There's a fine line between leaving some things up to player interpretation, and leaving too much up to player interpretation. If you don't give the player enough concrete details about who the characters are, they can't develop meaningful relationships with the characters. And hence they never develop a deep caring for where the characters came from, and where they're going. And if you give too many concrete details, players will fail to generalize the lessons from the story to their own life and situation, making the whole experience less personally impactful. Strangeland leans towards the former: not giving enough details about it's characters. We aren't given any concrete glimpses into the protagonist's life, nor the woman's. This is a fine artistic choice, but it's also a risk, and one that didn't quite connect in this case. I wanted this game to lag in my memory, to be memorable enough that it would spark memories years from now when I see a crow sitting on a tree branch, or a park bench underneath an old gnarled tree. But it started and ended as an allegory, and hence lingers in my mind like an abstract concept, without enough roots to firmly implant itself. Yet, at the same time, how wonderful is it that there's a game I can say that about? "It started and ended as an allegory". It's a tremendous artistic ambition to create a game like that. And perhaps, for myself, that's the most important lesson I'll remember from Strangeland.
