Love the GBC aesthetic. NICE.
After starting, I thought the game was broken because it looked like a screen shot. Tried pressing some buttons, but it didn't do anything. I almost quit before accidentally hitting the spacebar and progressing the dialogue. I think you could get around this issue with idle animations, some sort of sound (music, ambience, etc.), and a button prompt in the beginning that teaches how to progress dialogue.
The spike things look too much like save flames. As such, they don't read as dangerous and leave me confused why I'm getting hurt.
I appreciate that your layouts don't feel haphazardly thrown together (a common issue with jam games). That said, I truly have no idea where to go. Every path seems blocked out of the gate.