Thank you very much for the lovely feedback! <3
You are absolutely right about diversity in the portraits. After uploading, I also had the thought that there were too few male characters and different ethnicities represented. I will change a few of them. I would have preferred a completely individualised character creation, but Twine and my skills don't allow for that yet.
The flickering of the background images is indeed a nuisance that I haven't solved yet. The images are already scaled down, but they do not load in the browser for a smooth gameplay. I have tried to counteract this with a preload function from chapel. Unfortunately without any visible success. When you say you also had this problem, did you find a solution for it?
Nevertheless, I'm glad you liked it and I hope the following chapters will do as well:)