There's nothing special about that chest. It happened to me on another one--I think it's just a quirk in the timing between when the Actor attribute that stores that actor is set and its previous value deleted. I'm not too concerned about it, since that whole setup was a temporary solution. I really want the buttons to dim/highlight like the inventory cards do, but I didn't feel like drawing dim versions of all those graphics at the moment.
Map : COOL ! But to be honest I kind of would have an option to see only the parts that I have visited and my current position. It will be a spoiler when for instance there are 'hidden/dark' areas visible. I like the adventure type of thing : looking for clues/keys and knowing that there is a hidden treasure or path is especially cool.
Maybe have a switch on the map for the lazy ones, and default it only tells you wich paths you have taken?! I don't know: just throwing ideas
My thought on the map was to take something like Bombini suggested (mock-up below) and implement it as a skill "Perception" that you can get in the hub area.
The graphic shows Marika's relative position in the map along with anything that makes sense for her to be aware of--so not secret areas

I'd like to have a more elaborate map that can be brought up that shows more detail, but it would either fill in as the map is explored, or fill in with details as maps or other pick-ups are found.
The ones that I did encounter where either nicely fooled (Keep that ! I like the fact that one of the enemies was looking at a different spot and didn't follow m.e. !)
That's a definite feature of the AI

When an enemy loses sight of its target, it stops and looks around. Right now they're programmed to look in random directions. Smarter enemies would be better at scanning. I want to be careful how ambitious I get with the AI on the first run, since AI is challenging to debug--but I would like to at least have enemies react to sound. If they hear Marika's footsteps, they'll turn in that direction (making "Sneak" a skill book you can find), or other enemies can alert their colleagues on her position.
Various observations:
- Options screen is not working
- The font in the about screen is very difficult to read
- The big door in start room which cant be entered still confuses me
The version you shared is fantastic, its fun, its great. Has its unique style. Here are a couple of things i would like to have to make it even better.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! That font definitely needs improvement. I'd like to add a dialog system so I can give books text, pass along Marika's observations to the player, etc. That would also fix the door at the beginning of the game... have a prompt along the lines of "I can't leave until I finish my mission..."
I don't have any game options yet, but for desktop build I want to add controller support. Those controls will go there. Maybe a mobile port, too? I'm not sure.
Your system is far better than my old Windows 7 laptop I was using. It's some kind of Core i3, 4GB RAM. I'm surprised you only got 25 FPS... but then again, I never tested the game with a FPS monitor on the laptop. I checked for numerical bugs (there are some rooms that don't render correctly if the floating point math is off), but not FPS. What monitor are you using? I can squeeze some better performance out of the renderer. Ultimately I'll need to move away from software rendering, but if I can get acceptable performance out of software I don't want to get diverted by that job yet.
What i would like to add:
- The game feels a bit empty right now. I would add more interactions. Either more small/weak enemies or more switches or more traps or more lootable objects.
- Level progression: I dont know how far i am in a level. How far it will spread. Either add a map (that you already think about) or some sort of progression bar to see how far i am to keep me motivated
- More interactions with enemies: One of the features i enjoyed most was that enemies follow me. Why not have enemies which attack each other. Lets say monsters or lions which i can lure to humans and so on. This would be great.
- Navigation: Adding a map would be great, or a compass to show me where to go next. Where the next main objective is. I would also add tiny arrows add the level borders to show where you can move to. Its not alwys clear from the lighting.
I really liked the navigation arrows idea. I sketched out a system where arrows flash/pulsate to indicate a new direction, and solid to indicate a direction already explored. Of course, secret areas wouldn't have arrows. I don't remember if it's accessible in this version, but there is one map that has a lot of 1-tile-wide doors. Those are easy to miss, since they blend in with the half-walls.
I'm slowly adding more pick-ups, skill books, and such. I like the idea of having more interactions with NPCs. I need to nail down the story line, though, which at the moment is vague. Although I like the idea of having NPC/NPC interactions (like enemies that fight each other), at this point I can't say if that makes sense with respect to the game's story. I have a vague idea, but I need to write down details.
Just thinking "out loud" here, but I realized that the armor items you find in the game would probably be the armor items the guards use. If you're wearing enough of them, or the combinations of items that the rest of them would use, the dumber ones might be fooled into thinking you're a guard

I do need more enemy types at least. For the longest time my focus had been on the engine side of things. I'm still in the process of shifting focus to the actual game. There are still some core features missing, though. Right now I'm working on the save game system. I got the hardest part done--planning how to redo the game boot-up sequence to work with save files. I just need to implement and debug the code.