(Edited:) Now my major critical feedback, this is the stuff that *might* - *might*- stop me - or some other people - playing the game, or enjoying it so much.
1 - the mining minigame
First off, as I mentioned in my first comment (probably anonymous?), the Zelda style mining minigame is kinda tedious. I grant you that it does give the immersive feeling of grinding like a slave. Oddly enough it succeeds in that. Even more oddly, uniquely even, in this game feeling like a grind is actually a good thing. But it's very scrappy and clunky. On an Android sized screen the icons are really hard to differentiate. Icons like pots and corpses that are 'containers' need to give a feedback when they're searched after they're empty. I am never sure if I am clicking in the wrong square or the wrong facing. I'm forever routing around and around Khadra's desk when I try to talk to her. It's like the Keystone cops. Routing paths sometimes fail. I trigger repeated warnings from the guards by pathing failures and button mashing. Most immersion breaking probably is characters spawning in unreachable locations that I have to mine to get to. That's pseudo-challenge as well as immersion breaking. There's plenty of reasons to mine, but reaching another slave character should not be one of them - not unless say it was a short cut or for a clandestine conversation.
Also on the lower levels the drop rate of valuable drops seems to go down dramatically? I assume the drop rate is Luck based so I expected it to go up not down.
Losing everything to the robbers is darkly funny and fits with the atmosphere of despair, but it's also kind of pointless. When you know it's coming it means you have more resources than you can use, and it makes your interactions with the alchemist almost pointless. I would suggest adding some useful thing that can be done with those resources from part 1. Either giving them to people or something, if not actually being able to stash them somewhere.
It is quite frustrating that there is more or less nothing you can do to influence the monster attacks, apart from stop mining and leave the mine. The battles themselves are tactically very limited, even after you get special attacks, but particularly before. It is frustrating that you can't even attempt to run away or attempt to get help from the guards or other slaves - which could have interesting effects on story and affection. At minimum you need to demonstrate or explain why escape or aid (vs these slow moving creatures) is not possible. Have the guards block your way to "protect the others" and leave you to it, for example. It could even depend on your Affection level with the particular nearby guard (or slave), and perhaps change over time.
There is, TBH, an internal inconsistency between Matron needing the slaves alive and useful and the guards low interest in protecting them that at least needs clarification. We get the impression that the guards are handling the major threats, and as the story goes on we see this more, but frankly the "Darwinist" approach is doubtless their beliefs but it doesn't make sense as an action when slaves are scarce, time is short, everyone wants this over and done with, and the Matron is demanding results not excuses.
Hmm, if guards or slaves would arrive to help after some rounds of combat, that would give value to the Guard action in single combat. Of course calling for help would reduce experience and loot gains, create obligations, lead to punishment and affection loss etc.
1a - Less serious
Probably the values for Bread and Water (and Apples) should be openly declared. I figured them out by experiment. That's not bad, it's just inconsistent with openly declaring the exact effects of Cheese and Sausages. Declare or don't declare, for all items equally.
There should be more opportunity to use Items (or spend skill points) just before being summoned to the Torture Chamber or arena. Like a "please give me a minute" option. It's a win-win for them if you are properly prepared.
1b - Other Minor UI stuff
Minor issue, the acronym "SP" is ambiguous, you use it to mean both Stamina Points and Skill Points. Change one of the terms or one of the acronyms.
I am often seeing only the first 3 digits displayed of the "next experience level" part of the XP display, clipping off the last 1-2 digits which makes the information meaningless. If that's hard to fix just leave off the next level value and just show the actual value. There's other places we can see our progress towards levelling.