I didn't get it running in Wine on Debian Linux (which examplifies why the "miracle of wine" shouldn't be relied on), but got to try it under Windows.
As has already been said, the sprites are looking nice (some of them make me squint a bit, though). I also think the setting is refreshing, already with a unique feeling to it. You'll doubtless end up with a pretty cool world once you get it fleshed out some more. The fact that money=healing, is an interesting idea that works well (partly thanks to the pun cash/cashew, which also makes me think of ancient civilizations' use of cowry shells as currency).
I liked the simplicity of the interface. Binding all actions you'll ever need to just a few commands, makes the game easy to get into, without limiting the possibilities too much.
Some points of critisism/suggestions:
* Manual/command sheet/help: Although the interface is mostly easy to get into, it would be nice to have a manual or an in-game help. In particular, I didn't get how skills work. At first, I was really confused by leveling-up ("How do I fill empty skill slots?"), and when I finally learned a skill (distracting scream, or something like that), I didn't manage to activate it.
* Forced mixed mouse&keyboard interface. It would be nice if the game could be completely controlled using one or the other. Eg. pressing "Q" followed by a direction attacks in that direction, look command spawns a cursor that can be controlled with directional keys, etc. Similarly, clicking on a tile of the map could move (or better yet, autotravel) towards that tile.
* I find it a bit bland to explore mostly empty villages and wilderness areas. I guess this might solve itself once more content gets into place. I personally don't believe a CRPG-village needs a single empty house to fill it up. I'd rather explore a single screen village where every house has interest, than a four screen big village filled with mostly empty houses and "decorative" NPCs. An idea for the wilderness could be to have random encounters (à la ADOM or TOME, but maybe even neutral/friendly encounters).
* Likewise, the dungeon crawling bit could be made more exiting. It was a lot of "explore labyrinth, collect loot from chests and monsters, which must be bumped until dead, find staircase, repeat". I found pleasure in discovering new monsters and items, but the monsters didn't feel *that* different from eachother except for armor and attack values. Their special attacks didn't seem to change the pace of battle significantly.
* The game lags quite a bit! This was on a one year old eee pc of modest power. In the dungeon, it wasn't so bad, but in the village and wilderness the delay between each turn must have been a bit more than a second.
* My first character seemed to spawn in a map without any villages. I may have just missed any places of interest or a narrow passage leading to a populated land … but if you don't think it too vulgar, you might consider something like starting the PC out adjacent to a guaranteed village/place of interest.
* My second character fared much better. After descending into a dungeon and strangling a Skykin with his bare hands, he found some cashews and placed a bet with a gambler. I lucked out, it seems, and got some kind of enchanted ax for 5 cashews. A problem was that it weighed a lot (25), so I had to leave other loot behind to hold on to it, all the while pumping experience into the strength stat to be able to carry more. Sad to say, this character died to what I presume was a bug: I left the first village after a while, first taking a nap in an empty bed I found, and ventured on to another village. On the way, I was informed that I was feeling "drowsy". Upon entering the second village, my stats sheet on the right was simply substituted by a giant crossbones, and I was not allowed to make any actions. I guess this means I'm dead, but I've no idea why.
That was focusing on what I think could become better. But all in all, I think this looks very promising. I get the impression you are planning on adding quests and other interesting stuff to do, and you already have a really nice framework in place. Keep up the good work!
As always,
Minotauros
