This was such a fun experience!! I thought it was going to be complicated based on the description, but once I actually started playing it, it was surprisingly straightforward. The artwork and music were also very charming as well!
I think an expanded tutorial and the addition of a couple more mechanics could make this into an extremely compelling full release. I'd love to see what you can do with this idea!
I'm not the best at coming up with mechanics, but here goes! Firstly, maybe some items that help the townsfolk in different ways: an axe that can be used to break a fixed number of walls, or a bottle of alcohol that calms their nerves. That way, the player has to manage both trapping the townsfolk in a loop while also ensuring they can't access the items (or they have to choose the lesser of two evils if it's impossible to accomplish both). Maybe certain items could also be used to lure townfolk into desirable positions?
Outside of that, I think there's a lot of room to add variation to your existing mechanics. Maybe different villager types? Claustrophobes get more scared when trapped in smaller loops, while agoraphobes get more scared by larger loops. Or introverted townsfolk that are more scared to be trapped with other townsfolk, while extroverts are more scared to be trapped alone. Different mansion types or rooms could be good here as well: a room with stairs where you have to manage two floors at once could be cool, I think!
Hopefully that's at least a tiny bit helpful; also, I have no idea how difficult these ideas would be to implement, so skip over anything that would take like a month's worth of work haha
