I really enjoyed the game, but the card battle mechanics feel somewhat disconnected from the narrative. The mechanics behind weapon and defense cards are understandable, but how does the protagonist gain a bite ability that restores HP after killing certain monsters? If we treat this as a purely mechanical feature, it's easy to overlook, but it could be integrated into the story with just a bit of effort. For example, in the first training battle with a werewolf, after defeating it, the hero could gain a bite ability card, expressing surprise in dialogue at the newfound power. You could even mention in the story that by killing monsters, the protagonist absorbs some of their strength, and voilà—the card mechanics would feel more integrated into the game's narrative.
Personally, I would prefer future updates to focus on refining the mechanics rather than adding more to the story. Currently, card progression seems broken. The experience gained for cards isn’t saved properly. For example, if you level a card from level 1 with 0 XP to 1 XP and then save/reload the game, the XP resets to 0. However, this bug also allows for cheating. In Ren'Py games, you can rewind the story by scrolling the mouse wheel up. So, after a battle, if you get a duplicate card, you can rewind time to before the fight, replay it (making sure to win in the same number of turns so the same cards drop), and select the same card to level it up to next level. But you can't rewind back if you got the card for the first time or upgrade it to the next lvl. The same exploit works for purchases or upgrades at the forge—buy a card, rewind, and buy it again. For these manipulation to work, it's best to save/load before them. Consumable cards that lose a level after use are also not functioning as intended. For instance, if you use a level 3 Bulletproof Vest card, it should drop to level 2 with 1 XP, but if you save and reload, the card resets back to level 3.
It would also be nice if consumable cards could be locked at their maximum level or made cheaper to level up again, as using them in battle and then re-leveling them feels too costly in terms of resources. The mechanic of storing cards in the stash and losing them after defeat is only mentioned during the tutorial but isn’t actually applied in the game. Personally, I like this better—it wouldn’t be fun to lose all your upgraded cards if you're defeated in the story. However, if this mechanic is added, it might make sense to lose weapon cards but keep ability cards. For example, learning a combat skill from a master and then losing it after dying doesn’t seem logical.
Lastly, I wanted to mention the events related to resource gathering and combat. It would be great if visiting a location filled up a familiarity/exploration bar, and once it’s fully leveled, you could search for specific events or monsters in that area. That way, if I wanted to encounter a trader again, I wouldn't have to abuse save/loading to trigger the event. Similarly, if I’m looking to fight certain enemies (like powered-up cultists), I could go to a specific location and search for them, instead of choosing the 'search for difficult enemies' option and abusing save/loading again.
