Thank you very much for your feedback! I appreciate it.
I see what you mean about gated from certain dialog options, from the writing perspective it has been more "what information needs to be conveyed" and less "how does a natural conversation flow" which may be frustrating. Instructions for minigames is definitely something in the TODO column, although I want to find a way to avoid the wall of text most games do.
That's a weird bug! I'll take a look.