Wow, this game is honestly a blast. While a part of me kinda misses the semi-derpy 3D models and text-to-speech lines of the previous version. I am totally digging the style of these 2D models, The art for them is on point.
The gameplay itself is a really fun loop that has me coming back to play it even after beating it several times. Building a town out of nothing is just fun, and cathartic. The companions are honestly great, and the AI on them is pretty brilliant... most of the time, more on that later. But given for the most part the squad can handle themselves really frees up time to actually build, plan, and direct everyone around. Combat is mostly solid, with each arrow type having it's advantages and disadvantages, except the advanced arrow, which is strictly better than everything else (why does it shoot so fast!?)
Now for the downsides. Selecting certain allies is a pain, the current setup only allows for the selection of either "one person" or "everybody" with no in-between. This makes it difficult to partition the squad into different tasks, so either everybody's farming resources or building buildings. Maybe make it so holding the [Command] Button lets you select everyone you hover your crosshair over? That would make it easier to select small groups for certain tasks. Another pain is setting them to repair/build. specifically walls, when you set your peeps onto building a wall, they have a bad habit of trying to build the next wall through the wall they've currently built, essentially leaving themselves smacking dumbly at a already built wall. Maybe either having them stand closer to buildings they're working on or finding a way to have them spread out while building would help? If they're spread out, it'd be harder for the entire squad to get stuck on the same pixel while building. Finally a visual indicator as to where I'm directing the squad would be nice. The threshold between "follow me" and "Stay Here" is a little thin, and in some situations could mean the difference between life and death.
And idea for the future: maybe a "Rally Flag/Bell"? Something that you place down so allies will "Go Here" when idle. maybe you can ring it to make every ally on the map gather there, would help prevent the whole "Find the one ally who's still out gathering resources while night is falling" issue.
Still, Amazing Work! I will definitely keep an eye out for more updates!