Thanks for playing! and for the feedback.
I wanted to keep it pretty simple, it should be like a 30 min play through for most people I think, maybe an hour.
The story is based on Marzanna - if you collect all the keys in the game you get little memories that kind of tell that story without telling it directly. Marzanna is a goddess of winter, and traditionally people burn a “version” of her every year to welcome the spring. Thats the story. 6 locations with 5 different slavic-myth/folk based things - the Domovoi (the house spirit in the stove), the drowned in the mill-race, the Poludnitsa (the Noon Wife in the rye field), the Bannik in the bathhouse, and the rusalki and will-o’-wisps on the river at the end.
The voice is a narrator rather than Marzanna herself, telling her story as she walks it. She never actually speaks, which felt right for a winter that everyone talks about but nobody talks to. It was inspired by the game Bastion's narration.
So it’s less a big mythology adventure and more one night: winter walking itself to the river so spring can come, meeting the old spirits on the way. The ending is the rite itself. If you collect every light and every key there’s an extra ending too.
Out of curiosity, where did it end for you? If it felt like it stopped early, did you make it to the end in the river? Any feedback is helpful for future games.
Thanks again for taking the time!