thank you for the detailed review!
i did get quite a few complaints about the gameplay not being explained properly, so i understand your frustration. this game definitely could've gone through a few more rounds of playtesting. the enemy only detects you if you are both in the same room; so if you are in the kitchen, but he is in the living room, he will not see you even if you are on the same floor. this wasn't explained very well, however, so it's definitely something to improve next time.
crafted items can only really be placed in specific places. in the first level's case, it can only be placed on the shelf to the right in the hallway. i really wanted to add more clear visual cues so you'd know where to place it, and also to provide more places to put such these objects in general. sadly, due to time constraints, this was what we ended up with lmao. i think my thought process at the time was that it would make sense to place the book + banana combination somewhere near where the book originally was, but obviously that was not very clear.
i think most of your issues come from these two problems. the fact that some systems were not explained properly led to you not being able to explore the house properly and understand some other mechanics (like more than 1 hiding place, the several different combinations you can make, the routine of the human and how to follow it, etc). also btw, the other levels take place in the same house, just with a different set of routines for the human.
again, thank you alot for your review, i definitely agree with you on the camera being too slow, and the UI being a little out of place. you made a really cool game and i'm glad that on some degree, we were both able to help each other :)