Very fun and dynamic game! Played it for several hours straight.

I really love how you mixed roguelite with souls-like genre and you did it somewhat right.
Great pixel artwork and design of monsters and icons. Very atmospheric music. Great amount and variety of content. It was extremely pleasant to examine this game from scratch. I love the unique mechanic of partially discovering a dungeon by illuminating rooms making light a very significant gameplay element. The test that decides your primary skills is also a nice touch.
The only part that is worrying me is the game balance. The first several runs are extremely hard (and I don't consider it as a bad thing) but linear progression turns you in a death machine around the thirtieth level and the game then becomes a piece of cake. I would suggest making the progression logarithmic but it's up to you.

Some irritating things:
I don't know what is the purpose of the game not stopping during the pause menu but this is very weird, I got killed while rebinding controls.
Not sure if this bug but if you walk right into objects that are situated right next to the pit you will immediately fall despite you having some distance to the pit.

Actual bug:
If you get healed during being killed, the main character will be destroyed but "game over" screen won't appear softlocking your current run.

It's a very addictive and well-made game, you should share it more because it actually has great potential. Good luck to you and your game!

Thank you. Several hours straight? That's what I like to hear!
I am indeed a fan of souls, particularly the Tomb of the Giants area from DS1 was a big inspiration.
It's nice to hear the praise though I find it humourous you listed "icons" there, I pretty much took a massive shortcut by having monochrome ability and item icons. All other roguelites use coloured icons.
I've also heard from someone else about the difficulty curve being too difficult at the beginning and poor tutorialing. There might be one or two small changes I can make. If players could tell me the most common way they're dying in the central starting zone then I could definitely apply some nerfs.
I tried something like logarithmic progression briefly but I wasn't a fan. Maybe my algorithm was too extreme but the later levels of a stat seemed useless to level up, which encouraged you to be an all-rounder. From my playtesting, linear progression seems to always remain interesting throughout until the end of the game.
The claim about being "turned into a death machine at the 13th level and game becomes a piece of cake" I take with a grain of salt, the central starting zone will quickly become easily conquerable as is intended, but deeper areas will still give you trouble unless you have very high stats. Did you know? This game has an end! Haha.

There is a potential flaw I recognize with the game, where you could grind the central starting zone until you maxed out ALL your stats. I think this is a possibility in a lot of RPGs, but it's probably fine here as long as the player recognizes that they get way more XP (Power) within deeper areas. Maybe I need to communicate that to the player. I was also thinking of removing the Bell from the starting zone (so you have to go North, South, East or West to find a bell) because it seems too easy there to ring it and run back to level up.

I apologize about the escape menu not pausing. I am not trying to imitate dark souls here. This is a problem with the way I have coded the game and Game Maker Studio. Hopefully this is the last video game ever made that is coded without using delta time. I have since learned to use Godot and use delta there.
A pause menu without delta time is possible but it would probably be buggy and abusable. (I would just manually deactivate enemies)
I'll take a look at the pit issue later. The collision on the pits will probably always feel terrible though lol, there's probably a lot of code I need to write in order to treat the pit not as a wall but as something that you can walk closely overlapping.

I thought that heal bug was already fixed, I'll have to look at it again. Luckily you don't lose anything during that softlock.

I guess I'll try sharing it on lame ass social media for version 1.00. Thanks.

poor tutorialing

Actually I love this game being so terse. It allows you to learn it yourself. However some moments are really unobvious, like the inventory and trinkets ( items indication as blue light is too vague). The most big problem for beginner is to master "lightplay", it took me a dozen of runs to fully comprehed how light works.

"turned into a death machine at the 13th level and game becomes a piece of cake"

Hehe, I just love to break games by looking flaws in its balance, it's kind of my hobby, I am veteran of roguelike and roguelite games. You see, 5 strength/technique points already doubles your damage which is extremely huge bonus, making fights with angels, minotaurs and devils much easier, especially with the help of backstabs. Energy stat is also extremely overpowered, 10 points in it make you already fight relentless due 20% recover by kills. I would make this bonus 5+LEVEL% of missing energy instead of maximum one. Other skills are fine though. Also I love using spear-like weapons, they seem to be imbalanced in my opinion, long reach doesn't allow enemies to get closer. (Still I get owned by... cactuses? They seem to be the most tough enemies, it's scary to approach one in a corridor)

I was also thinking of removing the Bell from the starting zone

In my opinion bell doesn't give that much in the starting zone though (It gives power depending on the amount of enemies in a zone, right?) However in other branches it can spawn right at the exit and give you +15000, or sometimes it's impossible to find it at all.

