I had to read the instructions closely to understand how to cook the little guys. Once you get it it's fun to play, altho after a while it's a bit repetitive. I absolutely loved the little sounds they make, that was the highlight for me :D I don't know if there was a drawback of letting them starve, there probably wasn't enough time to implement that mechanic to the fulest or maybe it was to keep the world clear of too many little guys. They often went off-screen which I thought ment I lost them at first so I had to combine them quickly. Also since there's no restrictions to the merging, the easiest strategy was to take one and keep adding each required piece. I think a good improvement would be to add the restriction that you can only combine n-1 with n merged lil'guys. Like a lil guy of 4 can only merge with 3, 4 or 5. That way one has to plan the sequences while keeping them in check (either because they leave or because they starve and die while you prepare the combinations).
I think the game has potential and I haven't seen a submission of the genre (combination matching), the other cooking games had no particular restriction on how you put the ingredients. Well done.