I really enjoyed this. I think it's an interesting variation of the exploration game model and I like how there is an anti-Minesweeper concept where players take small risks in forging ahead to find areas that contain hearts. Having varying attrition on different cell types adds in a tiny bit of strategy. The scalability is very impressive and the gameplay loop of cautiously retreating and forging ahead does really resemble an exploration style. I thought the addition of cryptic call-and-response style gates was interesting and hinted at a mythical, linguistic theme as mentioned in your description.