This a good game, perhaps even one of my favorites out of the recent months, but there are some problems which keep it from being number one.
First of all, there isn't much content to this game. There is an unlimited wood chopping station outside the house (though at least it lowers stamina), there is an unlimited pool of water one frame to the west, and so the only issue of survival in this game is hunger; and that is rather easy. There are plenty of berry bushes in this small game world which respawn every 2 days, and rabbits which appear randomly but more frequently at night. The rabbit's meat restores a full hunger bar, so it's simple to wait until there is a sliver left in the hunger bar, and then eat a steak to make your character last much longer. This game lacks the difficulty it needs to put fear into the player, and once you get the hang of it, it is one of the easiest games I have played. In my opinion, you shouldn't have added starting food to the player's inventory, and you also should have made trees and water deplete. Finally, you could have added enemies to the world which you can not fight, and must run from. Maybe even a Hypothermia bar too.
My second issue, the jump-scares. The images which flash on the screen are either random gore, or of monsters which never appear in the game. I don't see the point in these, it's kind of unrealistic and more of a too desperate attempt at scaring the player. There are also only 4-5 different jump-scare images, and they become repetitive. You should have instead added more psychological terror to scare the player, such as illusions and voices, that was a better idea but you had too few of them. Better yet, these illusions and voices could tell us more about the character's past. Some other good ideas include mirages; such as disappearing bushes, rabbits, and pools of water.
My third and last issue, bugs. There are many reports of players getting stuck, which I did not encounter myself, but there were instances where I wasn't able to enter another area's 'entrance' and could keep walking into that direction forever. I also noticed the Stranger doesn't visit you until you eat at least one of the starting food items, which can result in a strange occurrence; If you try to hold onto these until you finally need and eat them later in the game like I did, the Stranger will try and make up for all the time that has passed and will visit you 3 times in a row in 3 hours which is of course unrealistic. There are also some grammatical errors.
Problems aside, you still have a good game here, and I love the unique idea. The longer you survive the shorter the days become, and that was a great addition for difficulty (However not noticeable if you go for the Good Ending), but not as much as the game needs. I was able to last 15 days down the path of the Bad Ending, and after alI that time surviving just to see I was wrong to ignore the Stranger, just kills the motivation to play again for the Good Ending. This game does indeed lack replay value. I hope you'll address these issues in the inevitable sequel, and add more needed content.
Keep up the good work!
