engine is actually very customizable. Each one of those screens has the potential for a different sound, different text speed, different text noise, different background noise, and so on. It was so customizable, but as the story took shape, it didn't make sense to use any of those features, so it ended up being more of a hindrance making sure the stuff was identical from screen to screen. By the time everything was in place, proofreading took priority over code/UI, so the "instant text" thing had to be scrapped.
Everything you said is completely valid. The game is the game, no matter what conditions they were made in or the reasons were as to why it was made that way, and your experience is no less valid than another. If it fell flat for you, that's a fault of the game, not the player. I appreciate your honest response. Thank you so much for playing!