Congrats on your submission! I really like this type of art style. It's really easy on the eyes. The town, people, houses, and props like the books look good. I really like the idea of having a community that was separated and locked behind a door, and that you have to go around helping people unravelling what happened so that you can open it, and open the community back to the world (or whatever is behind the door). This really nails the theme of the jam! It's a twist on the idea that's not the most common, so I appreciate having something different to play, a more narrative approach.
I have to mention that my camera was a little bugged. I haven't seen it mentioned so it might just be me, but the camera was really jittery. As in, it would frantically move from left to right when I moved it. It made the game feel really dizzy and it got to the point where I had to stop. Following this, the movement of the player does feel a little weird! It feels like you're sliding around, not really walking. If you build up speed and stop moving you'll keep going for a while.
I liked the bird SFX that was playing, but overall there was a lack of audio which felt unsettling. I was thinking of saying that adding music could be good, cause I only realized that there is in fact music when I turned up the volume a lot to make sure I was listening to everything. The music was super low! Turning it up and adding other SFX, like waves since we are at the coast, wind, chattering, etc, would help. All in order to make it feel like a town!
Having the player model be visible is good, especially for the shadow, but I feel that if it won't have any waling animation it'd be best to just avoid it. It feels weird to look down and see my character standing while I move.
Unfortunately, I did find some bugs which someone else mentioned and that prevented me from continuing. Even after getting the two books I was asked for, the librarian still says I don't have them. And with the music sheet mission, one of them was inaccessible. I could get to it, I just couldn't grab it for some reason. Speaking of grabbing, it would be good if there was a controls section, cause I was just pressing E all the time (since it's one of the most common keys), but it still makes you wonder if it's actually doing something.
Still, I enjoyed playing what I could and really wanted to know what's up with the locked door, which honestly is what this Jam is all about!