Thank you for engaging with this experiment!
What you say it's super interesting, especially about how "I interacted with this software more via investigation rather than a playful curiosity" -- Since you weren't playing this software we are unsure of if it's a game, whilst if I hadn't uploaded as an experiment and more of a (random example) "A game about how we remember feelings from our childhood" we'll think of it as a game?
To me, our attitude towards it gives software the quality of being a videogame. Context plays a huge part: To present it as a videogame, to approach it as a videogame... but all of those elements are aids to enter the magic circle that confers this program the status of videogame.