Wow, this is really crazy to hear! Do the other options work? I'm very happy to help you work through this, or get my son involved directly, he'll be losing sleep tonight knowing there is a problem!
He wonders if you could try the "Y" key and report back. Also, maybe gently try a few other keys and see if it's a weird mapping issue. He really wants to work through this. I'm not sure how to reach out via DM on itch.io, but I can give you our website which has our email addresses in case you think this conversation is not interesting to the public?
He was SO excited to hear this! He wonders if you are using a Qwertz keyboard instead of Qwerty? Are you in Europe somewhere? He actually heard about the Qwertz keyboard and thought it was so interesting that there is an Easter Egg Qwertz keyboard hidden in No Anglerfish! He is thinking he should file a bug report with Python about this issue Thanks for working through this with us!
He should have discussed the undocumented fact that you can use a gamepad as an alternative option. If you go to the options screen and click your gamepad buttons, it will show you the appropriate mappings! I'm surprised that there aren't more Z/Y issues for people using the German keyboard! Let us know if you find the Quertz keyboard in the actual game :
Sorry, haven't checked itch for a while. Yes, I got further of course, but it's been a while since I played the game. Just didn't want to leave the 6th comment here :D I liked it a lot! It's very chill and the puzzles are very clever. If there is one thing I would improve it would be the music. I would wish for something more easy listening tbh. There are a lot of free music archives where you could just pick a free song.