This made my night so hard. I'd really like it if there was some hitboxes around NPCs so you didn't walk over them. And the way the combat played out took a while before I got something other than orbs, so I'd have liked if it showed a bit more variety early on, But other than that, it was absolutely fascinating. I loved the combination of games that you took inspiration from, and your writing is unfairly hilarious. I took so many screenshots while playing to share with people.
I'll take a look into getting some hitboxes/collisions around the NPCs, and adding more variety to the encounters in the early game.