Yer absolutely correct.
(also, it is SUPPOSED to be rough to play, but you picked up on that)
There is nothing really at stake in this game.
There could be.
Here's the main take away for me for this jam, and other jams in general: my sweet spot for jam lengths is 7-14 days. Four days it too few. Longer than two weeks is way too much to give the urgency of a focus.
For the type of game I make (which is this type of game... they are all similar), what you see before you is what I can accomplish in roughly 8 hours of development time, which is about how much time I can dedicate to a 4 day jam. I get about 2 hours a day early in the morning to do this, and really no other time.
I had enough time to build in a "lose" condition. If you kill a bandit... you lose.
And I was heading towards an inventory/craft/merchant/eating/blah system(s) with the foraging mechanic, and my time to dedicate to it was over.
Now I know: pick a jam between 7 and 14 days long. The short ones will lack critical features, the longer ones I will lose interest in adding features.
Thanks for giving it a try.