What about a Wood Chopper Mode, where all the puzzles are changed to involve chopping wood (so to speak)? Making a wooden flute, sharpening a pencil, crafting wooden beams to build a house…
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You scare me Tassee. I am afraid this wood chopping thing has marked you for life, more than it was supposed to . 
Meanwhile I am still writing filler dialogs, ranging from the simple: “Thank you dear, but remember this wood isn’t going to chop itself” to more complex: here is a scene you didn’t yet play, when Olivia travels to the nearby town and enters the tavern:
CAMILLA: Olivia, what are you doing? Entering a pub?
OLIVIA: Why not?
CAMILLA: There could be scoundrels here!
OLIVIA: Come on, Camilla! It’s not the end of the world if we meet a scoundr… DAD!
DAD: Hi, Olivia, what a surprise! Care to drink some beer?
OLIVIA: Dad! What are you doing here?
DAD: Of course I am savoring the special beer of my friend Don here, our host.
OLIVIA: But how did you get here? The pass was closed for the landslide!
DAD: I came here swimming, of course.
OLIVIA: You swam across the sea just to avoid staying one night without drinking? Wasn’t it dangerous?
DAD: You see, darling, the alternative was to get back to your mom.
OLIVIA: Dad! Come back home and chop the wood, please!
DAD: Of course, dear, I’ll come. As soon as I get rid of this valgus toe!
OLIVIA: I already heard this excuse! You are not coming, are you?
DAD: Olivia, you are all grown up now. It’s time for you to be made aware.
OLIVIA: Aware of what?
DAD: There’s an ancient tradition in our family. Every girl, when she reaches the age of six, must chop the wood by herself. That’s what my grandmother did, and her grandmother before her…
OLIVIA: Dad! I think there’s no truth to this!
DAD: … and her grandmother’s grandmother. And her grandmother before her…
OLIVIA: It’s not true! Stop it, dad!
DAD: I’ve got nothing else to teach you, Olivia. Go, and chop that wood. You have my blessing!
OLIVIA: Ugh!
HOST: Mister, are these two little girls pestering you?
DAD: Yes, Don, throw these ragbags out in the streets.
OLIVIA: Dad!
DAD: I was kidding, Don. This is my daughter, and this one here… erm… must be a friend of hers dressed in a costume.
CAMILLA: I am Princess Camilla!
DAD: Of course you are, you little crackpot. Of course you are.
[…]
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Is “Marx” your surname?
Seriously, you are a comedy genius.
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You like it? Good to know! I have no clue if something’s funny when I write. I suppose I’ll keep on doing it
Well, I do have a strange sense of humor, but yes, I really like yours 
it really reminds me of the Marx Brothers.
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I need to watch them! I only did for a few minutes! Duck soup, if I recall.
I binge watched them all between 10 and 15 years ago so I can’t remember which is which and which one was my favorite 
I watched them in Italian, though, so it couldn’t be 100% faithful to the authors’ intentions, but still pretty fun.
I’ll surely watch them again in English… someday. It’s on my nearly infinite to-do list.
Do they all speak italian except Chico?
Do yourself a favour and do that sooner than later. It´s a difference between good and genius. I liked them when I knew them in german, but I only learned to appreciate how funny they truly are when I heard the original.
Is the guy crossing the street (or the fountain in the other pic) part of the background and thus still? Or is it somehow animated?
Sorry Ema, no animation is planned. The cutscenes will be sequences of still pictures like a comic book. In theory I could animate the water and the trees in the background, but then I’d have to animate the characters too and it would be out of budget
No you wouldn´t have to. That actually sounds kinda nice in moody with only certain parts moving. 
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hmmm… I suppose I could draw the trees and grass on different layers and make them sway/oscillate right and left. And I could do this on the characters too, like I saw in Unforeseen Incidents. better than nothing. For the fountain, I’d have to draw a few frames. I could have some moving clouds also. Some flickering overlays for the lights in night scenes.
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Exactly. It was a leading question. @milanfahrnholz anitcipated my maieutics.
I saw the backgrounds. “Wow, they look like watercolour paintings. They’re probably still”. Then I saw the fountain. “Ouch, I woudn’t have put that fountain there. It would look odd, with no animation”.
Then I saw the passerby, and had the same feeling.
In my opinion, if you pursue the visual style you showed us, you have two choices: either you avoid ANY element that should be animated, like birds flying, a fountain, a passerby… or you cope with it.
I was imagining it like this: a VERY simple animation of two-three frames. If you can’t have a full animation, just exagerrate a cheesy and way simple animation, making it your style. It works well with cycling animations like the flow of the water or the leaves moving in the wind, but why not extend it to live characters? The passer-by could go back and forth in an infinite loop walk made out of 3 frames.
It would look like a comic book. You could achieve something like this:
Just choose one or two elements in the frame to animate, and leave the rest unnaturally still to enhance the contrast.
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That´s what I meant. Find a stylised way that looks good and gives a lot of freedom of expression. As long as it feels natural, you´re on the right path! 
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Yeah, The main characters, by the way, should blink their eyes of something…
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In some sense I have to admit I have opposite taste. I mean: if I play a game with no animation at all, I don’t have the “odd” sensation that you mention. I perceive it as a painting, and it’s fine. As in a comic book: they are still pictures that depict fast movements, and they don’t look odd to me at all. OTOH, if only the main character is animated and the tree leaves aren’t, then I do have that unpleasant sensation. Suddenly it all looks fake. Same if the lights aren’t animated and the characters are.
So from my personal taste , no animation is better than having animated characters but still backgrounds.
OTOH, you are suggesting something opposite: animated bgs and little-to-no-animated characters. Something which I had never considered. I’ll think about it. I guess however that money will decide.
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Yeah, that’s a way to say it. But I would play on being selective. If you watch the Eleanor Rigby clip, you can see what I mean: the man is still, the smoke from his pipe moves. There’s a lot of contrasts like this in that clip, maybe one or two examples could be inspirational.
If you can make a whole game COMPLETELY still, ok. But it’s very rigid… and maybe limitating. I’d go for a stylised mood which gives me some ease of expression. Just my two cents.
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You have a (kindly hosted) development blog. You have a (kindly borrowed) community of fans who follow you and give advices. Just make a kickstarter campaign, and you’re done! 
Oh, and don’t forget your old friends for the italian dubbing of your game.
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Would be nice, but unfortunately (or fortunately) I have a job… I wouldn’t be able to make promises and deadlines (even if I could get funded, which is very hard). Also, I would need to change the game radically to make it appealing to a big number of people… it would basically become a job, not recreation.
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