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i like the art, music, and sfx, but the controls proved obnoxious. I kept accidentally dbl-right-clicking outside the game frame and navigating away from the game.

Mark Rosewater - Fun

Mark has an article about making sure your game is Fun, he's talking about board and card games, but I think it's relevant to most games.

I understand the desire to push the player towards confrontation with the final boss. I don't think Food is the right tool for that goal.

The scarcity of food doesn't make sense. If food was that scarce, all the people would have starved to death. Real world people can go days to weeks without food, in game you're lucky to last a day.

To clarify my points:

* Foraging, as currently implemented, is not fun.
* Food, as currently implemented, eventually makes foraging mandatory.
* Eventually, Not Fun is Mandatory.

The other things were suggestions to make it more fun or at least less not-fun.

Food should be a resource to manage, It should not dominate the game play. Food seems too hard to come by and the consequences of not having it are too quickly dire. 

I have greatly enjoyed the game overall and just have that one complaint.

Side Note: Pucker Lips should be usable while kneeling.

I understand the want to include food and hunger to the game, especially since it ties into a game over, but I have some concerns.

The early game play is fine because there are a lot of encounter that provide food, but as the game wears on such encounters get fewer and farther between. When that happens food starts to dominate the game play, and foraging as it exists now is not fun.

I don't know what the logic is like, but it seems like you succeed while foraging less than half the time. While I haven't done significant tests, the Forager perk doesn't seem to do anything. I had taken to save scumming to get around it, especially since the bird event takes your virginity.

Companions:
* It makes sense for companions to consume food, but they should increase the yield of successful foraging.
* Having companions should not cause you to starve faster. i.e. only lose 5-10 HP per time period when out of food

The Foraging Events are oppressive. If you don't want to lower their frequency, you could add mitigating factors and allow you to continue foraging if the hazard is passed:
* Stealth to avoid the Bird.
* Scouting to avoid getting lost.
* Perception or Agility to avoid the hole.

Consider reduced food consumption when resting, sleeping, or riding on the coach, especially when already at full health. The reasoning being that you need less food when you're less active.

I was really irritated how much food the Mouth Fiend encounter consumed.

Incidentally noticed a bug with the hunger charm, when you get multiples, they are all equipped or unequipped as a group.