I haven't played this, but it looks really good! I agree with Sohkrates that flipping the tropes to make the monsters into the protagonists is usually a great move.
The idea of a buried underground tower is also a really poignant inversion of stereotypes, almost like something out of a Borges story or something. The low level melancholy that permeates the game is also something I'm very much on board with.
I'm also a sucker for paper textures and public domain artwork, so you got me with the layout. And I'd like to point out how great it is that you did not one but two examples of play! I really feel examples are a under-utilized teaching tool in a lot of games, and that's speaking as someone who's guilty of not using them often enough myself.