*ETA: My trouble was just that I was carving the wrong runes. Once I carved the right rune I didn't have any trouble with the mechanic.*
Now this is really impressive. The interface is so smooth and polished, the art is beautiful, and the premise is unique and appealing. Super professional all over! I really got drawn in.
I just couldn't get the wood carving to work, though. It's tough to draw very precise shapes with a mouse, and I don't have any sense of how precisely I have to trace the line for it to count. I tried it 5 times and he rejected them all, and I don't know whether it was the symbols, the order, or my tracing job.
It would help if you started off with a practice round where you carve just one rune and it tells you exactly which one, so you can practice tracing.
(Possible bug: When you put down "locate + fish + love", "fish" jumps from the middle to the left. Not sure whether that was why he kept rejecting my carvings.)