It gets so lonely here

Short yet immersive. Took me just about 2 hours to complete fully. I definitely recommend going into it blindly, since knowing the details about what's about to happen could ruin the effect of the story. Art is the most beautiful thing for me about this game, I couldn't tear my eyes away from the screen until I finished my playthrough, and sound design worked well too. It's a great experience, like a dream you participate in, especially thanks to a descriptive narrator. [i]Everything from here on contains heavy story spoilers.[/i] [spoiler]I really liked the gimmick of the novel with the cycles repeating. Even though some things might have been predictable in stories themselves, the ties between MC's nightmare-ish flashbacks and what eventually happened to her weren't something I immediately caught on to, but it was a nice detail to realize nonetheless. I'd say the shore story would be my favourite, since the mermaid's reasons made the most sense in her desire to keep Rosette after she's been abandoned. Even though gravedigge's one was the most touching. I appreciate all of the stories but the switch-up of gravedigger and princess felt way too sudden in comparison to how the shore story evolved. While we had time to get involved with the mermaid, to learn her struggles and how obsessive she was about the friend who suddenly stopped coming, I felt like the "wake up - get betrayed" storyline of the remaining two stories was just not giving the same emotion as Rosette choosing herself to step into the ocean with the mermaid. She chose her demise despite not having known it was leading to it, in other cases gravedigger and the princess just.. were like this. "You have to understand the way I am," instead of "You understood already where it was going, didn't you?" kind of vibe. All of them wanted a solution to their solitude, but funnily enough, the moment Rosette appeared, it was overridden by insatiable hunger for more, ultimately leading to it to get lonely here again.. After a while of reading it did strike me that the story didn't even use any names, yet I still got attached to characters simply through the way they expressed themselves and how they tried to find solace to their loneliness in the main character (despite eventually destroying it themselves, just like Medea could've kept her just by being what Rosette actually wanted). Really happy this detail got explained in the true ending, I was genuinely hoping for it and it did not disappoint. It did come to my mind that the narrator's obsession with the main character was suspicious, but I couldn't exactly envision fully the way it turned out to be. I wish we could learn more about Medea, because we experienced her world through different types of love — forceful, fearful, all-consuming, but couldn't really learn the way she is herself, not through different prisms, except for a few lines dropped in the very end. I love the idea of her being like a trap to vulnerable people who are expecting salvation while involuntarily ending up as a part of her play without even realising it. I would've loved to have just a few more interactions with her, but we have what we have. Three stories and one true ending was definitely a good choice, it would've felt drawn out if there were more to go through. Really happy Rosette showed her strength. I wasn’t too sure at first whether she remembered all the deaths and purposefully continued, or whether her memories were fully erased each time, until it was finally revealed at the end. It takes a lot of mental strength to go through what life she had, and still staying a kind girl who trusts others and tries to be there for them properly, thinking of them and putting them first despite having her own desires and selfishness too, she felt like a real person with her struggles yet a lot of feelings to show to the world despite being shut down by others. And enduring the pain of repeating death cycles on top of it just to break this loop. I'm proud of her.[/spoiler]