Itch sends email notifications whenever someone you follow uploads, and that's how I found it.
Yes, analog controller and mouse input could both function better than digital keyboard keys.
I could see this gameplay working in an open world, too. That would be a different sort of game to the prototype. Maybe with upgrades and such?
I've been working on WoM on and off, though it is no longer called that. It shall be uploaded when I have a proper, reasonably polished, feature-complete 10-15 minute demo of the starting area. The game is particularly spoilable and non-replayable, so if I repeatedly submit incomplete versions to Demo Day (or webms for that matter) with incremental updates chances are I won't get any useful playtesting by the time I actually need it.