Thank you for extensive review!
Fullscreen is really something that should've been done.
Yes, game is quite difficult, and there is a fragile balance between "artsy" idea of orienting only by sound trying to remember where have you already been and, well, player's willingness to participate in that maybe-not-so-enjoyable experience. I tried to implement tips yesterday as well as stereo sound and sadly did not succeed in both at all (my coding experience is, well, a week - I never even tried coding before that). It's really making me sad that not a lot of people will play to the end, because I worked really hard on the final stuff :(
Funny thing is that if you saw an actual map it's not reslly that complicated, but without an image it turns out to be very hard.
If you still would love to try again (SPOILERS AHEAD) fireplace is to the north-east from the starting point:)
As for the audio, I wrote the whole thing in love2d so I guess this counts as custom audio solution? :D
This message contains spoilers, be aware!
Gave it a second shot! After looping back to the chasm twice I finally called it quits.
However, I noticed a file called "Voice in Fire.love". Having worked a lil bit with love2d before, I took the liberty to rip the whole thing open and look a bit inside. To begin with, for having programmed for a week, good job! The code was understandeable, and peeking through it I got a pretty good image of what the ending was.
I read through this (and poked around in the audio files), and it's like a very nice poem, and I bet it would look very good when played through (yes I am damaged / have done gamedev long enough to the point where I can visualize from just reading the code. Also it was not super complex). To me it's still a bit unclear how everything is connected, but I really like what I can make out of it all. (pasting it in here so others can get a chance to read it)
I think you did a really good job for your first time, and I think you should keep at it. You seem to be having really interesting ideas, and I'd love to see where things go!
Thank you very much! I will definitely try to participate in more game jams from now on. I had a very long period of depression until recently so was not able to do much, but now, well, will take from life the most I can while I can :D Already have some ideas for the next projects :)
As for clarity - given that I hadn't much time narrative is a little bit all over the place, but I actually prefer things that are not very clear. I like David Lynch a lot :D