All very valid points!
Since I was so new to Yarn Spinner, I was a bit ham stringed on my knowledge of how to make it as a manager work better for me. I looked into Speech Bubbles after purchasing it to try it out, but ran into enough snags I dropped working on it in favour of progress in other areas. Looks very cool and I intend to try it out more, but time limitations on the solo project just meant I just needed the time to focus on the other stuff. I also really wish I had time to do the speaking stuff I had been looking into, but both seemed like they'd take significant time either up front or later. So it goes.
I wish I could've done more with the music, and in terms of all of my skills is definitely the most lacking. I had made about 1-3 crescendoing tracks that added to each other, as well as an audio drone which was removed due to testing feedback on it making the game nauseating to play. But coming into implementation my knowledge of audio programming got hit and also got cut (I am really fast to cut if I spend more than an hour or so without progress. It was a cool idea, but my knowledge wasn't there yet).
Definitely wish I had had more time for longer character interactions. I like them all a lot, and learning about the specific histories of each creek was nice. There's someone who gives guided tours for walks of Toronto rivers, and I only learned about Lost River Walks while making this and I think it would be nice to go and see them. I like to think they like to be visited.
Going to Clarence was added in the last few builds, so it is definitely buggy. I think in certain situations you can talk to him to return to Don, but in others it doesn't. It likely has to do with my mismanagement of the passing variables through scenes, which is DEFINITELY hacky as heck and not how you're supposed to do it. I got good advice via Tim about setting up Yarn Spinner stuff better, but at that point it would've required me rearranging the whole project on the second week. So- system shipped with bugs!
Moving the characters would've been a very good choice, I didn't actually think about it at all! Likely wouldn't have been that hard, but I also likely would've just copied the scene entirely (which I did for the Conclusion cause I thought that made sense, in both hindsight and writing this now it doesn't, literally nothing changes!)
Thanks for taking the time to write a comment <3