The game is least forgiving in the first few days, after that, it really opens out into people remembering the choices you've made in the game. Even if you've still been making bad choices, it's pretty fun from there.
I too am taking advantage of the summer sale and am about 20 hours in and still wildly infatuated with this weird, weird amazing game.
After a while you start getting a slightly better idea of what's going on, but that doesn't make it more "game like" if anything, the more you learn about the game, the more it reveals itself to be a giant tool to explore meta-narratives and there are some moments of conversation regarding this that are absolutely chilling.