Oh boy oh boy...
After reading your description and the others comments I thought: "Someone put some efforts but made a kinda difficult game at the beginning with an ending that no one has seen??? Not on my watch!"
I tried and tried and tried. I made a map of your maze, I put the location of the houses. I made a map of the forest, and put the houses. I did not make a map of the third location, I think I have the gist of how it looks, and know where the houses are.
But I am stuck. Third house you can't enter, third location. There is a bird outside that follows me. Is it the end? Do I have to go somewhere else? If you tell me I might try one last time... to see the end.
But until now, what I can review is:
- The art is good! The pencil effect, the persistence of the image and the animation put us in the mood you clearly want us to have.
- The birds are scary at first (and still a bit in the end). But mostly annoying. And that is also intended. However, sometimes they show inside houses and make you move also, which might not be intended.
- The house should not spawn one after another. That is something bad. You lost your way, you wander around and finally find a house. Your first reflex is NOT to go back on your feet to check what you already checked.
- The audio hint is weird. It is there for the first two houses, disappeared until the third location...
- The camera.............. This. This is the real reason why everyone one drop the game before finishing it. I understand that the zoom in follows the overall logic. You are anxious around others, you like to stay safe, alone inside a house or something. Far from the crowed. And the zoom in symbolize the centering around yourself effect, wanting all the surrounding to just disappears and being alone again. But here you are, trying to find your way, trying to find a home, and you cannot see anything but big birds taking your whole screen and blocking your movements... I know it is a cool metaphor and might be an important element to the "story". But it is bad, really bad. I tried some many times because of this.
- A menu, a pause or a restart button? ;)
- Borders. Well, only the third locations don't have borders but it should have some. I wander in a random direction for a long time before going back and realize I had to follow the sound of houses... sound that was not here since the beginning !!!
- Is there something like all birds have different effects? And they are stronger together? That would be the only tiny link to the theme imo. You feel clearly stronger alone, and other birds are just annoying, being alone or together...
Well. It is a very interesting game. The mood is clear and you understand almost instinctively the story, because you live it. And it is not a happy one.
The level design is lacking. I find level design being something quite hard, and your game proves how important it is ;)
You have clearly done a lot of efforts to make that game, very good job. And I think you know what to work on to continue ;)