I like the combat a lot.
There’s a lot of mental processing I need to do even to fight your chump enemies. the game should do some of that heavy lifting for me. for example sound effects to convey enemy state instead of just color (see crypt of the necrodancer for examples of how to do that). a change in music when we go between “explore” to “battle” to “hidden”. since enemies have a set amount of hp and always die in the same amount of hits just show me how much hp they have left.
sorely missing the “pick shit up off the ground” gameplay that is common in roguelites
I think your maps are way too big… so much walking around when I should be punching enemies. making a more condensed map with fatter encounters may lead to an increased difficulty which you’ll have to account for in enemy attack frequency and health of course.
finally I think your gameplay is too punishing. either make damage not stick so hard or make you take less. personally i like full resets outside of combat but i know I’m alone in that. High difficulty in games is totally fine when the variety in gameplay is high enough to support cruising through the early game a bunch of different times like DCSS. but it’s just 3 or 4 enemies and almost no gear. i dont want to have to engage my brain at the level I need to until im at least far enough into the game that I have a build going and something to lose