itch.io

Wow, thanks a lot for the detailed feedback!

I try to respond to your remarks - not to defend my work, rather to explain why it's how it is! :)

Yeah, I kept the pathfinding system pretty basic. There are a couple of reasons for that: the first one, pathfinding is very expensive in terms of resources; I initially implemented a more refined system, but that was resulting in performance issues, and I'm still not good enough to optimize that. :D
Furthermore, I thought that exploiting the "dullness" of enemies' pathfinding could have been part of the strategy: bad guys are numerous and dangerous, but you can outsmart them.
I'm not saying I made it as it is on purpose: at some point, I just felt that the algorithm was good enough for such a simple game.

Uhm... Which "upper door in the inn" do you mean?
It may be a bug but, as far as I'm aware, each door in the game can either be lockpicked (if locked) or be opened (if not).

You can dodge the tentacle, yes: that was intentional. :)

Speaking of the artstyle, something you may not know is that the whole game was originally in black and white (except for the blood and the red eyes). About one month before releasing it, I decided to recolor the white outlines, adding few details to make the graphics more readable.
I kept the black background, though. Not because it's realistic, but simply because I like it; and I find it helps the other elements to stand out.

My philosophy, in every aspect of the game, was: try to keep things simple.
I was aware that, as a novice developer, the project was quite ambitious; and a lot of things could have gone wrong.
In addition, drawing is something in which I have some experience; and since I wanted to spend my best efforts learning something new (i.e. coding), my philosophy for graphics and animation was even stricter: try to keep things very simple.
That's why you don't have a color transitioning (you have the wind, though, that grows as the night approaches), buildings aren't drawn in a more aesthetic way (I love architecture, so keeping things simple in this regard was very hard), and some enemies don't even have an attack animation (which would have implied a dodge animation for the player, but he's not a warrior and I didn't want to put too much emphasis on action).

I never played any of the Zeldas, unfortunately. :/
I probably should!
Don't you find that reloading without delay would make the combat even more shallow? In my opinion, the delay itself plays an important role in making the player feel vulnerable.

Last but not least, I must confess I have no idea of what do you mean with "steam items". But the kudos are more than enough!
Thanks again for your time and your words. :)