Ok so I just revisited it, and it looks like the issue is that if you die and use the pause menu to retry, the exit becomes bugged and unusable. So I had gotten stuck at the end of level 1 at first due to that bug.
I have now successfully gotten through the full game, killed every guard, and looted everything I could (including my hand). I actually really like being able to combo a big group of guards using the pistols dropped by each one you kill! It'd be even more satisfying to pull off if they had smarter AI to contend against, but I def understand sticking to simpler stuff for a jam..
As for the shared bullet issue, I don't think it'd be a problem if bullets were a separate item on their own, but since they're built into the guns it essentially means you lose a bullet when you fire a gun while holstering another and that just doesn't make sense.
Also, I know you can't fix any of this for the jam but here's a few more things I noticed, in case you folks plan to revisit this later:
1. The menu interface isn't consistently responsive, and sometimes you have to hunt around for where on the screen you need to click to interact with it. From what I can tell, it appears the click detection doesn't account for world rotation.
2. Resetting through the menu doesn't reset your loot count.
3. You can mute the music from the pause menu but it doesn't seem like you can re-enable it.