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Ahhh, I thought it was sand castle at first. I couldn't tell because of the big lumpy base hahaha. I'm glad my comment means that much and I'm more than happy to wait patiently for future games from you, because this one really impressed me. Most people struggle with making meta stories with fourth wall breaking stuff in games work but you did a bang-up job here!

This was a very good game that I ended up loving. I left a long-winded comment on the only full LP of this game on YT (the one you posted in the comments) attempting to dissect it a bit, but it doesn't show due to YT's garbage filtering system, so I've posted it below. I hope to see more stuff from you!

But I need to ask: what is the title screen portraying? It sort of looks like a child playing besides the trunk of a tree, but I can't really tell.

EDIT: [text wall]

Finished this not long ago. I went in not expecting much and I got something actually pretty special. It took a while for the story to click with me, because I wasn't buying the unbelievable premise, but going the distance proved rewarding, because the intentionality of a lot of the design choices began to hit me. All of the already meager human presence in the village vanishing early on after the kid says "I will be waiting for you," the simple tiles and sprites, and the lack of guidance on how to progress both give the game a very sombre feeling (hammered home by the great ambient music tracks,) and acts as an insight into Samuel's creative process changing as his disease becomes more prominent. The only thing cutting through the loneliness, besides the log entries that you hunt for to deepen your understanding of the story, is the dread of inevitably encountering more of those psychological tests as you progress.

I'm impressed by how the explanation for why a warning for a disease would be embedded in a game goes deeper than just madness or desperation. The notes hint at how the motivation for rushing out the puzzle game becomes increasing less about spreading a message and more about Sam striving to complete it to feel personal satisfaction, treating it like some kind of sacred mission. Notes from Martin's research in the game say that the disease is exacerbated by negativity, but kept at bay by keeping one's self busy, which explains why Samuel pursues the very ridiculous endeavor of using the game as a way to get the word out. The motive goes from almost noble to completely self-serving. The ending represents giving up entirely on the game for the sake of the game itself or a warning (thus the broken room tiles before the finale) and becomes Samuel working through his emotions. Grieving over his decision to murder Marie and also self-consolidation that his suffering isn't for nothing; that God may forgive him and put him by her side soon. The game can be summed up as a strange love letter to dead friends by a broken soul on death's doorstep.

Christianity makes up a big part of the recognizable symbols in this game, from archangel names (Gabriel and Michael) to Bible verses throughout (I counted six.) The constant mention of prayer and the initial game story about a spiritually blessed village show that Sam became deeply invested in his spirituality at the time of making the game. From the little I know about Mandela Catalogue, which influenced this game's scares (and usage of the Mac OS "whisper" voice,) I know that there's some disorder brought on by alternates that is made worse by excessive religiosity. The game does a good job at leaving ambiguous whether S.E.E.D. is the result of a supernatural encounter or if its effects of visions and things are only the result of delirium caused by the disease. The uncanny glitch aspects of the tests left in the game and maybe the bizarre prognosis of the virus' victims seem to imply the former, but it's difficult to say. Very notably, "Lazarus" (not a very common last name) in the Bible was a friend of Jesus, who's death by illness and subsequent resurrection served as a testament to God's glory.

All in all, this was an excellent game. I found it by browsing through the 2022 Misao nominations on rpgmaker(dot)net. It hardly had any downloads from there. It makes me wonder how many more gems there are buried under layers of Internet noise that I'm missing out on. Awesome stuff!