Thank you for playing our game and giving so detailed comments! I'm glad you picked up on the theme. Narrative-wise, we would have loved to spend more time developing our story. The idea we had was to have the player experience different stages of the whale's life - so it was meant to be the same whale, and injuries from its past would be carried onto its older forms, but the whale can gain back health by eating food from the second stage and older.
I like your suggestion for the items, our design was directed towards items that would represent each stage of the whale's life. It definitely could have been incorporated in a more cohesive way into the story/theme.
In future iterations of the game we would want to think of ways to age up the whale while keeping the unique aesthetic of each level, as well as developing the narrative. I would also love to learn to programme more complex abilities for the player, or design more level features, so that the gameplay will be more challenging and stimulating. (I'm still quite new to programming so still learning!) For now, we just hope that people can enjoy the vibes in a low-stress context, just as an introduction to the world and the theme.