I hope that you’re still collecting data for your thesis, because I tried to be as thorough as I could with my observations. I hope this project goes well for you. You show a lot of promise, above and beyond for the average indie game developer.
In summary, I thought that the atmosphere and pacing were absolutely spectacular. I was actually somewhat impressed with the animations, including the head bobbing, since they’re quite above-standard for the indie games that I’ve been playing recently. I found the storyline very believable (when you mentioned that Building 71 is a real place in the questionnaire I actually wondered if it was based on a real event) and I liked the found footage concept where the gameplay cuts out periodically as the protagonist stops filming and goes to hide.
Besides some initial confusion with the tutorial (it’s not immediately obvious that I’m supposed to check the glove box before exiting the car) my one problem was that all of the threatening situations happened in cutscenes, which lowered my level of tension irreversibly by assuring me that any sense that I would be actively participating in a survival situation was just an illusion. I was anticipating having to avoid an in-game threat, but in fact the threat didn’t affect me, just the protagonist. I was not an active participant in any portion of the story which included a real element of danger; I was just watching as they happened.
Minor quibbles aside, I really enjoyed this and I hope that you find success in future endeavors, whether they include further game dev projects or not.