Played through the first few levels until I got to the pup-up and then played through a part of the burrow levels.
I can safely say that the graphics are overall getting pretty good. I like the exterior in the later levels. Makes the location actualy feel like a tower. Tiles, shadows, everything looks good. Only "subpar" thing I can think of are some enemy/player animations and effects (Skulls make way too big explosions when they die), but nothing else struck me as bad.
Suggestion: Try to add more variety to the flooring. Different tiles for different rooms or patches of dirt where some tiles might be missing. Puddles and patches of gravel/rubble might be also nice.
New furniture is a good addition. Dungeons now don't feel as empty. Only minor problem I encountered was there being multiple kinds of barrels, some which can be broken while some can't be. I quickly adjusted to it, since the breakable barrels actualy look different, but I think it is something worth looking into.
I noticed items having a sound effect when they drop. Good addition. Adding some kind of glint effect for items that just dropped might be good too.
Only thing that I find lacking right now is the sound.
Footsteps are probably the biggest offender. They are very repetetive with no variation. They stopped being a problem once I got to the upper levels, where the new music kicked in (sounds good by the way), because it was louder than (and better) than the music at the lower levels, so I paid more attention to the music than the sound footsteps.
One suggestion is to simply add more footstep sound effects, maybe pitch shift them randomly every time they are played to make them seem more random.
Other suggestion ties to my previous one. If you decide to add more floor types, you could also add more types of footstep sound effects. Gravel, rubble, wood, puddles and so on.
Same goes for attack sounds and moster sounds. There isn't enough variety right now and it is much more noticeable (to me atleaast) right now than it was before, since the game looks much better but doesn't sound that well yet.
Also, the music is good, but it isn't that long, while the levels it plays on are so it loops quite often. I would suggest playing multiple music tracks randomly in one level instead of looping only one track.
Other than that, I can't think of anything else I disliked about the sound or graphics. It is obviously improving and I bet even the things I suggested are alredy on your to-do list.
Now for the gameplay.
I actualy got through the game with using melee almost exclusively. Ranged weapons are still better, since I kited a group of trolls and lost zero health, while fighting them would cost me multiple potions, but atleast I was able to get far instead of dying on the first level like last time.
Speaking of trolls, I would suggest slowing down the attack animation on some enemy types. The cultists with large hammers were actualy interesting to fight, because I could actualy "dodge" their attacks. They were attacking much slower than other enemies. With everyone else, I just pretty much walked to them and held the LMB. Ranged enemies were the exception, where I just circled them, waited for most of them to fire, got close, hit one of them few times and retreat again. Couldn't use the shield arts because I had two handed weapon at that time.
Sadly, melee is pretty boring. My magic playthrough last time was quite fun since I had quite a few abilities that I switched between quite often.
Ranged combat is pretty simple, but you have to actively dodge and avoid enemies.
Melee is, most of the time, just staying near an enemy, holding LMB and drinking a potion if necesary.
I know you are working on this. I just wanted to say that that there is still a lot of work to do with the combat, but you are heading the right way I believe.
Also, I think you should really add secondary gear slot for faster weapon switching as soon as possible. I believe it could make players switch between weapon types more often and thus making combat more interesting. Switching weapons through the inventry while fighting is anoying so I mostly just don't bother.
Bugs:
Minimap is drawn over text boxes.
Holding and draging item in the inventory sometimes picks the item and drops it back instantly. Couldn't replicate it with 100% accuracy, but It was hapening mostly when I was moving the mouse over an item, then pressing the LMB when my mouse was still moving. Minor anoyance.
And that's pretty much it.
Overall, this is an improvement on all fronts from previous versions. Everything is better and nothing got worse. There is still a lot of work to be done but you are getting there.
Questions:
Unique items are just random drops, or are there some secrets that guarantee unique item?
next question. Found these orbs in one room. Are they just decoration, or is there purpose to them? They look very different from other furniture I saw.
