I feel like most of the smaller mysteries in the game are meant to just be a thing that the player discovers and thinks about on their own, with little to no handholding or direct messages telling them why.
An observant player can probably connect some of the dots. Their shrimp has begun randomly disappearing, and the camp they found in the forest also has empty shrimp packs in it, so they might connect the dots and think "Whoever lives here likes shrimp." After touching the box or stealing something, a player might notice the Slapper before they get hit, or they might not and simply be clueless as to what happened.
Viewing post in Voices of the Void 0.8.2 feedback
I understand the game isn't supposed to be handholdy, and I think that's fine.
I suppose I only get frustrated when I actually die. I don't mind not understanding things, but when I get kicked back to the main menu and am loading a save, I am being directly punished. Punishing the player for something you don't want to dissuade is a mistake imo.
If my experience is the intended one, that's fine. But from my perspective it doesn't feel great, and the stuff with the gun feels misleading. (there were no shrimp packs fwiw, the only items there were the lamp, chest, and the "too hot to pick up" item.) (also, afaik there is only 1 shrimp pack in the game, so like it's a singular dot to try and connect) I did find the shrimp packs when reloading my save and looking again.
Like if I hadn't looked stuff up, I probably would assume the aliens are always hostile, and never try to interact/investigate with that part of the game again. This is the first direct encounter with aliens I've had, so I would probably assume all aliens are hostile, and that the game operates like any survival horror at this point.