(Now that this game has been fully released, I want to make a proper review using my original critique as the baseline)
First off, I can't stress how excited and surprised I am by the final release; there are tons of different gamejam games that I've played and that have never been completed, fixed, done anything with, etc. that I was expecting this game to go down a similar path. The fact that this game got to see a full revamped release is honestly something really commendable that I wish more game devs would do.
Now, onto the old critiques I had and how they stack:
1. (Block physics) So with the new textures on the blocks and the background layer of the game, you can clearly tell how each block will react to their environment and which way the columns are facing. They all have set movements they can make whether they are on grass or plain floor, so this gets a pass with flying colors
2. (Puzzle scaling) Strangely enough, each area to get a new animal feels as though they aren't connected to previous ones in terms of difficulty; for example, when going to get the deer, the difficulty for the puzzles seem to have no correlation to any previous puzzles. This isn't a bad thing as the opening of the game gives you a set trail to follow, so while the difficulty gets easy between animals, you never feel as though it completely falls off and get more of a feeling as though you're passing through game levels
3. (The fox) The fox is the most overpowered animal in the game, and even though it's the first and easiest animal to get, you can bypass getting it until the end (but why would you want to not have all that power??)
4. (The audio) What I found really interesting about the audio is that, while there are a couple of tracks that play on loop, there are pockets of just white noise; in other games, this would seem like an oversight, but with the atmosphere of the game (you're in a sick forest doing puzzles to save spirit animals), each pocket of white noise feels somehow refreshing as it finds a way to reset your mental clock doing the tough puzzles
5. (The otter) The otter received a few massive updates in this build:
A. You can push certain blocks in the water and move them around, adding an extra layer to each of the puzzles that utilize them
B. Even though you have the otter, you can't just bypass puzzles altogether; puzzles now have less ways to cheese, and later ones outright require the more OP animals (swimming, column breaking, tree climbing) to be able to progress
6. (Progression) While the game feels really open-ended with exploration, you'll quickly find that there is an order for collecting the animals; the only animal that is optional is the fox, but to get to new animal areas (or to even do some of the puzzles) you have to grab them in a specific order. Luckily, there are no soft-locks that I could find in the game through two playthroughs
7. (My only gripe) The second to last puzzle in the game was the hardest puzzle to do; I have no idea if I cheesed the whole owl sequence or this was intended to make the player lose their mind with how 3 of the 4 owl puzzles were extremely easy, but if this was intended, it's both brilliant and malicious
All in all, this final release was a nice breath of fresh air and on the mark for what I was hoping would come out of it. Nice puzzles, atmosphere, and exploration allow for this tiny indie game to really pop out in terms of playability and fun!
Here's my playthrough (this playthrough was of the original full release; some of the puzzles have been updated after this video was made):