The atmosphere is really nice, and the gameplay reminds me of various ascii based games or old dos games (I'm old, haha!). I think the core gameplay is solid (You're making a "extraction grave robber," a much cooler name than extraction shooter, isn't it? ). There's some natural risk-reward going on as player venture further away from the shop, which I think you should focus on deepening.
However, like other users said, the game can feel quite confusing for newcomers. The various issues I encountered:
- I though the solid black tiles were walls, and was very confused as to why the "dungeon" keeps shape-shifting as I move.
- Since there's no feedback from picking up items, I thought my character didn't pick up any item, perhaps because they were worthless and I must dig more to find the good ones.
- My character is invisible when standing on an item. I guess this is a bug?
- I also didn't realize there's a shop until I tried to run away from a zombie
- I didn't realize there's an inventory system until I read the comments. I thought the character would simply pick up coins and valuables from the graves, and was confused why my coin count never went up.
- I couldn't tell how much "heal 5 hp" is worth as I didn't know how much hp i had.
- Overall, the game lacks feedback for various events.
So my suggestions are:
- Add some sound effects! Something similar to the NES/game boy would do. Or just record something with a mic (what I did back in the flash game days)
- Use two transparency setting for your fog instead of solid black and transparent.
- Add "Picked up X (worth Y)" message when you picked up something.
- Backpack capacity on UI. Something like "🎒 (3/5)" would do. Turn it red when it's full.
- Health and healing: either show your hp number on ui, or replace the health potion with a "heal to half/max health" service?
- And finally, a gameplay suggestion: Don't present the shop as a shop, make it the safe haven. A place that the player can rest, chat, just relax after each raid.