Hey! Thanks for stopping by! Glad you like the new visual style. I toyed around with a circle around the player VS a spotlight, and I ended up going with the spotlight because it gives you minor-movement change information a bit more clearly than a circle does. For example, a lot of players don't realize that when you shoot you 'kick back'. However with the spotlight, when you shoot you can see the spotlight move pretty clearly in the direction you're kicking back. It's a minor thing that's configurable in the options (you can disable/change the visibility of the spotlight), but that's the rationale behind it.
I definitely need to invest some time in balancing this game. I think there was a time in early prototyping when +1 or +2 ice damage was good, but I've slowly power creeped other spells and increased enemy health to compensate, so +1 ice damage might be nothing now. Once I finish the main content I'm planning on entering a grind mode where I just clock tons of runs on this game and record data on DPS and different build viability.
Also I had a super similar idea to your areal idea for some spells: I had a spell idea that spawns a 'power line' that empowers any spell or bullet that passes through it. I like your idea of a spell that changes shots that pass through it too, it might make sense as an active spell as well. Woof I need to control the feature creep on this game a little though, I have a 'master list' of tasks that are the minimum for shipping this game, I'm gonna tackle those first and probably handle all the cool extra ideas as post-launch updates.
Thanks for dropping in now and then, I always enjoy hearing from you!