My pleasure! I can assure you, I’m truly impressed. (My poor wife had to listen to my over-excited descriptions of that demo I just played.)
Regarding the illusionary door, I think adding a small animation that shows the wall desolving when »touched« could just do the trick. Though I feel something like an illusionary pathway should be reserved for a later tower (that then has the theme playing out further in its puzzles). That way the initial confusion of the player has a different quality when a tower pops up apparently sans door.
Replace the rope with a telephone?! Ha! That’s my kind of quirk! Would love to see that rope being re-purposed in a later tower as part of a puzzle, though. Loved the feel of going down that rope on the outside.
Yeah, too bad it’s on ice! Btw, when I intially went to the Kickstarter page I was looking out for the physical release tier. Probably what a majority entices when they see Kickstarter. Sure, it’s a massive can of worms to go physical and since its actually an adaption of another game that is probably not even a possibility at all. (Are you in contact with the original author?) Though I came in already late enough to see the backing is very unlikely to work out. There’s actually a chance that in an earlier phase I would have been allured by that Pixel Art portrait tier enough.
Have a lovely day & best of luck with your ongoing projects!