Brilliant write-up, I honestly find it pretty inspiring that you just... made your own engine rather than try to bend an existing engine to one's will.
One particular bit I connect with is "But I am trying to think back to my original purpose for making them - to make an engine that reflects how I naturally want to write a game script, in one long raw block of text and just have everything magically handled." / "But I am trying to think back to my original purpose for making them - to make an engine that reflects how I naturally want to write a game script, in one long raw block of text and just have everything magically handled."
It's like every project is an idea you start with, but the actual act of making it is how you find out what it really is. It's very easy to deviate from your initial "story pillars" or whatever; although a lot of times I kinda feel like that deviation is just as fun to look back on.
(I mean we're talking a software here, so there is a point where your code gets spaghetti-fied that you really do need those pillars, but whatever, Art Art Art cool)
Thanks for writing this