I appreciate the feedback! And I'm very happy to hear it was accessible enough for the whole family to enjoy. This originally started inspired by Mario and Banjo Kazooie so that means a lot.
The game is meant to be pretty light-hearted. There is a horror section in the rest of the game that might be a bit scary I suppose. As for the gunplay, it came out of the fact the first area is a western and it felt like a simple first boss fight before getting the singing ability. I might revisit the dialogue as my thought was to remind you to use the money to buy a lozenge, and feel a bit remorseful for stealing it unknowingly.
I'm probably going to go back to what I had originally for the map and lock down the first few areas to guide you along a bit better. Enough people mentioned it and I agree I maybe went too much in the non-linear direction for the demo.