Thanks a lot for the detailed feedback!
The SFX/music balance definitely needs another pass, and eventually I’d also like to expose separate volume controls in an options menu.
The float-to-int issue comes from wanting to show both the health bar and a clean HP counter without ending up with something like 115.4/200 on screen. But you’re right that it can make the underlying damage feel a bit odd, so maybe dropping the numeric HP entirely could be a cleaner solution.
And more animation variety is definitely something I’d like to explore in a future update. The abort-run idea has also come up a few times now, and it makes a lot of sense.