itch.io

Thank you so much for the detail!  I really appreciate your level of detail.

My goal for this specific entry was low friction - but I clearly didn't do enough to give a player a sense of what to do.

One more point for future players, there _is_ an in-game help under `?`, but I'm not sure that was visible or helpful.  From the comments so far, I cannot tell if I just didn't express well or if it wasn't found.

Upgrades:
Skills auto unlock through usage.  Within the inventory, there is crafting, transmutation (skill unlock), attunement (skill unlock), and refinement which allows players to really control the output of the combination from transmutation.  floor bosses unlock new slots.

Sounds:
The sounds were hacky, mostly so I had _some sound_.  Mostly tonal for certain, though nothing phone specific.   All of the content is original.

On the Ascent, the game will spawn many more mobs and they will all hyper focus on the player.  This is by design and it should be more difficult if you have not spent some time to skill up.

I do agree the general procedural generation is untuned as is the spawning.  At the moment, the only thing explicitly controlled is that the starting area _should_ have a heal.  However, the point is that this will change as the player or creatures interact.  For example, if a player leaves corpses behind in the room, the room will "eat" them and it will then add death to the biome list.  With max skills, players can actually remove biomes.  If a player understands how to manipulate the biomes, they should be able to add healing to any biome and also should be able to remove biomes (eventually with skills maxing out).

The items also confer abilities.  And it is possible to construct a heal ability.