Personally a big fan of the card battler system conceptually, but I think there's a few pretty fundamental problems in implementation.
In the beginning, the 1 initiative + 1 card draw per round essentially means the player has no control over what's happening beyond items and willpower stuff. You may as well be watching an extremely long, slightly repetitive cutscene. There's of course agency in how you build your deck, but nine cards is pretty limiting and unless you want to outright cheese it by filling it up with the stamina regain & draw 2, combat still ends up being pretty boring until some of the later tenets, and even then...
It feels like the nine card limit is heavily inspired by Library of Ruina, which is further hinted at by the font style in tenets. Pretty good inspiration, tbh -- great game -- but the thing is, Ruina operates with about five characters who have nine cards to choose from. That means you've essentially got a deck of 45 cards to choose from and mix and match and work with synergies, PLUS all the ego moves, which is where a lot of the gameplay's enjoyment comes in (though of course you get the other floors so you're building like eight decks on top of that, AND there's choosing the traits, AND the clothing... ect). Saria's your only party member, here, which means you've just got the nine cards. I don't think Velminth should be expected to balance a deck size of potentially 45 cards, it's just too much for a one(?) person team, but limiting it to nine shoots a lot of the potential complexity/synergies in the foot. It also means that because you can hold about nine cards in your hand, the lewd status cards have no negative effect. Which is fine, I guess, but I originally thought they were intended to fill your deck so you're eventually forced to use them; that they had an actual gameplay purpose beyond helping speed up the lewd grind.
Some of these problems might be ameliorated if your hand was discarded and redrawn at the start of every round, as you would eventually have the lewd cards bogging down your draw pile if you don't use them
I also don't know if Saria being able to learn skills from her enemies makes sense, in terms of plot? There's eldritch shit going on in the background, and her learning moves from marauders makes sense if we assume she's a super-genius, but being able to mimic the moves of a damn ghost is pretty weird. Really struck me after getting the Hound's tenet -- like how's she shapeshifting into him? Maybe having her be part abomination would explain that or something. Will probably be addressed later on; just thought it worth noting
I think the card system's got the potential to be a lot of fun & pretty fucking hot if it's brushed up a bit, though, really like the direction this is taking
In other notes, it feels almost impossible to lose a battle against the mooks due to the way willpower works, even if you've got a shit deck and are constantly making shit plays. Instead, you get to watch them wank for forty rounds
Bosses are a bit better, but it feels weird that you instantly lose on full arousal. Even if it was accompanied by massive willpower damaged moments later, it might feel a bit better
Please add orgasm cut-in more than once per rest. It's hot as hell, and I've only seen it like six times throughout my playtime in every single build of this game
Anyway, I'm a big fan of the game. Thanks for the update