Defeating opponents should give some reward. Otherwise, I see no reason to kill the first one and expose myself to the harder enemies. But the look and feel of the game are great.
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That is true. There's nothing stopping you from farming the first enemy for saving up money which I feel like is one of the main problems for my game. A reward system for defeating an enemy would be nice and I think an idea is to only be able to buy upgrades after you defeat the enemy would be the award rather than being able to buy upgrades at any time. It makes the player unable to farm because they are at risk of dying if they do. It's still a pleasure to see that you enjoyed the feel of my game.
Edit: Another idea will be to give the player some money every time you defeat an opponent and to make the cost for upgrade higher so defeating enemies is the only option for getting high upgrades. Always appreciate the constructive criticism.