Thank you for your extensive reply! We did have the exact same problem with WebGPU so when I got the black screen, I got PTSDs xD. But that's okay, I'm just mentioning it so you can warn Firefox users =).
Aaaaah yeah, I had the exact same experience with playflow when I wanted to learn multiplayer, fortunately for me it was just for a side project of mine ^^'. I wanted to try Normcore, the free tier seemed promising, but I as far as I understand, you also need to use their own network solution (instead of fishnet or Netcode for GameObjects) so I don't know.
Oooh, I, okay, I see what you wanted to do with the "risky/non risky" path, and I can understand why you dropped it =). I'm really curious about your devlog, so please, ping me when it's out ^^! And, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you just copied/paste your old games, not at all, I can see all the work behind this one ^^! It's just that I didn't see the influence of the theme in the gameplay. But, to be fair, I didn't realize that the biscuits were optional and that reaching them required more dangerous, but skippable puzzles, so I will correct my stance on the theme. It's maybe too subtile (or probably just a brain issue on my part ^^?), but that fits more in the theme that was I though, thank you for explaining =).