Great game, but feels like a beta:
I love em strategy games and when you throw in the RPG element it's just the awesomest of combos. That's me anyhow. Now I've got a few issues with this game and also noted a couple of glitches. Some of them have been mentioned before, so please excuse the redundant comments.
GLITCHES:
1) First glitch I encountered was when I finished of the first "boss" level. I got 2 (yes double the amount) of every treasure promised on completion as well as twice the amount of gold. It looped the whole "Stage completed" thing and all the booty images and then there was a graphics glitch that stayed with me until I shut down the window and reloaded. Since this glitch had effects on the levels played without reloading I'll list em here. This glitch has happened to me three times. (I've played for maybe 4-5 hours total game time)
1.1) Some invisible block of graphics keeps flicking around where the "banner should be that informs you when your wizard cast a spell etc". This makes the "save game" and the option below save game - disappear visually. The text does anyhow. This also slows down the game immensely in the beginning and the end of a new level.
1.2) It makes the GOLD amount disappear.
1.3) It makes it hard to read stuff that's in the specific height of the "banner".
This whole glitch 1) might be related to Glitch 2)
2) I think this may just concern the wizard, but I wasn't paying attention really if it happened to any of the others. Sometimes a character is supposed to level up, but the experience just counts up and it happened in conjunction with Glitch 1) first time. My wizard had 338/300 without leveling up. This has happened to me at least 3 times, and lead to the following events.
2.1) Next level I played had some weird stuff happening with some experience points floating above one of the monster at the start of the game before I had a chance to do anything. It was as if I killed the monster without using an action, but the monster would go on and play as if it wasn't dead.
2.1.1) The monster in question could not be hurt during the rest of the level, but the level would be completed once the other monster where killed.
2.1.2) The monster could hurt a player.
2.2) The fastest character, i.e the first one you are able to use in the new level would have no action left - as if the monster kill (that wasn't a kill) was attributed to some ghost "action". ANNOYING.
2.3) The character that should have leveled up in the level before, doesn't level up until he gains some more experience.
3) This might also be a tie-in glitch as it concerns the wizard. If the last monster to die in a level dies from poisoning, I'm pretty sure the wizard isn't attributed those points until the start of the next level which causes glitch 2). And this has happened to me when the wizard was supposed to level up when getting those points.
Those are the glitches I can think of other than the freezing of the game when trying to move while surrounded which has already been mentioned.
IMPROVEMENTS:
1) SPEED!!!!! You should have a button that lets you omit some of the animations perhaps or at least let you choose a 2X and even 4X speed setting. The animations get tedious real quick and you just want the results after a while.
2) Hmm.. Guess I already mentioned the animations get tedious. Maybe some variation on the attacks?
3) The game is quite easy. I've not died once and I have never used the potions in game. I am hmm... beyond the one-eyed monster levels. Can't remember the name of the next mission. However I do use the REST option once in a while.
My biggest annoyance with this was at the beginning when you had to hack n slash through a lot of easy levels to afford a rest. TEDIOUS.
4) Maybe make it so that when you level up that character gets a free "refill". just to make things a bit smoother.
Besides the glitches the game just needs a bit of balancing to make the challenge more even - which under no circumstances means more grinding to get the gold.
Having said all that I truly like this game! Definitely want a sequel! Good work.