Did you know? This game has an end!

Nice, I suspected it. There are obviously different dungeon stages which progresses further but I usually never left 5x5 square (2 rooms horizontal and 2 vertical) to safely allocate power. It was very nice to make them distinctive also. North seems like some tower, South is some dungeon and West is absolutely dim lit cave. I like it, especially that these directions have their own enemy types and special rewards, like the flowers that cure your curses which are growing in the West. (but West is extremely dangerous due lack of light so you should go there with some light artifacts or make some tricks with your spells)

However, you should really give some indication on this. Some players will probably think that there is no progression in the dungeon.

Once again, it's your decision how to make it, if you think that the level progression is fine then leave it as it is and polish some real flaws. Despite its faults, it's still extremely good quality game. I'll be looking forward to 1.00 and would gladly play it (or even buy it if you consider putting this on some store)

When you first walk near an interactable the tutorial system will popup saying "Space : Interact". This includes items as they're an interactable, but it only happens once and so I guess this isn't good enough. I can add another controls popup specifically for items saying "Space : Pickup item". That's very easy to do.
You mentioned the "trinkets" being unobvious, but it says "Equip artifact" when you hover over it in inventory, isn't that good enough?
I'm not sure what you mean by light being difficult to master, more light = more easy game, because you can see the enemy as opposed to not seeing the enemy. I guess the only thing I would be concerned about are players not utilizing their Seek Glowbug ability, which is there so that players don't feel completely crushed by being lost in the dark. (though Glowbugs are missing in the deepest areas)

"Regain stamina on kill" was one of the stat variables I didn't spend much time on, so I might implement that idea. There is a slight intention to make stamina start as "something you are required to manage" to then level up to "being virtually infinite". This isn't souls where stamina is always something you are required to manage no matter the level. The combat is faster with more opponents, no one's got time to stare at the bar in the top left.

I find it funny you like the spears, I don't like them at all. I actually thought they might've needed to be longer. The ancient TV which I use as a monitor has some input lag though so precision is a little harder.
If you have trouble with the Cactus monsters then I would chalk that up to your poise damage not being high enough in order to stunlock them. Cactus have the highest HP in the game apart from bosses, and the poise levels of monsters runs parallel with their HP.
Yes Bell power granted relates directly to the XP of every monster that is aggro'd by the bell at the time that you ring it. At the moment it's 40%, so ringing a bell then killing every aggro'd enemy will grant you a total of 140% power. It should be possible to find the Bell once in every area, if it's unfindable then enemies probably broke it. I've debated it with myself and I probably won't remove the bell from Central because I want to train the player to abuse the bell because some of the most fun I've had in this game is ringing a bell in a deeper area then running back to Central to level up while I'm being chased by 50 guys in a dark maze that has newly generated (since going back to previous dungeons alters them).

"However, you should really give some indication on this. Some players will probably think that there is no progression in the dungeon."

I'm not sure if that's necessary, because the player should recognize that they're discovering new enemy types by venturing deeper. So what happens if they keep going deeper? Discover new enemy types forever? No, you discover the boss. The music stops to indicate that something is up. Also there's 4 strange icons in the level up screen when you hover over "Continue", I'm not sure if I should have added accompanying text to them.
There is a potential problem where the player doesn't explore the deepest area properly and doesn't find the boss. Would this be considered a flaw? Surely players would properly explore the deepest area.

An issue with overhauling level progression is I'd have to playtest it and I'm sorry to say but at this point of development I'd rather accept flaws that are core to the experience than fix them. Because I want to move on. For example I don't like the terrain perspective (that zelda crap I went with) but there's no way in hell I can change it now.
Though I don't personally consider linear leveling progression a flaw. Maybe Dark Souls is the one who did it wrong, did you consider that, eh? I bet there's a lot of dark souls players who didn't know about the softcaps and ruined their builds!

Version 1.00 won't be changing anything major, just some bug fixes.

It's a free game, I won't be selling it, dev is a hobby. It's the greatest free game ever made! (well those are some big shoes to fill so maybe not)
Instead of buying, tell others about the game, I need more feedback before I'm done with it. Marketing is hard (is marketing the correct word to use for a free game?), consider me as someone who doesn't like talking to people despite these walls of text.

