I’m blown away by this piece, it actually emotionally moved me. The moment of moving to a slow walk after the death of a loved one (which you can interpret literally or more metaphorically of course) really got to me. It had a great pace and had lots of amazing little details: pressing space had a heartbeat, taking a wrong turn in the adult, cloud-shrouded maze meant you could get stuck [in life], and I guess that children over tech-exposed if their first crayon-drawn symbols include stars, flowers, and the sign for emails?? ;)
The meditation sequence was a nice twist and just worked nicely. I also love the intrinsic meaning of birthday cakes being checkpoints, wow, not sure I can think of another game where there was such actual weight and meaning to a checkpoint. Loved it.
Nit: a control to slide or disable audio is always a plus, that being said, it’d be a right shame to not listen to the music on this one. Also I think the wavey text could be toned down a little bit or made still for the smallest text font used.