Would you say that Withering Realms can be played without playing Withering Rooms beforehand?
I personally don't think it makes any sense to play them in reverse order. Realms is a full sequel and built directly on top of what Rooms establishes, and I think it would lessen the experience of both games to do so. And Rooms is such a lovely game with such cool world building and lore that it deserves its spotlight as your first game in the setting. And trust me, you'll get used to the 2.5D in no time.
I really enjoy your post in these discussion threads, and many of the games you talked about have landed in my bookmarks, like, for example, The Drifter.
I'm glad. Sometimes I don't know if my tendency to take the community rules as guidelines is taken well or not, hah. I do the same smudging of the line in the Patient Gaming community at times. And I hope you do get to The Drifter at some point. What a great game that was.