I love it! The music is really groovy, the sound effects are nice, and I love the extensive use of dithering. The music reminds me of sequenced music on some late 90s game consoles, maybe some romplers/rompler plugins were used in the music production? Really nicely done!
I initially explored randomly and found myself dead at the desert...and the temple...and the village...and the jungle...
Then I found the beach and realized you can farm crabs for Crab Meat and stats, spammed Z for a bit and cracked a bunch of crabs and took their meat and shells. Got enough to buy a spear and some armor. Tried to fight the desert spirit but realized I didn't equip my new purchases, but I still got destroyed even with these upgrades. Died a couple more times and the shell loss bummed me out but I eventually got enough for a fishing rod, got some fish, and then on day 74 and at level 5, I defeated a desert spirit.
Started to farm those for a while, got some more fish, then made my way to other parts of the map I died at before. Got to max level, and I got the golden key, thought it would be used for the waterfall, but I entered the pyramid. Got a high score of 123 days and 6 deaths.
Really excellent project, great job!