Wonderful game, but I would love to see where it continues. You made a fantastic format for story-telling (need to check your other games too, as you seem to create games with pretty covers, so they are very tempting :P)
Theme:
I have really enjoyed your theme interpretation and that it really affects your story and art style (getting darker). Also, not sure if it was intentional or not, but I've found the other way to interpret it (less story, more wondering :P as I felt like the story was cut off a bit early and had to think myself of how it went further).
Visuals:
Your art style is beautiful! Love how well you are maneuvering with colors, light and cute art.
You also had a great idea with those particles that are in the background/foreground and with their parallax. However, maybe it would be good to consider modifying them a bit. For those that were at the background (the smaller ones), they seemed like stars, or some little lights floating in the air. If it's how you imagined them, I would suggest making them spawn a bit higher (so they don't appear on the ground tiles)(also you can duplicate it and make another, even smaller version that moves slower on parallax), or use some layer mask for the ground and for those bigger ones that appear more rarely. It might be good if you tried spawning just a little more of them, and they can overlap ground. It might give a beautiful multi-layer effect, that might look a bit more natural.
One more thing that I would recommend is the jump animation. I felt personally like there were 1-2 frames not enough to make it as the same fluency as walk animation (he basically teleports his leg while in jump, and it would look really well if it was a bit smoother).
PS: Beautiful font choice and I love your text boxes and text shake, it looks amazing!
Innovation:
There are many story-telling games, but yours feels truly unique. I really enjoy the idea with Valorie actually hating light and (at least how I've felt that) how it influences her behavior (aggressive, anxious, like many people that are insomniacs or spend their entire time apart from the entire world (like me basically :P)) I also very enjoy the motive with lighting off the lights. In many games it's usually the opposite (to make graphics pop up more and more throughout the game).
SFX:
Amazing sounds, they fit game really perfectly. Great job on changing the pitch, so they don't repeat and make the game very depthful.
As for music, I've noticed you didn't make it, so unfortunately it lowers the score a little, but choosing the right music for your game is also very challenging and when done properly, gives the game it's wholeness. And I have to say that you did that perfectly. Music is beautifully chosen :)
Gameplay:
Even though your game is not about gameplay itself, you've connected it with the story really well.
Obstacles are not frustrating, and they are also ideally challenging, so it adds a little of variety to your game :)
Game Design:
Again, beautifully made. You lead the player well, interactions are interesting and story gets you into. I just wish it was even a bit longer, and so we can see how to progress (maybe one more event after this tree, like walking in complete darkness and maybe realizing how lonely it gets (just one of my interpretations after the game)). I really appreciate the last line you write at the ending. There were some games that didn't give any feedback at the end, and so I felt a bit unsatisfied. Just this one line was enough for me to feel that 'ok, it ended, what a calm-hearted story', so thank you a lot for that :)
That was an amazing, pretty short, but intense experience :)