Thanks for the kind words, ricky :)
There was meant to be a checkpoint just past the second door, but it looks like something happened to it in the exported build... whoops. My brother ran into the same problem. As for the fickle enemy AI, that's just from a lack of experience on my part.
The art was driven by a few different factors - we needed something simple to fit time constraints, so that meant avoiding textures and detailed meshes, and I wanted to make sure we still had some kind of visual clarity. Though it wasn't until roughly 30 minutes before the deadline that I decided to go all-in with the low-res visuals... initially, they faded in when you hit pause or died.
But mostly it was made on a whim when a friend suggested "echolocation?" haha