Great visuals and polish! Same as someone mentioned below, it reminded me of Codenames, which works pretty well.
I got the first handful of hints correct which responded with big glitches and an X mark which felt like I had made a mistake. The first round I just went with what I thought it was, got 4 X's and then the text said "locked out of level 1". In other words, getting the puzzle right felt like I got it wrong based on the way the game responded. That flow could use a bit of a re-design to point the player in the right direction.
The UI in my game is text heavy and I circle things that should probably be crossed out, so I understand and agree that gameplay and working systems come first! Your descriptions helped me figure things out and the game ran really nicely--impressive job!
The only other note I have is that the music worked really well for the title screen, but was too energetic for gameplay which is mostly sitting and thinking--a chiller track for the core gameplay loop might be nice.
Overall, great job!