Thanks a lot! Yeah, the idea of running out of mana was to prod the player into using alchemy. It was also supposed to be part of the challenge. Maybe if I had balanced things better, it would have been fine as is, but I agree with most of the criticisms about it.
I'm glad you enjoyed the texture style I went with. Its something I experimented with on my last project and really liked, but felt it could be improved.
Also, putting the red text color for missing ingredients was on the list of things to do, but didn't get around to it before I submitted.
Overall, I'm pretty proud of this entry.