I love this feedback and I appreciate it very much. Thank you so much for taking the time to give me such a well thought out and valuable response.
There's a feedback loop developing in my posts that's quite hilarious: My original vision for the game was definitely darker but it seems my artistic abilities cannot yet quite render the kind of mood that I was originally going for, LOL. I think rather than fight it I could maybe lean into it a bit while still keeping some of the darker elements around. I've seen games like darkest dungeon use a pretty cartoony art style while keeping a somber back story. I will definitely take your advice here and try a couple things but I'm definitely now considering keeping the cartoon dungeon crawler vibe and mixing it a dark but more tongue-in-cheek story.
Thanks again!