Hey, thank you so much for the feedback, I really appreciate it!
Most of the issues you covered definitely fall into the playtesting and balancing field, which I didn't have enough time to properly do unfortunately. The randomness of the level generation and enemy spawning definitely didn't help with that either.
The punishing nature of the game derives from the overall desire for it to be a roguelike, but truth is that there hasn't been a lot of effort to make it rewarding either ^^" The blue orbs (which don't spawn correctly in the compo version) supposedly help with that by giving you permanent upgrades or refilling your health while also serving as an incentive for the human to move instead of barricade, but the overall implementation of that wasn't really great.
I really like the idea of enemies dropping health and I noted it as a way to balance things out and as an incentive to move, so thanks for the suggestion!
You're not tough, player experience is the top priority after all, but I obviously rushed to make everything (somewhat) functional first ^^"