Progress has resumed! I took a small vacation when my partner visited from California and I started part-time college classes last week. I finally had some time this week to knock some new passages out. I also signed up to a patreon with some great looking tutorials on how to make the game interface look much more attractive with CSS and HTML. Not too much to report today, I just didn't feel good leaving the thread hanging for almost a month. Really want to get something playable and testable soon.
Oh, here's some thoughts: I had a couple of people run through it and I found they were all getting funneled into the "stairs Veese advantage" path way too easily. The wrong couple of (reasonably sensible-seeming) decisions early in the story would basically lock you in, and the section is a difficult one, and doesn't include either of the memory passages associated with the second combat section. All around a big problem for me. I went back and cut one of the fail-states from the original combat section, and added another step before the player is locked into the 'stairs Veese advantage' path, as a quick fix. But I'd like to pore over the whole section when I get the chance and try to achieve a better balance. Revisiting the beginning of the project bit by bit with the later changes to my process in mind is sure to be stark.