Wow, thanks for such a detailed review! I knew my game was lacking in several aspects, so I'm not ashamed to admit I'm still really new to storytelling in game-format. I purposely wanted to leave what the monster did as "ambiguous"- that is to say; I didn't intend for it to exactly come across as a dream-like sequence, so hearing that as a description was really interesting and something that hadn't crossed my mind! I wanted the idea of a demon/creature "devouring" a person in some abstract/hard to describe way- something that would render the victim as "missing" to the public. I must admit: I initially started the idea with the girl and her father in the intro being the main focus, but somewhere along development, I switched it to a more modern story. At the time, I did realize how odd it looked to have the co-worker and boss to have a really simple sprite;; Apologies for that, really!
I think I thought that having limited music was a decent way to encapsulate a more "horror" feel- and for some reason, the audio I've included in the game just doesn't play in the browser version. This happened to me during development, so that was completely unintentional;;; ((As far as I'm aware, the downloadable version's audio seems to be working properly.))
I do appreciate the further criticisms and tips, though- I agree that the first chase does leave players at a disadvantage. As for the beginning area: I suppose I wanted the player to be able to interact with things before rushing off to another map- I see now how this is frustrating to some. (The game only needed 5 different items to be interacted with to proceed- though what I thought could be a more charming experience, ended up a bit more sloggish/time consuming than I intended.)
The demon/creature was somewhat intended to confuse and cause hallucination type situations- even ones that might seem "dream-like" or "could give the person whatever they'd want"- but I also wanted it to be obvious that it was a strange, eerie farce; like the monster really was just toying with it's "food". Maybe I went a bit overboard with not being as descriptive as I could've been.
Of course, I'm not negating your review in any way- I think this is fair and gives me much to think about when it comes to developing things going forward! I hope to be able to make a game in the future that feels nice to play for people besides myself- I'd like to expand my horizons! :> Thank you so much for the review and for hosting the jam!