Been playing for quite a long time and couldn't figure out how to escape. But other than that, the fact that I kept playing for so long means it's a pretty good game!
Things I liked:
- Simple mechanics, simple gameplay, engaging nonetheless. I really like simple games that do a lot with what they got. You got a simple mechanic of mixing up stuff and seeing what it gets and managed to get good gameplay loop, that's pretty admirable!
- Letting the player explore and not giving too many tips went really well with this system. Exploration is something I really like in games and I think you got it right.
- Even without traditional graphics and sounds you got it working. I think it feels a lot like some table top game, which is neat!
Things that could be improved:
- Presentation as a whole is lacking, but I'm sure you know it. Even though I praised the tabletop feel, I think more could have been done to enhance it.
- Everytime I collected something with a card on the use/craft slots, they would disappear. I had to put another card for them to reappear for some reason.
- Some mechanical nitpicks: the way hunger would just pick a food item and rearrange your inventory during crafting (samething with the various expiring cards) was messing up my recipe a lot, together with the fact that you couldn't rearrange items on the slots + you would always remove them all together made for a very messy experience trying to craft stuff. Also not letting us pick which food the hunger would take was a bit sad too, automatically going for the best food everytime instead of the closest one to expire was an odd choice. Lots of minor stuff that aren't really that important to be honest but they they add up and are easy to fix in case you want to develop the game further.