This is a pretty nice survival game. It is tough, but feel reasonable in most ways. There are certainly things a person could use in real life that are not offered in game, such as using wood from buildings and metal of glass from vehicles, but it works well enough for the gameplay to not feel too punishing. The crafting works fairly well, though I wouldn't mind more to craft. I did not replay with any of the other characters, but I like that you have them, and they do add new ways for replays.
I chose to start with the tutorial. There is a lot on the screen, and the cards did not initially grab me as being the tutorial, but looked like part of the general UI I needed to learn about. It would be nice if for the tutorial there was an initial popup based system that pointed to or highlighted the various UI elements to describe what they are. It also starts with the time advancing. It would be nice if the tutorial game started paused until you have a chance to look things over and are ready to start playing. Playing a bit further I got into combat, and that tutorial screen is what I was thinking for the main UI. The combat tutorial is pretty good, though maybe add a button to bring it back up at any time for people who may want to verify things after playing a bit.
I like that the Inventory, Crafting, Map, and cards at the bottom right all still can be interacted with while paused.
I like the hotkeys, and that they are clearly shown in the UI.
When doing things like cutting down a tree, it would be nice if it was more clear what resources will be used. In general, it would be nice if things were more clear on when a resource will be consumed vs just used. In cooking you don't lose your sticks, but that is not clear. Only after doing some cooking with them and noticing the quantity did not go down did I know, but I still did not know what other situations were like that.
I was at very low water, with it showing only 1. I used items to restore water, and the bar did not move much. It seemed odd, until I acknowledged that the numbers are drawn as part of the bar, so they disappear as the bar shrinks. I think the numbers should always show so you can see an accurate representation. It does seem that it has a minimum size that shows the first digit, which makes it even harder to tell how much you have when it matters the most, but it is not really moving. It did seem like sometimes the bar moved differently than others, though maybe I was just not paying enough attention.
The card UI is neat, but can get very full and cluttered. It would be nice to have a way to shrink some down when you are trying to deal with only certain ones. Perhaps a filter to only show enemies, or exclude all enemies. Don't fully hide them, but shrink them perhaps into a stack at the far right with the number of cards shown on top. I missed searching an area at the Lakeside Camp due to so many cards, even after defeating all the enemies. Just clearing all enemies might not be enough, and more filters might be needed. Maybe one to show all places with non-repeatable actions remaining. I do see the icon for no more items, but with so many cards I had completely missed that location somehow. It could also help if the card you most recently interacted with, or its replacement, was favored for being full size/above others. After killing rats the rat corpse car was often beneath all of the others, but I generally cut them up to regen the dog's "HP" before fighting more.
I liked the dog companion. I only used the dog to fight rats, but every rat fight was theirs. Most of the spoils went to them, with some meat being saved for cooking. The Furbuddy sounds interesting. I was wishing the dog would fight with you, instead of alone. Maybe next time I play I will try that character.
I reached the jetty and was able to drink water, which was nice as I was quite low at that point. It would be nice if you could save your water bottles to refill at places like this. In a survival situation I would certainly save containers to refill when the opportunity arose.
It would be nice if the button to go to the next page in crafting was more noticeable. I missed it at first and only saw it when I was realizing there should be more to craft by now and looked for a way to see more. It blends in with the background a bit too much.
While I understand needing to craft an item to get more details on it, it would be nice if crafting that is stationary had an icon noting this, even before you craft it.
I crafted a weapon, only to try to equip it and be told I had no free space. The equipment limit should be mentioned sooner, and possibly a warning provided when crafting.
It would be nice to be able to see the cooking recipes before spending the time cooking, to be sure there is something useful to cook. I cooked several recipes such as roast and stew. I don't recall them all, as I just went through the list and cooked everything I could when I had a fire to do so. It seemed like any of the results were better than not cooking them.
The map is oddly centered. There are points when your equipment covers the area directly in front of you, making it hard to see what is there. The area south of Camp Silverlake is the one that really stood out, though the centering was something I noticed at the start with the bottom UI buttons feeling a bit in the way.
It would be nice if the "You died" screen told you why. I died while resting. I'd recently had food and drink, so I don't think I should have died from those, but I may have misjudged and not paid enough attention to the bars. I was on day 9, and unlikely to make it to the goal, as I was working my way around some of the tougher groups of zombies. Only after did I acknowledge that I might have been able to build a barricade to help and go through the shorter route.
It wasn't too bad, but there were times when the diagonal paths were not clear on what button would move me there and I did have cases where I did not go the way I intended. Being at a fork and having to go straight down, then right when I wanted to take the down-right branch felt odd.
Overall a really good submission.