Thanks! Also, I think I beat it-- I got the coded notebook from the bookseller, and the quest no longer progresses so I assume that's as far as it goes so far. Some thoughts:
I quite like the setting details and the way the writing supports that. The intro pieces to each mission are especially good in this sense. The art provided with inspection on monsters is also excellent, on the whole, and helps support this aspect of the game as well. It's weird, though, that the sultant tiger is colored-- the black-and-white sketch style used for every other creature (that has an image so far) created a gestalt sense of place that the color in the image, though not the line art itself, seems to clash with, at least to me.
The game would benefit from some more social interactions. For example, the mechanic by which the accountant in mission two surrenders at low health could be generalized to all humanoid (@ and P) enemies, although perhaps their passage-blocking could be an issue. Maybe this isn't actually needed.
If it's possible to throw items (dynamite, knives), I sure don't know how. The items seem to imply they can be thrown, though (knives have a 'range' property, and dynamite blows up in your face after 4 turns. I suppose you can at least drop lit dynamite, though)
It's cool that the tunnels are, afaik, infinite, but they are reasonably simple to navigate by sticking to the map-move options rather than stairs. The option to just wander off and fight increasingly difficult enemies helps make the protagonists tasks seem unimportant and minuscule in the face of the larger world, which is probably a good thing.
The alcoholic will take one absinthe off you eventually, but cannot be traded further absinthe nor booze.
It's hard to know what weapons do and if one or the other is better. For example, I believe you can dual-wield knives (because a x2 showed up when I had a second one in the bottom right of the screen), but I have no idea how that works or how good it is compared to a sword. The item descriptions just say 'weak', 'light', 'strong', 'solid', 'good', etc. It's also weird that, if I am correct, solid is better than good.
One time I went up stairs to a new level and got pushed off the staircase by monsters spawning, so that I started surrounded by two locusts a centipede and a tiger. Luckily a locust was on the staircase and I was at full (60) hp, so I killed it, moved, and went down to rest back up, but that was still nuts.
Hoping the knife-throwing clown buying corp secrets on the black market is secretly an anarchist or anti-monarchist or something. We shall see.
When you go to deal with the accountant, there is a lady who wishes she had an umbrella. It would be nice to be able to give her your umbrella, should you have one (you can pick one up from the broom closet at the beginning).
Something to do with all the excess stuff in the inventory (like selling it, or donating it to charity) would be nice.
How does one use amulets, anyhow?
Can I use Latin against the Ghosts? Silver or water against Vampires?
Also I am assuming "Typical hp -1" means its invincible, but maybe I am wrong?