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I still have to see some of the implementations you are planning, but I think it would be attractive to have a currency reward (gold, souls, xp, shells, nails...) that we can hoard and spend on a shop or something. Classic, but it will add extra motivation to keep making runs. Maybe there could be a pet in the shop, aesthetics change, starting gear, bonus to drops..
Thanks for the feedback! That's not a bad idea. In some ways I wanted to experiment with how far I could get with this design as is (upgrades strictly from clearing stages). I was hoping people would be enticed enough to keep doing runs to clear nodes and get upgrades but I do agree that I can be deflated if I do a run but fail to conquer any new stages. Gold would certainly help bridge that progression gap but I think for this game I'd like to try hitting a different audience than the grind audience. I consider this game more of a puzzle game in some ways as to figuring out the map and how to push through it. I do think your last sentence still fits my design perfectly. My current path is to add in a couple things to the mid/end-game including starting gear though suggestions could sway me.
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If you go back to an easier level when you're about to die the HP is at full after a couple of kills. This is faster than the 30sec penalty. I don't know if this is intended
Yep that's intended, since the game doesn't have combat for the core mechanic, I wanted to put more emphasis on loot selection and map movement. I tried to build in a variety of tricks the player can use on the map to optimize their run.
Thanks for the feedback! This UI was really tricky because there's a lot of info and small real estate. I'll definitely be scrutinizing this and seeing where I can improve it in an update.