I never played the games you were inspired by but I was able to figure it out without the tutorial somehow and won the game. Very interesting game and mechanic, really well done and nice atmosphere with the polished visuals and nice sound effects. Really nice job on this one!
To improve it, some things like dragging the compass to the ship, and clicking the holy water, seemed not to respond very easily to clicks and needed to be done multiple times after delays or in certain way for it to work,. Even when it was done only once in a long time it would still not respond until doing it multiple times or in some particular way. Putting all other items away and trying again also did not help at all so it was easier for me to leave them all out. Other than that I think it's a really cool game!