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Thanks for playing Patrick! And for the detailed comment! You were very transparent, direct and reflective, which I really appreciate! Thank you for the support towards becoming better at game dev!
You are 100% correct, many of the issues of gameplay could be fixed if I spend a bit more time in playtesting with other people. As you have noted, things tend to just get added at the last minute, that would be immensely better if properly coded and tested. Unfortunately, we only have the end product to work with every time hehe.

Approaching the theme "tell a story using sound", I really wished to emphasise the sound part, and how it could be used to tell the story. Other the in-game presentation of the suggestion "R to checkpoint", for people who didn't read the instruction and got frustrated, the only text that (now that we are chatting here I could also have omitted using more jumbled up words) would be the "missing" on the poster.

(All of this I hope to have on my devlog, please do not take it at as an aggressive rant or anything lol. Its a great draft for me, so thanks for the chance to express them in written format before I begin the audio recording! 

The protagonist/player goes on a quest to find the "missing" creature. The blowing of the wind serves to set the tone, and also reveal the "!" signs, giving information to the player, but not the protagonist. Perhaps "danger" and "survival" is hinted through the wind and snow. 

The door shuts (wind again), vision diminishes, and the protagonist, who started as the hero on the quest to find the missing creature, is now lost themselves in darkness. The sound of footsteps are the only information that may be available, and the patterns of wall, water, wooden paths and tiled platforms with pressure light switches. Metal sheets were supposed to work as road bumps to support changes in direction.

Finally, wondering in the dark you hear the music through the headphones of the creature, and are no longer missing (neither it, nor you). It could have been cries for help, a meowing sound or a muffled beeper (had the cat animations from the first week so I just used those in the last second)

So you are right, that's the story I wanted to portray, of the process of finding something missing, getting lost going from "the hero who saves" become "the blind fool in the unknown", before blindly finding it, and yourself in the process. 

Thanks again for helping me with the feedback in the comment! (and extra thanks for the opportunity to actually spell it all out)