
You could interact with the environment as far as finding things that reveal the character of other townspeople, and maybe you could open up new towns as you went along, but the crux of the game would be social interactions.
I guess if you wanted, you could help other people with tasks, but the point is to make a game that basically resembles the first part of an RPG, but there is no "quest" aside from building social relationships. No big bad or good vs. evil storyline, and any ending to the game would just be you solidifying who you are and are not friends with.