I really enjoyed my first run through before i realized there was essentially a 10 day loop, but after my second run went rather poorly, my 3rd and 4th every single skill was so expensive I couldn't get out of the deficit that I was put in, especially as the -8 stats per day meant I could never discount my skills to access the NPCs and locked doors. Until I spent like 5 empty runs just waiting for all my stats to enter the negatives and then find 15 EXP blocks to buy the "repenting" skills
I liked what I got to experience in the first run, and the snowball of accessing an NPC and essentially doubling your time in the maze is really fun.
I think that two things would really make the game more consistently fun
1) make blood not be spent just walking around, I feel like a majority of my blood use went into empty hallways and running to pick up item drops, maybe as an "easy" difficulty mode. I'm pretty sure this is what got me in "repent" mode in the first place
2) cap the "repent" skills at 100 exp cost, that way over the course of 10 days theres a decent chance of finding the required exp blocks and get back to sweet gaming, but you're still punished for failure, once again maybe as an "easy" mode, or just give the option to have the failed fledgling killed after a couple failed "repenting" runs
Once again really enjoyed this game, its fun when it's not snowballling in the opposite direction, I'd kill for an endless mode where I can build up a super vampire and see the dialogue for all the super high stat skills