Sorry if my answer is too long, I just enjoy discussing my game :)
I had a vampire cape and thought it would give me at least some “vamprism”
You mean “Hunger pang” card? It should indeed work as you said. However, there are lots of interactions in the game, and as as you have already noted some of them are non-obvious. For example, could it happen that you were in a battle against spiders and become ensnared?
card which lets you push an opponent to the second position … where something was written in () which I was not so sure, what to make out of it
This card forces the front (leftmost) enemy to attack the second enemy, dealing damage equal to (first enemy hp divided by 10). After that, front enemy in moved backwards. Flavor-wise it is supposed to represent enemies trampling each other. Gameplay-wise, there is some difference between player hitting an enemy and the enemy hitting another one. For example, player’s strength does not change the damage of this card.
If you post savefile or a screenshot, I may be able to identify specific issue.
should i add “vampirsim” or is it too much “if i have toughness already” … this are all questions that pop into my head
This is an excellent question, precisely the kind I would like players to consider. Of course, there is no “correct” answer, every run of the game is slightly different.
Without knowing specifics of your build, I would say that vampirism is much more powerful, especially after you unlock all game stages. It has game-breaking payoffs with cards like “Feast on Flesh”. However, before the right combination is assembled, cards like “Hanger pang” are just a weaker version of healing.
On the other hand, toughness is immediately useful and has some easy early-game payoffs like “Muscle”. However, it (currently?) lacks late-game potential, so overall purely toughness-based builds are weak in full game. Maybe I should add some high-payoff toughness card…
limit “the beginner decks” … people want to be “hooked” by the first minute they play your game
Although it may not seem like it, but I agree with this point and have already severely limited early-game choices. In fact, the full game is much more complicated compared to the part you have seen so far. Obviously it is still not enough, so perhaps I should make unlocking progress even slower… I will think about it
it might work “if you have your logs” in place
You can already post your save games or screenshots either here or on discord. I do not like more intrusive data collection, so the game does not send any analytics by itself. (Unfortunately, copying savegames to clipboard currently works in Firefox only due to itch.io limitation)
How many people have played your game so far?
I only use built-in itch.io analytics, so I do not have this data. My estimate is about a hundred or two. The number of “serious” players is maybe about 20.
Overall, the detailed feedback from players is my primary source of balancing and clarification. You can look at examples of such feedback on this forum and on discord.