Thanks for the additional comments. It did not seem rambling to me, but was useful feedback.
I'll start with the Next Fest detail. We had hoped that it would be better received and we could then finish fleshing out the story and art by the end of the year. With the poor reception, we are now stepping back and planning larger changes. We include all the placeholder and early dev comments in part to temper expectations, especially for Steam. Itch is a bit more forgiving, but Steam we want to be sure people know this is still a WIP.
I agree with your comments on the lead up to the camp fight. We added a new "danger approaching" track, and so thought to use it there, but you are right that from the character perspective it should be more questioning and not certain of danger.
I also agree that it would be nice to flesh out the towns a bit. We had some plans for this, including having you travel around the towns, instead of just using the menu, but even that felt a bit lacking. This is where a JRPG would allow for a better presentation.
We do plan additional animations and effects in combat, but it got delayed as we worked on other bits and tried to figure out how we could make the game work.
Now, the reason we asked about styles is that we are planning to split the game. We are currently doing some updates to the core that had already been planned. Once they are done, we will fork the code. The main project is intended to become more of a JRPG, including free roam of the world. This is going to require a lot more time to build out, and many things will need to be updated to fit. The other branch is tentatively going to be called Hungry For Loot Goes Rogue. That will embrace the current combat and travel systems and build them out into a roguelike. We intend to base the new game in the same world setting, though have not worked out how it will relate to the core story that will be in the JRPG. This game will have much less story, though will likely retain the Bestiary and perhaps some other parts of the Compendium. The first version of the new game will be based on the current Hungry For Loot, reusing the characters and towns. Once the core gameplay is working and we see how it is received, we will flesh out where it fits and update the characters to be unique for it.
Some key things we are planning for the new game will be that you start with only 1 character, currently Phil. You will be able to unlock additional characters, at which point you can pick who to play as. After you get another character you will be able to start unlocking party slots, allowing up to 6 characters in your party. We also plan to expand it so you can have characters from other Slime clans, as well as non-Slimes in the party. The current breaking at towns will largely be replaced by resting at camps. Loot will be massively reduced, as you won't be doing the quests to feed your clan and arm the other towns. We have other ideas, but these are the biggest changes to the current core gameplay.
The core thinking behind this split is that we do not have the time to complete Hungry For Loot as a JRPG, but that is how the story will work best. We need to produce a finished game to start making money. We already have a lot of systems in place with our current code base, and the existing gameplay lends itself well to a roguelike style. Roguelikes are also very popular, and we feel like we could do a better job of presenting and marketing it. By keeping it in the same world setting it can also be used to help promote the core game as we finish building it out. We have a lot of work ahead, but plan to dedicate this month to getting the core roguelike game ready. The parent branch will likely get some releases as I finish pieces that will apply to both of them before they get split.