@the letter, it was informational but was so long i got through the first quarter of it :)
@the game, i got a few new ideas, may be at the beginning of the game you can pick your sticks color, making this idea possible, (i dont know if the stick figure dying was a suggestion already)how about if you die(if you can die) have the camera shake like it was a hard hit then your stick turns black, when he does that he'll turn ragdoll, here's an example of what im talking about(the ragdoll sucks but you know what i mean)
Not a bad idea. :) I'll investigate the aesthetic possibilities of this effect sometime in a color concept, maybe. The way it might end up, at least one idea I had, was that at certain points (like if the ragdoll dies) the background would turn the color of a jewel, the ragdoll and all the structures would be a black silhouette, and the jewels would be white against the colored background. Could be interesting...