edit: having played more, a lot of things i complained about (mood & interacting with others, resting, etc) don't apply anymore. i've played long enough that all of these things became unlocked for me . i'll leave the review as is otherwise but i'll post a new reply after i finish this run
I've played through it this morning (1h or so) and i'm taking a break for lunch but i'll resume this afternoon
all the complaints i've ever had have been resolved and i'm not running into any issues. the only things i've noticed were minor (broken cart event happened two days in a row, if you switch screens while John is doing the walking-away animation, you can reset him back).
things like Get-Quest being changed from Quest, the Mood +1 popups, and other small UI changes are all excellent additions. i no longer feel lost when traversing UIs as I once did.
the only things i'd consider adding thus far is more hints for the player after the start. something like the bloodstone, for example. i didn't solve it yet (don't spoil it, i want to see if i can figure it out), but i'm following along the hints. i've got the book, now what? i assume it contains a riddle or a hint that i missed, but i've as of yet been unable to find it. everyone tells me to talk to Helena (she tells me about the book) and that's it. there should be some ingame hint or feedback about the next step. even a small "hmm, this part is interesting , i wonder what that means" hint could be enough. perhaps you could also have more hints about "bigger picture" objectives every now and then. i talked to people about Mr.White, which i thought was a good start. i'd like to see this side expanded upon, but perhaps about more mundane tasks. maybe asking Billy (or John?) something like "how should i plan my farming/what should i do about wellness/etc" might be an interesting start. i feel like if the player has questions like this, there should be an obvious place for them to get "immersive" (non tooltip/tutorial) answers.
another minor thing would be wellness/mood increases. right now i'm in a safe loop of working/training/farming, so i have food and money, but i don't know of any "safe" mood/wellness increases. things like alcohol and smoking works, but i dont want to get drunk since nobody wants to talk to me (and thus i cant work) while drunk. might be a good idea to have more safe ways to increase both. thinking about this now, since the MC is a kid, perhaps playing with Georg could be something (i didn't check, perhaps this exists?). it could work like begging, where it's an afternoon-action that increases mood or wellness by some small amount
anyway, this is just some small nitpicks. i will continue to play again soon, and will report back. right now, my goal is to find the bloodstone, perhaps do some late-game dungeons, and try and reach the Mr.White compound.
keep up the good work!