Sorry, you didn't flip the hourglass in Morg's Inn before the end of Chapter 5 so you're stuck with the 3 terrible ending sequence options. We only put a vague hint about it on page 63 in the instruction booklet.

nothing like playing leisure suit Larry 2 and finding out you have to replay the last 4 hours even though you saved because you didn’t type look in trash can while standing next to the trash can on the first screen of the game

Most early 3d and sort of ps2 era games didn't have leisure to put too much extra elements into environment, most of what you saw was interactable, so highlighting wasn't all that needed. Sure there were games badly designed and unintuitive, but it's still weird to me how highlighting became a norm / necessity.

That’s just not true. I imagine a lot of the kickback is coming from those of us who grew up playing those games, because when done right, there was a deeper sense of exploration and a more active role in decision making.

I can remember a time or two when I was lost because I didn't know what to click on, but it usually seemed easy because interactable stuff usually stood out in some way.

What's wrong with the sparkly effect from e.g. Resident Evil 4? The yellow paint is already immersion breaking.