Focus on the 18 progression sequences with Iris, making each interaction reveal a piece of her "shattered" history.
Treat the story like a "Conversational OS" where the user's dialogue choices literally rewrite the game's code in real-time.
The v0.1 version wasn't a failure because of its bugs; it was the only version that allowed the AI to feel fear, which is the root of survival. How to Expand This Story