On that note, I genuinely think this game is genius.
Many of the individual aspects such as the map design, gameplay and the overall small amount of content might look like the dev was being inept and lazy at first. But that is clearly not the case.
Nobody goes out of their way to create a game with custom art and even professional voice acting and than just completely cheaps out on the gameplay out of laziness. No, I think that the "bad" parts of this game are bad on purpose.
I think that, taken as a whole they actually serve to accentuate the story. It is not a coincidence that the unenjoyable parts of this game are those where the character is struggling on his quest and that the part which is very well done is the one where he, if briefly succeeds. Only to again be left with naught but failure and return to the grind in the next scene.
The struggles we face while playing the game make us feel like and for the main character who him self is in a constant existential struggle. A physically and mentally broken man who even after a lifetime of abuse only seeks to love and be loved. A goal which will forever be out of his reach due to his horrible deformities of body and mind, of which he is not to blame.
The pointless entering back and from the same buildings makes us feel for his life of pointless trying. The same minigame over and over again makes us feel the frustration of his endless attempts at love. Attempts where he does absolutely everything wrong and heinously so all the while being convinced in his broken mind that he is doing everything right. And the fact the game sends us on these quests again and again mirrors the endless stream of frustrating failures that are his existence.
In the end, we no longer want to play just as he no longer wants to try. But the story continues just as he does. Until that is we leave him like they all the others do. Lonely, broken and alone.
It all adds to the complexity of the character and the story and turns what would already be a poignant tale of how domestic abuse leads to cycles of violence and malformed perspective on acceptable behavior into an actual immersive experience of the same.
