I really wanted to like this one- I love the idea of it, and there's a few things I think it does really well- but unfortunately I found it really flawed in its current implementation.
The environment design of the level is excellent. It looks great. Dusk is hard to pull off, but this is done well. There's lots of little detail objects to keep the level interesting, and it's a very natural looking environment even considering the visual style.
The only real knock against the environment design I have is that it doesn't really do anything about the edges of the map. That's one of the hardest things to deal with, to be honest. It's hard to come up with something that looks good, looks natural, and does a good job of blocking players in.
Moving from a realistic night environment to a lowpoly dusk environment was definitely a good choice. It feels serene instead of terrifying, which is a much better match for what this game is trying to be. So you can definitely feel vindicated in that choice.
The gameplay design of the level is... fine, I guess. It's a walk around a lake. The owls are spread around enough that you have to look for them, but not so far that it's a pixel hunt. Honestly, it's hard to judge this because of the other gameplay issues I'll get to in a moment.
I get that it's supposed to be a slow-paced, chill game, but the movement speed is really painfully slow. The player doesn't need to be Usain Bolt, but they need to be sped up a bit. It was incredibly tedious to go back in a few instances where I realized I'd missed something.
The rules of where you can walk and where you can't are all over the place. I was stopped by insurmountable invisible obstacles, and the path across the bridge is super finicky, but I could bunnyhop my way up sheer hills, walk right through the lake, and even launch myself off the edge of the map.
The camera appears to zoom by moving closer to the subject. It is possible to move past the subject while zooming. I only wish my telephoto lens could do this, it would make photographing buildings without power lines and such getting in the way a lot easier.
I really wish there was a way to "call it" and end the game. I'd explored all I wanted to explore by about the three minute mark. I took a few photos of birds, bunnyhopped off the edge of the map, and then left the game running in the background to run out the clock while I wrote this up.
The game is sorely lacking in feedback. There's no real confirmation that I've actually captured a photo of an owl. There isn't even a shutter sound to indicate that I did capture a photo. There's no photo gallery or counter within the game or after the end of the game. I get that it's not really trying to be a game about score or progression, but I feel it needs something of a reward mechanism, even if it's subtle and even if it's qualitative.
This is probably down to personal preference, but I really wish it was more of a camera simulator. Give me a simulated viewfinder, rack focus back and forth when I go to shoot, add some vignetting and chromatic aberration to the resulting photos.
While the visuals of the game are one of the major highlights, they're marred by a smattering of visual glitches and oversights. I've already mentioned the camera zoom. There's also this weird doubling effect where the world (or part of the world) seems to be drawn twice in camera view. And you can see a random sphere when you look down. There's also a lot of pop-in of shadows, detail objects, and even the skybox.
The UI seems to assume the game is only ever going to run at 1920x1080. On my 4K monitor, the timer was in the middle of the screen and the end screen didn't cover everything.
The audio is well done. I can see the background ambiance getting annoying after repeat plays, and I wish you could hear the owls from a bit farther away, but honestly that's nitpicking. I really do like that the owls have those audio cues.
All in all, I think this a really solid concept with a lot of interesting ideas, and it has some fantastic environment design both visual and aural. There's no one big flaw that holds the game back, it's just a bunch of small issues that kind of add up to sully the overall experience.