@hatking: It happened wayyy after Atol taught me how to use it. I was humming right along and then, bang, no more dotted line. I filled out a bug report on the Dev’s site, but haven’t heard back. I’ll probably just end up wiping my save and starting over, but I hate to lose all that progress.

@septicshock: that’s a huge bummer. The developer seems really keyed-in with their community, so I’m sure they’ve got your report. Unfortunately that stuff takes longer than you wish it did because of submissions and approvals — speaking from firsthand bugging/patching experience. You could probably get by guessing on the logs, but I totally understand just starting over. Good luck to you either way!

I finished the game today. I honestly quite enjoyed the busy work, my issue with it was it never really felt like it was linked to the writing. Like, the premise of the game is that you're helping these people move on, but it felt more like I was just completing a checklist, until each passenger just said "Ok. I'm ready to go now", instead of me having a more direct effect on them... if that makes sense. Still cute as all hell though. And I did run into a couple a bugs that I had to find a work around. Usually moving a building around or destroying and rebuilding something seem to work on my specific issues.

I think this game will leave me emotionally devastated.
It started with Alice and now I'm seen Astrid away. There wasn't a single time I didn't cry.

How much Stardew Valley is this game ? I tried Stardew Valley back when it got a bunch of GOTY votes on the site etc, but bounced off it pretty quickly. After playing through about 75% of this game so far I'm starting to feel like I "get" the appeal of these games now. From what I understand this game is sort of a light version of the Stardew Valley/Harvest Moon formula ? Would it be right to consider it a gateway game into the genre ?

I think you could call it a gateway to the genre.
It has way less things to do, and most of the time you're actually just sailing from point A to point B:
I've hit the part of the game where I have all spirits, all buildings and need just to find collectables and release spirits at Everdoor.
Managing part is done since I've done all my boat upgrades and now it's just wrapping up quests.
In Stardew Valley, you actually couldn't do much without progressing the time and here it's actually works without you sleeping to progress.

Following up on my post from page 1:

I've now got all but the last boat upgrade, but I'm still missing two spirits from my boat. My jaw nearly dropped when I realized how much of the map was still left, though it was mitigated a bit by all the new activities I had to do on the boat once I could clear rocks. It's weird that the game hits what feels like its final third before you have a full list of things to be doing all the time, but I suppose I can appreciate it giving me a reason to stay with it right near the point I was winding down.

I think it's really charming on the surface, but I keep coming back to a specific thought in my head: this feels like a game for children wrapped up in adult concepts that supremely benefits from the moment in which it was released. I've seen some people having very emotional reactions to this game and I just don't see it: for me, all these other characters are more like caricatures and they've grown less and less likable as the "performances" get more and more outlandish. The animation where Stella rushes to give one final hug is pretty effective, but only when the person she's hugging is someone I kind of liked...and that's in short supply after the initial run of characters.

I really wish this were more like a 10-15 hour experience than the 30 or more hour experience its shaping up to be for me. Maybe that's my own completionist issue with both trying to get as much as I can out of any given material while also having no concrete plan and wanting trophies to remain a mystery until the game is over thus kind of mindlessly trying to solve specific wonders, but sometimes this game seems to me like it didn't need multiple types of fish/shellfish/vegetable if cooking any one of them with some flour only results in more or less of the same dish you've already cooked with another mixer and another fish.

It's been a nice change of pace from my usual podcast game, MLB The Show, since there's literally no consequence other than seconds ticking off the clock of my life involved in playing this game, but if I didn't have a never ending backlog of podcasts to listen to this game probably would've shifted from exciting little indie title to aggravating waste of money half a game ago. I'd say it teeters between a 6 and 7 out of 10 minute to minute, with some very 5 out of 10 vibes at times.