Thank you so much for your kind words! Everyone on the team put in a lot of effort into the game, and I think the end product came out all the better for it. I'm also really glad to hear that you enjoyed the characters, since they play such a big part of the story. It's a shame you weren't able to get through to the ending for some reason, because our artist made lovely artwork for all three endings of the game.
What follows after this is spoilers, so if you'd rather avoid those, stop reading now!
You get the last party member by pushing the statue into the shadows behind the wall and "out of the light", rather than into the pit to break it. The statue will then give you the guitar pick, and that's it. There are three endings in the game: the bad ending, the neutral ending where you only save a few party members, and then the golden ending.
Thank you so much again, and I'm glad that you enjoyed our game!