Thank you so much for playing and leaving feedback! I really appreciate it.
First of all, I agree, I think mentioning the board earlier would have been a good idea. I assumed the player might find it when checking the drawers and stuff but yeah that's completely on me ;-; I'm sorry it was so frustrating! It's my first puzzle game and I definitely could have done more research on more satisfying puzzles rather than like analytical puzzles requiring translators. They were just the first things that came to mind. I like your idea though, forcing the player to look at it early!
I also completely understand your frustration with the note puzzle. It probably made it even worse that we didn't actually use the depicted notes, and went more for like a general "vibe" between different notes (Just whether it pitches up or down from the previous note) since we assumed most people don't know how to read sheet music (me included lol). The specific cipher we used was called the Motivik Music Cipher and we just copied what they had but in reality we probably should have made our own melodies because a LOT of them look very similar to one another.
Again, so sorry you had a frustrating time. Clearly I need to work on that because you're not the only person who got frustrated by this game! But I'm very happy you were able to power through it regardless! Thank you so much for leaving your thoughts!