First and foremost, a game is meant to be interacted with. Whatever else is happening, there is some "give" and "take" to the experience. This game already takes some liberties with the UX struggling to be "readable," for its beautiful, vivid art style, but if that were the only fault, it should be overlooked. Unfortunately, it is not, it is a warning sign to the absolute disaster that is interacting with the game.
Secondly, and again, this is a lesser problem, this game harks back to the "school" of "design" from Sierra's 90s adventure games, where it is actually a hidden object game in disguise, where you must guess - or mouse over each and every scene, PAINSTAKINGLY - what is background and what is interactable. I suppose for a game that is clearly a mystery/investigation, this is thematically appropriate, but it is a miserable slog all the same. Yes, some/many/key objects have a callout/bubble/circle drawing one's attention, but if you've played a FPS game, imagine the shotgun is flashing on the center walkway, and all the ammo and health pickups require pushing random unmarked walls... that at least flash interactable when you go up to them.
No, those two sins might be overlooked / forgiven if not for the absolute abomination that is INTERACTING with dialogue in this game, the CORE SELLING POINT, the MAJOR ACTIVITIY and the main excitement of the game! Ah, here are 6 options to click on, I can discuss 5 topics with this character and the 6th is exit the conversation. Excellent. Let's go from top to bottom. 1. Character shares paragraph 1. Click to proceed. Character shares paragraph 2. Click to proceed. Repeat for 7 paragraphs. You're finally clicking just to get all the dialog so you can read like a normal human being when... oops, because the dialogue selector is dynamically placed, bam, the 1 was right where you were clicking. You're repeating the 9 clicks to see the same paragraphs again. Okay, you'll be more careful this time. Let's click on option 2. It's another 6 paragraphs, requiring 6 clicks to see the whole text. And oops, you clicked ONE time too many, so you're getting dialogue 1, with its 9 clicks and I hope you don't miscount or you'll be there FOR THE FIFTH TIME dialogue again. AND THIS IS EVERYTHING. THE GAME'S VAUNTED DIALOGUE. WHICH IS EVERYTHING BECAUSE YOU'RE TRYING TO INVESTIGATE A MYSTERY AND YOU NEED TO INTERROGATE PEOPLE AND THINGS. EVERYTHING.
HOW DID NO ONE POINT OUT THAT THIS SUCCCCKSSSSSSSSSSSSS?
Even just letting 3 paragraphs go in a single click would be, in a patch-notes-to-game-improvement ratio, one of the all time greatest improvements. I get it. You can't flood all the text. It's a lot of text. But the current approach TRAINS the user to become a clicker.
Look, there is clearly a clever, beautiful, great game under this. I gather that, excluding some bits and bobs for hire, it's a one man band that made this. But. This is the core interaction loop. It's everywhere and everything; this is not obscure code/technique, and credit where it is due, there clearly IS a lot of consideration (fixed with of text managing block o text fatigue, eg). But. This is riiiiight behind "game fails to load" level of stumbling right out the gate.
