This is mind-blowing, Dana. It's been a privilege to see a little bit of the background work on this (everyone should go check out & pledge to Dana's Patreon!), but to see it all coming together like this is something else entirely. Even more, to get to play this - this game you are making is uh... very large in scope, and I knew this, but I think I'm finally wrapping my head around that. The thing is, the sheer passion you have for this idea, for this project, shines through so much in every detail, in the amount of things that players cannot *access* or do not even need to look at in this incredible little demo.
It's hilarious to me that there are so many mechanics that you managed to cram into this thing that you had to put a whole multi-scene tutorial on the demo, and that Maxine isn't even the only character, and this isn't the only planned tool for her (spoilers!)
And good glory, that's not even to speak of the number of hacks of the original code that have been built into this. It's so easy to quickly forget that you're using something that is a fork of Bitsy while you're playing this. The character portraits turned out even more dynamic and expressive than I thought they would, your use of dynamic color made the world come to life, and your sound effects are so charming - every time Max falls I think it's sad and also cute, just like that first time she did in the Redlander Jam game.
Thank you so much for sharing your work, I excitedly (as always) look forward to more.