Thank you for your review! The characters/items/environments that were colored correlate to symbolism in alchemical practices. The end boss fight being in full color was meant to visually represent the player entering a higher plane or dimension than the world they were in to confront their "shadow self."
As far as why certain animals were colored a certain way: unicorns in alchemy are associated with Mercury, Silver, the Moon, and the feminine. The stag is associated with Sulfur, Gold, the sun, and the masculine. In alchemical philosophy, there is a practice of "the marriage of the unicorn and the stag"/ the merger of opposites to reach either enlightened meant or becoming a balanced "whole" person.
I will agree though, that with the limited time, we weren't able to implement a stronger story narrative and dialog to convey these aspects to the player.
Although this was a love letter, filled with little nods to people that are familiar with alchemy, I knew going into it that it would be confusing for players that weren't. That said, I'll look over the script again, and see if there's a way to restructure it to be more understandable to players unfamiliar with alchemy and Carl Jung's philosophy.
Again, thank you for your feed back. It will help make our game that much better.