WOW. Just WOW. I love this SO much. :O <3
I love the simplistic palette and art style. It's so effective. The environment and atmosphere... and just level of immersiveness that you've managed to create with such a simplistic style is so impressive.
I felt so bad for 'little bud' every time I failed him. :(
So much emotion and sense of story in this entry.
I also liked how you took the idea of 'loop' to also give the player a chance to figure things out each 'cycle'. Like each time I lost the plant, I was sad, but there was also an equal 'Aha' moment of discovery.
I think my only note of feedback was I didn't know how much health I had. I loved that I had to keep choosing to fight the bugs or shade my plant, and I had to keep going back and forth in that stressful moment, but then I died suddenly and had to restart again, and at that point, didn't feel like getting the water again. :-[] :,-( So I didn't continue.
Overall, really really well done.