Thanks for your detailed and honest feedback!
I always want to be up front with how much code I’ve reused in jam project; like the narrative games I’ve made which has 90% of the code complete, but all the writing is done during the jam itself. In this case, the game was designed from scratch and the entire card / deck handling, move selection, enemy AI, were all added onto the previous framework. So while the “battle system” existed from before, the entirety of the code written to create this game’s experience was made within the scope of the jam.
As for the gameplay itself, I know there’s a large amount left up to chance right now and I’m looking forward to addressing that with better deck composition and rebalancing of the cards. I had roughly 30 minutes to attempt to balance the game, and this was obviously not enough. This game draws a lot of inspiration from Hearthstone which relies heavily on card draw / hand management; with Aspects like Void and Water being key to keep up your card draw. Since this is an integral aspect of the game, I’m not currently planning to switch it over to Slay-the-Spire’s “discard your whole hand and redraw it” style. Ideally, I want every card to feel useful, even if they end up being highly contextual.
But who knows? Maybe after a whole bunch more testing and valuable feedback like what you have provided, I’ll end up deciding that StS style draw is better after all!