Ok, I tried again knowing the existence of the footprints this time and I finally found the house and won AHAHA
Feedback now that I’ve cleared the game: the footprints are footprint shaped knowing that they’re there, but I think I originally thought they were rocks or just completely did not realize, since they’re colored pretty closely to the trees and earthiness going on. Even knowing they were footprints, I realized after coming across a number that I wasn’t entirely sure if the direction they were facing was actually indicative of the right direction to go since a number would conflict with one in its vicinity, so I proximity guessed the right way to go haha
The game definitely became more challenging after knowing to follow the footprints, in a good way so I wasn’t just randomly leading the boy around the forest!