This is a very well-written game! The mood has been really nailed, and the characters have fun personalities. The hinting system is pretty well done too, that's nice.
It seems the 'hard' elements could be improved with some polish.
The shared graphics make it a bit confusing to navigate, e.g. you see a store but you can't enter it because it's not the right location.
While interacting with the objects, you could hint a tad better at their use. For instance you have a shaving kit in your suitcase. It sounds a lot like a useful prop. But you can't get it or examine it. In the end, you can't use it. The simplest way to make it work without effort would be to remove it. Otherwise, upon inspection/get display a message "I'm already shaven, so there's no other use I can find to this".
Another way is that when you try interacting with an object, say "screw cane", it just tells you "I don't know how to do that". It would help at that point to say "Maybe I could find a way upon closer inspection of the cane?". Especially as for me, since the hook is a screw and not a bolt you don't need the cane to be threaded, as screws are self-threading.
You definitely need feedback to get those right (this is something we also learned).
Overall, it's very enjoyable, and very refreshing to get that good old book feel for a change.
The post-mortem was also quite enjoyable, it's an interesting look into the process and the other ideas are also very interesting.