Wow. No hyperbole—perhaps indeed the big "wow" title of this jam that I've played thus far.
I had some reservations from the first interaction in regards to the way the dialogue was written and the lack of music / immersion, but that got quickly dispelled once entering the world and seeing those integrations dramatically improve throughout the rest of the game. The style of art was lovely (reminded me of Papers Please), and the CRT filter + unique aspect ratio made this one feel different.
I couldn't believe the attention to detail of the game. The number of settings and characters, the varied responses to the same dialogue options, the inventory system, even the text speed + fade-out animation time as they related to the narrative events. Just an extremely polished piece.
I'd be hard-pressed to make a helpful criticism, and would have to look for tiny, insignificant things. I suppose story-wise, a little bit more imagination was needed to setting names rather than North/Small/generic adjective] Island, and perhaps the gameplay was too linear (unless I just got really lucky and progressed in the right direction; which looking at some of the comments below, does seem to be the case, so scratch even that). Otherwise, I was very satisfied with the narrative here, and my standards are incredibly high in that department.
Excellent job. Loved this submission.
