itch.io

I hope you'll push forward with this; the mechanics are fun and the space to build puzzles is wide open!

I like the central conceit of combining what amounts to a deck builder and an idle game; this was a great first effort at a game!

I hope we'll see submissions from you in future years!

Me like.  There's an issue where there is an obvious dominant strategy of simply staying close to the portal back and fleeing as soon as there is trouble, trivializing health management and allowing quick safe in-an-outs to pick a safe initial spawn.

I'd suggest both (a) rewarding distance from the spawn to encourage risk/reward and (b) giving travel a cost to discourage staying only seconds.

There's _something_ in the core of it, but you are missing two important bits in my opinion:

* A sense of progression (visual cues that you are getting deeper)

* Something to loose.  Perhaps a gamble?  Retreat back to the starting room to escape with some of your time to try again with, or keep going and get deeper?

Good attempt!  I look forward to your next game.