Yeah, I didn't hate it. Little tired of playing demos with not much to show, but...well, despite the numerous flaws I noticed in this demo, I still liked the atmosphere a lot! And that matters a surprising amount, I keep finding. I mean, it didn't do anything egregiously BAD, so I suppose any positives have that much more room to shine?

First, let me point out a couple of flaws I noticed, since the dev does seem to see reviews here: Firstly, the upgrade that increases the amount of mana you get from praising the cube says it increases it by 5 mana, but it actually increases by 2.5. Pretty noticeable immediately, just a bit of a strange oversight.

Secondly, the number indicating how much mana you have seems to update very slowly sometimes, which is offputting, spending mana and not seeing the number change to reflect that until the automatic generation kicks in a second later.

Third, and this is a small one, particles flow from the hungry orb to you, when they should go from you to the orb. Worth pointing out for the dev's sake!

With those out of the way, I'll get into the actual critique, and not just basic bug reports and such:

The placement of the cube is...inconvenient. It's annoying having to walk around to the side of the room just to get up onto the ramp to walk up to the cube, and it means you have to praise the cube in an awkward position too, you can't really look at it head-on while doing so. I'd prefer the cube to be somewhere a little more open and accessible, since this is just...weirdly awkward? I did try interacting with the cube from below, but it's too far away to.

The upgrade system is also rather awkward, I didn't enjoy having to walk from the cube to the upgrade room, and then back to the cube, and then back to the upgrade room...it wasn't a HUGE problem, since they are pretty close, but it was a piece of friction that I really didn't see any benefit too? It just makes the process slightly more repetitive, wastes slightly more of the player's time doing nothing but walking the same path over and over again. Not sure why this was done, it'd be just as functional to have the upgrade menu brought up when meditating anywhere, I'd think...

Next, I do want to address the shy button puzzle. I'm really not a fan of it, as it's one of those puzzles that is entirely too dependent on your understanding of the specific word itself, right? Similar to a knowledge check, like a 'puzzle' that requires you to know the capitol of some place, but obviously this isn't THAT egregious. Still, the 'puzzle' is just associating the word "shy" with not wanting to be SEEN specifically, and that's not an association anyone is going to make! When I think of someone who's "shy", my thoughts would go to proximity first, someone who's uncomfortably around others, not so much specifically with being seen by others. Sure, I likely would have thought of the solution eventually (if I hadn't been basically spoiled on the solution by reading the game's page), but not everyone will! It's less a puzzle and more a language check, do you associate the right thing with this specific word? It doesn't really work in the game's favor or add anything to it, I'd either remove it or rework it to be based on knowledge the game actually GIVES you, rather than just...checking random linguistic knowledge.

Now, with that feedback out of the way, I do want to talk about what I liked! As much as I can anyway, as even I'm not entirely sure why I left the game feeling as positively about it as I did...the music is a big one, I think? It is...very chill, very nice. The graphics too, I found them quite pleasant! Hardly complex, but...well, the lighting just worked, I guess? I didn't feel like I struggled to make out details at any point, nor did my eyes feel strained, it just felt...natural. And you'd be surprised how many games fail that test! How often I just can't see shit, or it's just generally unpleasant to look at...

I also did like that the couple of secrets I found weren't necessary for progression or anything like that, simply being rewards for the curious but not something you'll suffer for not finding. ...That said, I would like there to be some sort of ACTUAL reward, since the stars you pick up don't seem to do anything! I just don't want those rewards to be necessary, I don't want the game to be slower if you don't find them...maybe something cosmetic? Maybe unlocking later rooms with some extra lore, something that doesn't affect the game's progression. Could be in-world lore, or just developer notes and commentary, or the stars could just unlock some sort of cosmetics...something like that would be nice, to reward curiosity.

I will also say that, even though this isn't really present in the game right now, I do generally like automation in games like this! (The end says that such things are planned to be implemented, so it's worth commenting on.) I do like the cycle of- (continued in reply due to length limit)