Too harsh? Nope.
In my case, I had a unique struggle. My game is a bit short. So I felt that to make a demo, without giving the whole game away... I had to use the tutorial zones as the demo.
And I wanted to keep the tutorial a bit "silly", because a lot of game tutorials, I just don't find fun.
But hearing your perspective was great, too. As I said on my page... your video made my day. One particular piece of feedback also helped me to clear up where to go with a particular detail when it comes to the demo (your feedback on zone 3). I ended up deciding that zone 3 really didn't make much sense in the context of the demo, so I decided to save that part for the full game
As for the monster which turns into a box... I'm still thinking about that. I think it'd work a little better if I can at least try to fix it where the player can't see through the box. But I'll see about it. The box reminds me of a small and vicious canine - lol. :)