Can someone explain the lore of this game to me?

[Chocos Ramabotti]

Played through the game and I don't know what the tablets were trying to explain me, but somehow it sounded really deep and I'm afraid that there is some hidden meaning which my mind cannot grasp. I need enlightment.

[sekti]

I'm sure someone else wrote something here already, I didn't look and I cannot claim that what I write here is in any way the cannonical interpretation. But here goes:

The literal storyarc

I suspect you understood this one.
When the people in this world die, they become sausages (there is a funny tablet explaining how they tear out their hair and roll on the ground). These sausages are then eaten by the relatives. The corresponding feasts are (part of) the funeral rites.
At some point the land is befallen by a calamity that brings with it a flood that wipes out more and more of the population. The people have trouble eating all their dead, because there are so many.
The player (let's call him Steve) seems to be the sole survivor of the calamity. And so it falls to him to cook and eat all those sausages. In the end, after cooking them all, he too falls victim to the calamity and -- tragically -- there is no one around to eat him.

The story in a nutshell

With the sausage metapher stripped away, we are playing a grave digger who burries everyone after an extinction event. In the end he dies and nobody is around to bury him.

Interpretation

The story seems to be about what we leave behind. We mourn that with the death of someone, his ideas die with him and are therefore lost forever. Learned people try their best to limit this loss by writing memoirs. This is not only for the benefit of others, but also for the benefit of being remembered, which creates a sense of purpose. So if our purpose lies in producing ideas and leaving them behind, then who do we leave these ideas behind for? Well, clearly for the people living after us! In the same way that the sausage people are food for their relatives, the ideas of any creator are “brainfood” for all humans living after him either as art, knowledge or entertainment. However, on a cosmological scale, this sense of purpose seems shortsighted. When the calamity comes (be it global nuclear annihilation *soon* or the heat death of the universe *not quite as soon*), there will be a last living human. This is Steve. It falls to him to honour the memories of everyone before him, so all human endeavour was not for naught. But a single person can hardly stem this task and eventually, he too will die. In this light, the whole idea, that the meaning of life is to leave something for others, seems almost contradictory. At least for this last living person, as there is noone around that will come after him. Noone to use his ideas. In fact, he won't even be used as food.

I'd be happy to hear other peoples thoughts on the game. I am sure there must be aspects I missed.

[VanHiest]

Finished the game recently. Had thoughts about it.
These included enterpriting a game mechanic into the lore which is ill advised for most videogames.
Stephen is an outsider washed onlo the shore of this island by accident that lead to his boat being wrecked.
The island is not only deserted, but is also constantly flooded by tides. Stephen is surviving by consuming the remains of the past inhabitants, one or few each tide.
He finds his last meal at the tallest point of the island. But then there is really nothing left to search through, so he returns to the beach in hopes of a rescue...