ok spoilers to anyone who reads this . dont keep going until youve finished . if you get frustrated and cant progress i recommend being flexible with what a trail is and trying to reach places you havent before or any places where youre like "huh why cant i reach that"? try to go to those.
i spent probably.. a half an hour longer than the supposed playtime. i got really lost in the world and i teared up for some reason. not in a sad way or angry way but like its the same feeling i get when i look up at the night sky and see stars sometimes.
also i dont know if any of this was actually purposeful but one way i would describe this game is yume nikki but way better LOL. like the feeling of slowly finding weird stuff in a weird world. i loved the ruins and weird stopped time but also looping time and looping space elements!! also the giant big animal and gay serpents and giant big ruins.. any game or movie with giant skeletons of warriors made for battle is good to me (idk i think of nausicaa/hyper light drifter). god this game is also so simple but also... aesthetically cool... i love the clockwork solar system, island turtle, glitchy oil spill, misty snakes and earthy snakes and sea snakes?? its really cool. it wasnt just a walking sim for me, at first i was like bruh u cant really interact with anything but now... im like... oh. thats why. i feel like all of the elements and in this game tie so nicely together its so COOL!!!!!!!!!!
i kinda felt like the theme i got from this game was how messed up the world can get when the flow of nature and time is disrupted, but also how people adapt to a messed up world... like... the world is changing, but were still here. this game is fun to analyse lol
if i had any suggestion it would be to leave the footprints of the character behind so that you actually know where youve been. also a bit more explanation behind the totem mechanics like others have said...like maybe light rays pointing between each totem at the temple? so they show you where next you can go. but overall thank you for one of the best hours of my life sorry that might be too sentimental lol.