Thank you! The encounter rate is a hard thing to balance due to the fact that the counter resets every time you change screens. Since I insisted on designing maps so that there's never any camera scroll, a lower encounter rate may well have led to several consecutive screens without encounters, not getting to see all the enemy types, and/or not getting enough levels to take down the bosses without grinding. All of which were issues my playtester ran into pre-submission.
I figured with the old-school graphics, chiptune music and outdated engine, I could get away with a slightly more old-school encounter rate :)
For what it's worth, the rate does get lowered in the bigger puzzlier rooms, and in my experience the escape command works quite reliably.