Hell yeah. This should be a finalist. When I finished it, i wanted to play more. I would buy a full game.
The only teeny tiny thing that it's a bit annoying it's that the character moves slowly at times, but I think it was made on purpose to push the player at using the shard. Maybe in the full game you could add power-ups that make the player faster, in the style of Hollow Knight. Great, great idea.