New release

This release includes a significant amount of new content and improvements.

UI changes:

• A display listing all visible enemies, below the target view.
• Monster glyphs that appear in the UI now have the correct colors.
• The “choice” dialog now appears in the sidebar, rather than in the message log.
• The game area uses a slightly larger font and colors have been tweaked for visibility.
• You can see what statuses an enemy is affected by.
• The game is more obvious about it when you’ve won.

New content + mechanics:

• Activated abilities you can gain from soul effects. Press (a) to use them. They will drain essence, but do not require essence to activate, and will recharge once you refill your essence to max. This is something I’m playing a lot with the balance of. There are three activated abilities so far.
• Randomized soul effects. Each monster type has the same soul effects per run, but they are now slightly randomized between runs. In some cases, this even means an additional power.
• Several new monsters, with new abilities.
• Monster placement completely overhauled to place “formations” of enemies in rooms. You should now see more of an assortment of enemies in close proximity, and overall there are a lot more enemies.

Balance changes:

• The slow effect from ghost souls now inflicts a “slow” status effect for a duration scaling with the soul’s power. This is overall a nerf, but it’s still a useful effect, just more in line with other options.
• Dying enemies now actually die after a while. More powerful enemies die more slowly.
• The first floor is still mostly vermin, but you’re guaranteed to have something to fight.
• Enemy AI is a little smarter. It’s still very dumb by roguelike standards.

Overall this release feels easier to me, but I don’t want to overbalance too soon. I’m planning on continuing the trajectory of adding new content. Improving map generation is my next priority, and then actually working toward a real endgame.

I welcome any feedback or bug reports!