At least they liked the overall appearance!

Really boiled down to two changes: I had card collection turned off in code - so the power up cards were unavailable, even with my "cheat" code.  I had spawn rates cranked thru the roof, so new players were instantly overwhelmed.  

Now the game has plenty of issues right now, as I struggle to balance, etc.  Now if I had only kept a clearly marked build ready to go, at least they could've had a better preview of the game!

Here's the hot mess if you want to try it out!

(It's a Windows build)

Anyways I got good feedback too, and I'm current coding spawns so that they (have the option) of spawning relative to the player.  So for cases where the baddies are coming up from the ground I can always have them spawn say, in front at least 3 units.  This will raise other issues (spawning in walls etc), but already seems to be helping.

Steel Archers is my Wild West Action RPG for PC/Mac, currently in development.