By the way, tell me if a lower Gamma value looks better. In ESC menu go to Graphics -> Colour Profile -> change Gamma to 80 or 90. You may be surprised to see Blue at 130, but you will be even more surprised to learn I designed all my art on a crappy low budget TV and had to create a colour correction shader to fix it. I think the gamma may have been incorrect too.

I'm not sure what you mean by light being difficult to master, more light = more easy game

Yep, it absolutely sounds like this. But sometimes "Glowbugs are missing in the deepest areas" and you don't know how at first how to deal with prolonged walkings in darkness and you may end up being impaled by spikes or fall into the pit. But the more you learning the game the more ways to deal with darkness you finding out.

This includes items as they're an interactable, but it only happens once and so I guess this isn't good enough. I can add another controls popup specifically for items saying "Space : Pickup item"

It will do I think. Also I'd like them to be distinguishing (some colour code maybe?), because in the end of the game enemies just litter weapons everywhere and trinket finding ends up into cherrypicking.

You mentioned the "trinkets" being unobvious, but it says "Equip artifact" when you hover over it in inventory, isn't that good enough?

Unfortunately, I figured out to equip them only when I opened the inventory to switch weapons... Yep, I'm that simple minded.

So what happens if they keep going deeper? Discover new enemy types forever?

Who knows? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ After this amazing light mechanic it wouldn't surprise me. 

There is a potential problem where the player doesn't explore the deepest area properly and doesn't find the boss. Would this be considered a flaw? Surely players would properly explore the deepest area.

Agree. Probably it's my personal thing, I prefer to be overly cautious in games like this.

I've debated it with myself and I probably won't remove the bell from Central because I want to train the player to abuse the bell

Good decision. The starting zone is a perfect "tutorial" stage which teaches a player about all features this game has, like consuming food, curing rotting, allocating power, bloodshed and using light sources. It would be strange to remove such a significant interaction from this zone.

It's a free game, I won't be selling it, dev is a hobby. It's the greatest free game ever made! (well those are some big shoes to fill so maybe not)

Haha, it definitely is! I would pay for the experience it gave me. It could compete with any $15 indie game and easily exceed it.

Instead of buying, tell others about the game, I need more feedback before I'm done with it.

Sure thing! After my very first run the first thing I did was telling my friend (who is fond of Dark Souls) about this game. He greatly appreciated it and spent many hours in it as well. Planning to tell other people too.

By the way, tell me if a lower Gamma value looks better

It looks better at 90, Darklings are more distinguishable from floor and some objects start to looking more solid. 80 is too low, it makes walls too eye unfriendly.

I done a walkthrough from scratch to see how quick I can beat this game with all knowledge I gained and I would say next things:

The order of bosses was W>S>E>N (but now I think I would go E>S>W>N). First things I started to upgrade are Technique and Energy. After these got level 10, I started to improve Lifeblood and Restoration to be in the dungeon as long as possible. North is the best location for farming (I would say South but you risking being cursed by Devils) Luck is needed mid-game to gain as much useful items as possible. Domain turned out to be the most essential skill in the late-game, probably if I spent some points in it instead of Charisma and Luck I would beat this game even faster. Feather Angelic Spear is a judgement day device, one precise hit is enough to clear corridor full of powerful enemies. Crown of Desire with +50% bonus made progress much faster. Shield of Blood is imbalanced and makes you virtually invulnerable (I wouldn't nerf or remove it though). Bosses are underpowered (or I got overpowered), only centipede killed me once (and that's because it had many other enemies nearby), after this I farmed a bit more and then did my last run and all bosses were killed in one life.  Overall it was very fun experience, I would do another walkthrough like this!

It will do I think. Also I'd like them to be distinguishing (some colour code maybe?), because in the end of the game enemies just litter weapons everywhere and trinket finding ends up into cherrypicking.

I am uncertain about your idea of colour-distinguished item drops. It sounds good in theory, but it would hurt several factors: the lootbox gamble (you don't know what you'll get, which I believe is core to items in Dark Souls being fun to pickup), the game will start looking like a rainbow (despite my colourful enemies I do generally prefer a gloomy gothic look), and it would also hurt game balance just a little as you may start avoiding picking up item types based on their colour which would make the game easier providing you more free light. There's a small risk-reward factor in the act of picking up an item instead of leaving it on the floor, you'll also notice when you discard an item it no longer provides light.

