This is insane.
The atmosphere you manage to invoke merely by playing the droning of the text along with the snow... The restraint you display as creatives by using such underhanded visuals and daring to take so long on the opening text...
This is not even addressing how cleanly the mechanics are presented.
I wish I could leave a more insightful review, but what can I even say? This is an incredible feat. I think this one might genuinely be full marks from be for every criteria. Actually it feels silly to even rank them on this scale.
I think what I love about this concept so much is that you've created a setting where the player would really want to explore as much as possible, but also strongly disincentivize it using energy and cold. Not quite a horror game, but a _very_ lonely game. Take this with a grain of salt because I'm just some guy on the internet, but I do mean it when I say this: I think you could develop this project into a full game, and I would pay money to play it.
I have some small bugs/issues to report. I normally wouldn't mention things this detailed for a gamejam, but this is so good I want to give some pointers in case you decide to take this further:
- Some of the text on item pickup disappeared a bit too fast for me to read.
- If I accidentally drop something (which I did a few times reflexively due to the big "x" my smooth brain interprets as a QTE), I can't pick it up again.
- It would be nice to have feedback when I use a rope.
- After dying the first time, it's hard to shake the feeling that the best thing wouldn't be to just refresh the page, as now I've cleared away all the useful items.
- The smallest nit I have ever picked: I'd have called the game "the last descend" rather than "the last climb" because that made me think I needed to go up at first.
That's enough rambling for now. I'm going to play your game some more. I'm not done yet. I just couldn't wait to tell you how I feel about it.
EDIT: I finished the game! I stand by what I said. What a game.
I think the thumbnail might be underselling the atmosphere. I might have just used a screenshot from the game.