I really like the ascii art style and music, and I think it feels very satisfying to play when your putting in inputs and such.
However I do think the combat could be improved a little. for one fights are very slow as theres a little delay between moves and such, i know its for the retro feel but especially when theres multiple enemies its very annoying to wait for all of them to move. maybe just add an option to speed the fight up. (though maybe there is and i didnt notice).
Also the enemies are all exactly the same. Maybe give them some special abilities within the grid? Like maybe the matriarch leaves behind a cobweb that traps the play if they walk on it or something like that. IK its quite hard to make the grid based movement interesting as its all turn based but i think it could be good as the combat is pretty simple right now, its just walking to an enemy and just spamming 1.
But aside from that its quite fun to go exploring and this game has some potential. Also I got the sword from the quest but didnt equip it, died and then lost the item.