Hi there! Thanks for playing and taking the time to write all that.
Honestly, I did not mean for the game to be difficult. It's hard for me to estimate the difficulty since I have the reel stopping mastered. I can't tell how difficult that might be for a new player. I already greatly lowered reel speed since the previous demo so I'm a bit shocked about deaths from the first enemy
I completely agree with you and I do think the combat should be a means to an end, and the fun comes mostly from getting new stuff and anticipating how things will work out. I'm not sure what to do though, I worry that if I simply give the player more power at all times then the "deckbuilding" will simply not matter, and if the player is ever in a dire situation with low health, it's back to "stop the reel correctly or die"
Perhaps I should explore the idea of just not having manual reel stopping at all, but it's completely RNG dependent and the game becomes an auto battler