Thank you very much for taking the time to play our game and to write such an elaborate response! Having immersive HUD elements is one of the goals we had for this game jam. We wanted to use as little UI as possible, but there were some areas where we probably should have stuck to the status quo (mostly concerning player and enemy health). As for the gameplay, I think a big lesson I've learned during this game jam is that it's important to playtest, playtest, and playtest some more, and be receptive of the feedback you receive. During our playtesting, our artist and music producer mentioned that the boat level felt too long. I made it quite a bit shorter, if you can believe it, but I for sure didn't cut it down to what they felt was right. From reading these comments, I can tell I for sure need to trust others' opinions on how the game feels more. I hope any game developers reading this that might also be prone to doing as I did can learn from my mistakes as well.
Thank you so much for your compliments about how good the graphics are! It took a lot of work from all 3 of us to make this game look and feel good, and I'm very happy that so many people seem to be enjoying it!