A very nice little game! I died to the troll once, just pushed my luck too far not using potions. He's crazy hard. I think I ended up walking the tougher routes and might've had a more balanced experience headed in a different direction (hugged the right wall). But it still felt pretty balanced and fair. Had to refill on potions after the dark knight.
In your experience testing, did you find any value in maintaining speed? I did notice I got bonus attacked a lot, but I wonder if that mattered as much as having tons of defense. Maybe a later version could have gear that's explicitly less defensive but instead adds to speed, to help offset other heavy gear you might choose to wear, like a helmet that ONLY adds to speed or something, I might've tried that out. Or boots of swiftness. :)