Thank you so so much for such a detailed and thoughtful review and critique of my game!
I definitely agree that the abstract nature of the story impedes understanding of the gameplay mechanics in some parts, and the perspective of the game setting itself up as a walking simulator is something that I hadn't really thought about, but definitely makes sense the more I think about it!
I also definitely understand the dislike of vague storytelling, I personally feel a similar way with certain pieces of vague storytelling if I'm honest.
In fact, I think the biggest issue with this game in the end was that the story ended up leaning way too far into abstract storytelling, which paired with the gameplay ended up making the game confusing, lack impact, and also made it really hard to connect with.
I DID originally go into the game wanting to experiment with more abstract imagery (even having the story be decently ambiguous at parts), but despite this I still originally had a much more defined and understandable story planned out that would (hopefully) come together into something cohesive in the end that most people could understand and relate to in the end, and a bunch of choices (especially the rule I decided on to try and make the game with only visual storytelling and no dialogue, which I ended up having to break at the end in order to try and save the story lol) meant that I struggled to tell the story I planned and therefore leaned on abstract storytelling as a crutch. The inevitability of the problems caused by both relying on visual storytelling as well as wanting to make a game focused around very abstract visuals is a lot more clear now that I think about it, and I really wish I had told the story more clearly (and with dialogue) from the beginning as I think it would've made the game way more engaging and the story I had in mind impact players a lot more ;-;
The gameplay mechanic itself (keeping yourself from fading away by checking reflections) definitely has a very strong importance to the narrative (it was actually the main idea which spawned the rest of the game!) and ties into a lot of the feelings I wanted to convey concerning losing connection with yourself and your identity alongside certain real life habits of mine from my past that I wanted to turn into a gameplay mechanic, but alongside making the story less abstract I probably should have made the gameplay MORE integral from the beginning in order to convey this feeling more effectively (via introducing it earlier to prevent confusion about the main gameplay loop of the game, as well as introducing it in a more understandable way).
Again, thank you so much for this comment, it really means the world!
I wish I had been able to tell the story I wanted to tell in a more powerful way and use the visual style I had designed to it's fullest potential with this game, but I definitely learnt a lot (especially thanks to comments and criticism from you and others) and I will keep trying my best to try new things and strive to improve with my future projects :)