Aspiring game designer from Hawaii new to forums

Do you mean Christian by name or faith?

At a glance, your game reminds me of Super Dungeon Explore, maybe with some DungeonQuest thrown in. Actually, I mistook two components for tiny NES cartridges when looking at the thumbnail. I was saddened to see that they were cardboard chits in the larger image. I like that the door with the round symbol over it looks like an old 5 1/4 floppy disk.

Considering the aesthetic similarities between yours and the recent slew of comparable products, the main consideration I see is price point. Arcadia Quest and SDE are retailing at $100 (typically discounted to $80 or less). If you can deliver a comparable experience at a $30 to $40 price point then you could do very well, but if you go over $60 then be prepared for some very stiff competition as those other retro console style games have premium components. If you can pare back the rules from 18 pages, maybe size the rulebook as a b-format paperback, and ensure that it is demonstrably easier to play than those other games then so much the better. Paws and Padlocks sounds child friendly, which would be a plus, as I had an easier time teaching my son Descent than SDE. It does, however, give the impression that this is a D&D-inspired game about lock picking anthropomorphic animals.

I don't have a lot of time to look over the rulebook right now, but I do have a few offhand observations:

-- It just struck me that On the Lamb Games is using the same PS Mosaic filter for the Endless Fantasy Tactics marketing as you are for your room cards. Probably, that has no significance beyond overuse of PS filters in general within the industry, but seeing as how they are a company known for anthropomorphic animal games and have featured quite a few slimes (or gels) recently, it could lead to consumer confusion.
-- I find the green color scheme to be unpleasant. The border is fine, but the rest of the page perhaps ought to be a white or off-white.
-- The composition on the cover feels off. Again, too much green, particularly the bright LED shade, which overwhelms the piece. Green appears to be the "bad guy" color, so it seems strange for two of the heroes to be the same color and shades as the floor. The elements feel disparate. I get the impression that the central guy is meant to be a triumphant hero, but he comes across more like the evil general rallying his troops with the slime queen rising behind him. That, plus the lock on his crotch has an unwanted implication. There is no coherent sense of action, as the protagonists seem more uninvolved than heroic in stance. One of them appears to be giggling. I find myself working to decipher things more than becoming invested in their struggle. A big part may be that you've flipped the traditional paradox on its head, as we regularly see the heroes from a front-on perspective, to get a good view of them as sympathetic characters, with the villains encroaching in from around the edge, which gives the perspective of them invading the space. The title font is a little too hard to read, particularly the "and" with the overkill of three different layers of stroke around the text.
-- As much as I like them, it's more practical to have single-sided health counters that are removed when expended, rather than flipping them over. Also, the concept of "Zero HP" is deeply ingrained in many players as a term for character death or unconsciousness, which makes the rulebook reference confusing.

I'd have a little more to add, but I just can't get the page to load correctly, which probably has to do with my computer. I think I'm only seeing 3/4ths of the content