Thanks for playing and the, usual, great feedback!
Glad to hear it is doing well on the tablet. We have not done much optimizing, and only basic testing on mobile, so that is good.
We did add some new items, and adjusted some old ones. We had thought about doing the Game Demo Jam, which had a theme item of a candle, so we quickly added one in. It turned out to be a useful early game item for Fire, so we added similar early items for other Affinities.
We will be adding resistances in the future, so Status Effects may not be quite as easy to apply, but glad you are enjoying them. They certainly make combat feel better.
I agree that it could be hard to tell what happened on an enemy turn before. I've been wanting to add the Combat Log for months, but it was never high enough priority. Now that it is in, I feel like I should have moved it up, as it really does make combat clearer. Also, it is so nice for debug!
We will see about updating the Training Hall to add a dedicated entry for how to gain AP. It is a bit unique for the Slimes.
I'd love to add the AP by the character sprites, but there simply is not enough space. The main reason we added the larger icons to the details boxes at the corners was because there was already too much, and we couldn't even expand the icons. There can be up to 6 characters in a party, and there needs to be enough space between them for the icons to not overlap. I've debated different options for zooming and pulling the characters out of the main map into a battle scene, but I like them fighting where they encounter each other. One limit is the main UI. Another is the road. We try to keep it so they look like they are fighting near the road, rather than lost in the trees. Part of that is because we make sure that area is reasonable to be on and don't have to worry about them being on top or a tree or river. I am continuing to think on this, and we have had cases of enemies appearing behind trees, so something needs to be done for that. But I just can;t see how to cram 9 extra icons, plus the number that goes with it, next to the sprites. No characters currently use all 9, but Mindy has 4, and characters can gain others in the game, or at least, that is the plan. I could, possibly, do like the Status Effects and have a display that cycles through the AP for each Affinity, but even that I'm not sure would fit... unless the cycling also included the HP and it shared that spot. I'll have to think on it, and see how it looks. If we add it, it will certainly be an optional setting, as the flickering might distract people. Maybe it could be independently selected between the HP #s and Bar for where/how to show AP.
Once the character animations are done we do want to get back to adding more to the towns. This update will include more trees, specifically Hazelnut tress near Hazelgate.
My goal for towns is to have you select the location from the menu and have your party move to the location. Ideally eventually setting up art to show the location and be more visual. That is still a ways off. Adding icons to the buttons could be a good upgrade we could do more quickly. I do agree that the towns being largely menus takes away from the experience.
We noticed the music looping when we split the combat to use different tracks, but it got forgotten in the push for other things. I'll try to clean it up before the next release. The tracks are designed to fade into each other, but the tails are really long, so we cut them down, and that one clearly needs to be redone.
We do actually have some animations for the Slimes eating, and the logic to add the item to the combat is already in place. They just haven't been refined yet to where they fit with the flow of the game. The next update will include new animations, including for spit. For battle speed I'm not sure that we will be able to show eating and spitting for each action. For eating a healing item, though, we will likely do so. As we work on animations you can be sure that we will be trying to get the animations to work with showing the item being eaten.
I'm glad that Hard difficulty was decent. I admit that I did not put a lot of effort into the difficulty settings yet. It was picking some numbers that sounded decent and adding basic buffs/debuffs. The initial ones were a bit much, especially for Insane, but a slight tweak made them better. I have other ideas for the future to make it more than just stat changes, but even just the stat changes feels decent if that is all we go with.
I'm glad you like the optimistic feel. We want the party to have that hopefulness. They will get a bit more somber as the story progresses and they have to face the reality of what is happening that they had been shielded from, but we want them to keep the determined optimism, and use that as the reason to keep getting more involved. There will be sequences of doubt and questioning if they are even making any difference, and how could they possibly be doing enough. But overall, we live in a bleak world and need that kind of hope that even little things can make a difference.
Thanks again. Your feedback always gives me new ideas for ways to improve the game!