Glad you appreciated the simplicity, because that is definitely what I was going for!
Cutting audio was definitely my biggest regret when I was rushing to finish. Strafing is interesting, because I don't personally ever strafe in these sorts of games, but I guess I'll add it to the post-jam update because a lot of other people expect it.
I think strafing would be useful in your game. I often ran into the situation where the mobs would come towards me on a differnt row. To intercept (and bump into them) I had to turn, move, turn back. At this point the mob would already be next to me. With strafing I could just switch the row without loosing sight. Since strafing is very easy to implement its a low hanging fruit, waiting to be picked.
man I gotta say, strafing feels so good in this game! I was going for a more active gamestyle than is usually associated with turn-based games, so giving players this additional freedom of movement is soo satisfying.
Mind trying the current state to playtest? (obviously your rating should still be the jam version) The post-jam version is https://tokkitron.itch.io/uliels-post-jam-update (password dcjam)
This feels so much better! While I prefer A/ D for strafing, I can adapt to Q/E after a while. Maybe switch between the two as an optional feature?
But strafing really improved the movement by quiet a lot. Also storing potions instead of applying them instanitly is a huge plus.
Good job, Im gonna play a post jam version for sure!