I can decrease the late-game weapon drop rate a little if you think you are being swarmed with too many weapon drops. It really is an arbitrary matter, there's no rule to the amount of weapons I'm providing the player. It's currently 3% (0 Luck) to 10% (25 Luck), should I change it to "3% to 8%"? The problem is that after death this determines how quickly you will find an initial replacement for your Bone weapon so it should probably remain high for the game to be less tedious.

Unfortunately, I figured out to equip them only when I opened the inventory to switch weapons... Yep, I'm that simple minded.

I could add a tutorial message which upon picking up an artifact commands you to equip it. I didn't think this would be necessary but I guess it's important.

It looks better at 90, Darklings are more distinguishable from floor and some objects start to looking more solid. 80 is too low, it makes walls too eye unfriendly.

I've ordered an expensive colour correct monitor on amazon (because this crap has been driving me nuts) hopefully I'll determine once and for all the perfect picture values.

The order of bosses was W>S>E>N (but now I think I would go E>S>W>N).

I am very surprised to see your boss order because I thought North boss was the easiest! lol
If you didn't realize, you can pop its projectiles by attacking them (a large swinging weapon helps). But I imagine it could be extra difficult if you have bad luck with enemy spawns, as that boss certainly likes to kite around.

Shield of Blood is imbalanced and makes you virtually invulnerable (I wouldn't nerf or remove it though).

I thought Shield of Blood might be a bit too strong and I came to the same conclusion that it's alright to have some strong items, so you feel good when you find one. There is another way to nerf it though - rarity.
As it stands, all unstackable artifacts are 3 times rarer than stackable artifacts (Diseased heart is a stackable artifact, shields are unstackable) and then there's "Dead frog eggs" which I made even rarer as they block curses which gives you an entire reason to never take Necromancy (for curse resistance which allows you to take advantage of statue blessings with no downside). So I might put Shield of Blood on the same rarity level as Dead frog eggs (as a result you would find a Shield of Blood half as much as you currently do).

Bosses are underpowered (or I got overpowered), only centipede killed me once (and that's because it had many other enemies nearby), after this I farmed a bit more and then did my last run and all bosses were killed in one life.

I didn't spend a ton of time on bosses, I would've liked to add more boss attacks but I became too tired of working on the game. Bosses only have one or two attacks so a lower amount of HP seemed appropriate for that kind of simple gameplay. For normal monsters Cactus has the most HP at 600 and all the bosses have 8x that value at 4800 HP. But I am not opposed to buffing bosses if it would make the fight more fun without becoming tedious (tedium is something I always want to avoid), I do recognize that the normal enemies are probably harder to deal with than the bosses themselves. Should I increase all boss attacks' damage by 25% and increase boss HP by 25%? What do you think?

Domain turned out to be the most essential skill in the late-game, probably if I spent some points in it instead of Charisma and Luck I would beat this game even faster.

Regarding the late-game darkness, basically Pyromancy is instant darkness alleviation and Domain is slow darkness alleviation. (there's also Luck which provides a number of ways such as the Luminous stone, Lightseeds, Jarred bug, Bonus creature (sometimes), Torches and Blazing beetle pincers.)
Pyromancy is intended to be more useful at the beginning because you can easily kill monsters with it (that you might be lacking in poise damage to stunlock) which should help players who are bad at the combat, then becomes less useful late-game because it is limited and you may as well kill enemies with your weapons. Though it's always pretty useful against large packs of monsters that are chasing you (good AoE), or could be saved for a troublesome late-game enemy type. I had ideas to add more fire spells but I cut them in the interest of actually finishing the game.
As you've pointed out, Domain is fairly useless early game then it becomes one of the best stats for late game. Though it is possible to explore the deepest areas without it and even without Pyromancy, by using item-drop light. I notice your Necromancy is at 0, if that was at 25 instead of Domain then your game would be swarming with even more item-drops, it's an intended strategy to not pick up items in order to allow them to provide light for you.

15 deaths in your pic looks pretty good to me. My early attempts at playtesting my game netted me something like 50+ deaths (though I think that's back when I had insta-kill pits). I've played through about 6 times and became bored of it so I opened up public playtesting with 0.99. Here was my most recent run, where I tested to see if I could beat the game without Pyromancy or Domain or a Luminous stone:

It's hilarious to see that our Time is so similar. I guess it's a 4 hour game? I have less deaths because of using summons which draw aggro away from yourself. Oh and thanks for telling others about the game!

I've implemented a bunch of the things mentioned in this thread for version 1.00

https://rainlizard.itch.io/slautios/devlog/222328/100