First of all, it kind of bothers me that for what is a story with elements of action and intrigue, The Awakened makes telling and explaining its primary narrative mode. Character relationships are stated instead of shown, worldbuilding is mostly exposited, and there are tangents where societal issues of marginal relation to the story are discussed at length – the game simply feels undernarrativized. One aspect contributing to this is the lack of narration. It feels very surprising, considering the subject matter; the physicality, the sensations of transformation don't really come across.
Also, while I get the sense that the tonal whiplash is intentional, I'm not sure if the game leans quite hard enough into it to really sell the absurd vibes. It feels like the story is more so using its light mood as a means of sandpapering away aspects of the premise that would cause friction and conflict. This kind of approach can work if done well, but here I think it causes the game to lose a lot of its stakes.
Regarding the presentation: though there's a lot of art, I'm not really sure if the quality vs. quantity tradeoff is worth it here. You can see plenty of signs of game jam rush, like many of the sprites having parts of their ears cut off.
And, as for the jam's theme, the idea is obvious enough and even firmly grounded in what was established about the setting, but the (admittedly good) punchline nevertheless feels a little tacked on instead of being what the story is about.