Solving the puzzle felt pretty fun! I liked how some clues were supposedly innaccessible (or I was just bad at finding them), forcing me to make educated guesses on the correct words. The lack of randomness between playthroughs though meant I was eventually able to brute force the translation by just replaying two or three times. I tried also playing the incantation in reverse after solving it but was a bit sad nothing transpired.
I understand the need for stakes, but I found that the tightness of the timer felt a bit ill-suited to the deduction portion. I found myself wishing there was more time, extra time on each discovered word, or something else to avoid the first playthrough feeling like an automatic fail. With that being said there's something there with having to budget time between looking for clues and applying the clues, but that only holds up until you know where all the hiding places are.
The art style is great, for me it kind of felt like a blend between a detective noir and eldritch encounters, and that really suits the premise.