Don’t break out the champagne or anything, but the game is more or less playable again. Of course, “playable” is a term subject to interpretation, and in this case I would advise an unusually loose interpretation. While enemies do attack, there is something really messed up about their movement (i.e., I didn’t change their movement at all). While graphics aren’t exactly one of the game’s selling points even at the best of times, I think I’ve finally reached the point that the poor animations are actually hurting the game, since there is no animation to distinguish between a merely inactive enemy and an enemy preparing to attack.
On a more positive note, (or what amounts to one), the game now supports xbox controller play. If you have never tried xbox pc gaming, I personally recommend it. Not just for this game, naturally, but I have to admit that for this game in particular the gameplay (such as it is) is already much more enjoyable when using one. I have tried to do my best in the ongoing war against the keyboard and two-handedness of most of humanity, and fortunately this version (thanks to zin for suggesting the new layout) is an improvement on the last, but if you have an xbox controller… I am, of course, open to any further suggestions/feedback etc. since long nights of debugging has left me somewhat calloused to the inconvenience of the user interface.
While I have not had time to fix either the shopkeeper or, indeed, any of the npcs, I did add a boss. Somewhat hasty, but at least better than those worthless minor enemies and their screwed up pathfinding routines.
I also feel I should apologize for the poor timing of the abilities. while abilities do display, and are “usable” in the sense of clickable, only one (E or left arrow pad on a controller) does more than just waste energy and go on cooldown. It is, however, a step forward towards better days (I hope).

Known Bugs:
-Some perfunctory multiplayer tests have shown that multiplayer in general is unusually likely to crash the game, and while any bug reports in this area would be unusually helpful, I cannot conscientiously recommend it at this stage (not that you need 8 players to beat these crumby levels).
-There is noticeable lag when going through caves in the dungeon. This is due to the crude method of generating isomorphic rooms based on orthographic maze generation. This is one of many problems with existing dungeon rooms, but as this is a temporary, stopgap system, it and its problems won’t be around for long.
-Abilities, as mentioned elsewhere, are mostly worthless
-talking to npcs will almost certainly crash the game
-no, there is no documentation. there is no way to find out what your abilities are called, and even if they did do something, you would never know.
-hitboxes are all messed up (It has to do with the squashed isomorphic pathing)
-there will be sounds/music when and if I find a good composer who will work for free (which is to say, probably never).

CHANGELOG:
-Xbox Controller Support
-Improved menus
-Visible abilities
-Attacking enemies
-A boss
-Isometric Terrain
-Finally worked out a way to show local games without having to type in an IP address every time. this is still an experimental feature, so any feedback would be appreciated.
-Skills are now selectable (though their effects have yet to be implemented)
-A LOT of code refactoring and restructuring, in case you happen to care about that sort of thing.
-Fixed the start/shift menus so that they at least display somewhat properly and don’t crash the game
-Many multiplayer bugs were fixed, which, for all I know, were probably left over from the last two builds.

GOALS FOR NEXT UPDATE:
-Got to do something about that abysmal enemy movement
-Better dungeon levels (so that they aren’t all basically the same cramped yellow corridors with no tactical value)
-WORKING abilities, and maybe another class
-Better variety of enemies (not just those two…things)
-Get skills and traits to actually have some kind of meaning
-Add functionality to the start/shift menu so that you can actually find out what all those abilities and things do
-Some sort of visual cues as to how to navigate the discombobulating maze of keyboard controls.
-Fix dialog system so that, at the very least, it doesn’t crash the game.
-Probably add enemy drops back in
-I mean it, I am going to add a real shopkeeper, one of these days.
-Graphics (don’t hold your breath, but the game’s overdue for at least some basic animations)