Thank you for writing this. Actually, the fact that someone got so impressed by the game as to write such a post is the highest praise I could hope to have.
>The alchemy system
To be clear, it's directly inspired by Prey's recyclers. So if you like my take on the crafting system, you'll probably like theirs.
>The homeward crystal is
It is, of course, intentionally pretty powerful. It's, after all, one of the later researches, and pretty costly to make. But there are plenty of items that allow you to escape danger, sometimes out of way worse situations, like the rift potion or the frozen time potion. Most of the time, if you can survive 20 turns, you can probably reach the exit anyway.
>I’m not sure if you’re planning on giving them more recipes, or just leaving them as something to immediately be converted into essences.
Some might receive additional properties, but in general there will always be simple items with only one use. I am considering adding some kind of autoconvert feature for those later.
>Why can you push stuff around?
Mostly niche tactical uses. Like moving a barrel of gunpowder to cause an explosion where it would be most useful, arranging debris to make a large fire, building an improvised barricade.
There's also something I forgot to mention anywhere in the game (I should), and it's that you can move stunned or crystallized creatures. You can move them out of your way, into hazards, or even push them into chasms, which is an instant kill. Try it, it's fun.
>My problem with them, however, is that semi frequently they will “chase” me, repeatedly moving towards my character.
The aforementioned update is probably going to help here. As they will be less likely to move towards you in general, they will be even less likely to do so repeatedly.
>change it so that you treat bats like passive animals while the character is holding a light source?
Good idea, I'll arrange that.
>I would like to see more uses for ecclesiastical knowledge
Not promising anything right away, but I am planning to expand the research tree in general, so there probably will be.