Even with the parts I didn't manage to implement, the death spiral was always the intended end.
The only part it's missing that I'd planned for was being able to reach your sister's grave if you get past all the challenges - this would then put you back at the start, but without recovering any moves or time. The idea was that you're visiting your dead sister once per year, and it's the same journey - but each time it gets harder and harder. When I didn't manage to make the cemetery screen + restart in time, I just shoved 5 extremely hard and maybe not passable challenges at the end.
The awkward staring at the motionless character is intended... but maybe should be shorter - you're watching her last moments before death, and then the game closes. It's certainly meant to be uncomfortable.
And yeah, after the first comments came back - it became very clear that the indirect tutorialization was not even close to being enough... which is sad as I still had enough time to fix that before submitting, had I playtested a little bit.