This was a cute little game, it's a shame you didn't have enough time to add in a goal or gameplay loop.

All of the sprites look great - especially the plants and potions- and it is very clear how much time you had dedicated to the Green and Red books which look ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL.

A few small improvements to things that stood out to me which would just require small alterations that only require minimal time and effort:

Screen Size - the UI doesn't properly fit on the screen which is not a big issue (I only found out how out how to set it the day of the submission xD), but even when full-screened the game remains a set size and requires zooming in multiple times for the text to be readable. I don't even know what you had to do to limit it like this as I've never experienced it when working on 2D projects, so I sadly can't give a tip on how to fix it, but you should look into how to set it to scale up for future projects.

Collision - the collision dimensions are not very suitable for the viewing angle of this type of 2D game, when I tried walking into and around the houses, I noticed that it appears that your collider is sized for what you would expect for a more top-down game like Poke'mon where your character is much more square, your character is able to walk behind the back of most of the building, while only being able to move within a few feet of the front. This would be so much nicer if the player's colliders were only around their feet, which would allow them to walk right up to the house. The house colliders also could be improved where allowing the player to move behind the sprite is completely fine, but at the moment it feels like the house has no depth to it, if you increased how high the collider went it would feel more natural with how close you are able to pass behind the building.
Here's a quick example of how this would look for the two colliders:

Backdrop - the background art looks great, but this would absolutely have benefited to the actual backdrop for the game behind that being the same or perhaps a darker shade to the trees at the edge rather than remaining the what I'd guess is the default blue

Overall most of my score is coming from the truly amazing job you did on the visuals xD
I would love to see how this game would look in the completed state you had been aiming for, this is the second game I've really really liked the concept of but sadly the creator wasn't able to find much time during the jam to dedicate to it. I really hope next jam you get enough time to have the game in a state that is satisfying so it can truly shine with your amazing pixel art skills. :D

Well, it is functional, which is always an accomplishment during a jam, though it is (and it looks like by your admission as well) pretty sparse. Not much to do at the moment except walk around and tap "E" on items on the map. Lots of references in this game to things that were presumably cut due to time as well, like the potion effects that refer to HP despite there not actually being HP in the game or anything that would cause you to lose it. Couldn't find the firefly one or the wing item either, but don't know if that's a me problem. Bit underwhelming having the alchemy component of this be automatic since you have the recipes and all, as well as the game being called "Ash and Ember" even though there's not actually an Ash (as far as I could tell) in the game.

Most if not all of these are things you probably already know, just giving my thoughts on the experience. I'll also say that the font, while pretty, was kinda tough to read, even in fullscreen. Always a solid effort to get a jam entry done though.

[general note that I may change ratings as I look through the submissions - the primary rating criteria is relative to other entries, but I want to get my thoughts down on each before I forget them]