Thoroughly enjoyable.
You certainly nailed the learning about things indirectly, um... nail. A very well done game. I really liked the art style, as you mentioned, an hommage to 1-bit colour games. I would love to see another game in this gameplay style or even a sequel in which the player may explore beyond the fences. As for the endings, they were good, but I wish they had had a stronger tie to the themes explored in the game. I felt they wrapped-up rather than concluded.
**SPOILERS**
Here are the games nine endings (In no particular order)
-Collect all six Path Rings, then head east on a path just north of the begining. There will be a building with a portal.
-Collect all six Tally Beads than head up the path you start on to the large cross. Head North-East until you see a sign post and a path. Go north up the path and take the first left. There's a wood triangle thing with a portal.
-Collect all six Oarbor Bones, than head north from where you start until you hit the fence, move south until the fence is just out of sight, than go west. You'll see some round egg sorta things, in the center of which is a portal.
- Immeadiately head south from the starting place to the portal.
-Walk about for awhile, than head to the portal metioned above.
-Take the path for the Tally Beads mentioned above, but keep straight on the path with the signpost. There will be a portal at the top.
- Take the path for the Tally Beads mentioned above, but read the sign post an follow it's instructions. (When it mentions the gears, they're way over on the west side, and there's a big on and a little one right next to each other)
- Visit each corner of Looming. Each has a hidden signpost that says "The (direction) star shines (direction). record each one. Then head over to the four lightposts. (To get there, head north at the beginning, west when you come to the cross, and then north when you see the buried gear) Each "star" corresponds to one of the four lightposts (southeastern is the bottom right one, etc.) Rotate the lightposts by pressing X in front of them so that they correspond to the "stars".
-Collect all six pieces of the shattered diagram. Go to the lightposts using the above method. Each corner of the diagram has a symbol which corresponds to a lightpost (The symbol in the upper left corresponds to the upper left lightpost, etc.) The diagram makes pretty clear which lightpost goes where.