First off, thank you very much for the tipping of hats, I tip mine to you too sir.
I really like the idea of gauntlets, it would definitely invite more depth to the collecting and ways to play with the game, and with what you said about the arm power being the effect of gauntlets and speed and jump height being the cause of the cat ears is a very good critique/idea from my suggestion. (also if both of these items were to be added, I would be afraid of a speedrun category of CatboyJerma% with you making everything short except the glutes and having to get these items as fast as possible, luckily we live in a world where he hasn't lost his last shreds of dignity left)
- P.S. I half agree with the idea of making it form a functional self-sustaining universe; but really that just boils down into me wanting it to have it's own form of logic. An example could be instead of a trader having to eat food to survive, he would have to sell wares to survive (which he may or may not eat the currency he gets from selling, but who knows?). That's just my personal taste on it because I don't really want it to have to "explain" itself to how juice makes you fly or some sort of generic fantasy reasons, I kinda like how the game is like "that happens". Though I can easily see people want more of a "yeah that happens." instead of a "that happens?" to the game (again just personal taste and I don't really have a say-so anyhow)