The performance in some sections of the game is AWFUL. Unplayably bad, ~2FPS. I'm running on more than capable hardware. This occurs in the desert sandstorm section (only when not in shade) and again during the computer segment which follows that (but only intermittently, I think it's tied to the flashing tiles somehow). Please fix this ASAP, it's nigh impossible to get through a timing based section when the game has wildly bad timing.
Viewing post in [RPG] GROVE: "Dark Places" (v0.308) comments
Trust me when I say we'd like to fix it, but finding the actual cause of the problem has proven very difficult. We've had people running high end hardware that lags, and people running low spec computers that run it just fine. Whatever the issue is, it's hard to pin down., and it doesn't actually occur for me or my dev-partner.
Please make sure you're playing the most recent version of the game, for one thing: v0.203
All I can suggest is to make sure you've extracted the game fully. Make sure you're running the game off of your harddrive, not an external device or an online cloud solution. Close other programs, play the game windowed and shrink the size down, use mouse controls to aid you through the computer segment.
Finally, if you have a save file from before the desert, try going back to your room at the inn, activating the book in the middle of the room, and disabling UI effects. That may also help.