Hey, happy to reply to this!
When it comes to thoughts about interfacing, I think it would come down to a lot of iteration, to be fair. At the moment, I would say that maybe adding more and more information after each loop (so in loop 1 we have zero information, in loop 2 we see what items we are carrying, on loop 3 we see how "good" they are...) might be an interesting compromise. But again, it might not work at all!
As for the deeper analysis, I have to say that there was a sense of beautiful lyricism. The main theme I was getting was environmentalism. There was a clear correlation between the words of the characters and the idea of guman-driven climate change. The fact that the characters felt like spirits and their design brought to mind a lot of Japanese media about post-industrialization, and that was the reason I was very happy to find out through the GDD that they were based on actual rivers and creeks. I felt the "base" story being told was one of recovering by caring, both for yourself and others, with a metaphor where that applies to the world around us, not only to other people.
Hope that makes sense and works for you!