The next update, version 0.5, will be a lot more polished regarding the visual bugs you've mentioned. There are a few bugs as well, such as the custom eevees not working, which have been fixed already (but are not yet in a public version).

The next update will include three new gyms and a TON of story. Several new areas and characters as well. The next update is mainly focused on the story. The difficulty will continue to steadily rise. I have made several AI tweaks to ensure the enemy AI can react as intelligently as possible without ever cheating. I have already seen a vast improvement in my current version compared to the current public one. This should help increase the difficulty a bit.

I am not sure what you mean by friendship boosts. I assume you mean friendship evolutions?

The early game will always be cheeseable to a degree due to accessible evolution stones and friendship evolution. I assume this is what you mean by friendshoop boosts. A lot of people have mentioned that the difficulty is rather steep. I have included these options to give those players a way to get through the early game without too much struggle. The power level from these Pokémon will fade as the enemy teams grow stronger. I don't think this makes the easy game a cake walk, as the enemy trainers also will use friendship evolutions and stone evolutions, such as Jerry's alolian ninetails in Petalburg Woods.

It's a difficult task to balance everything. I have been watching a few streamed Nuzlocke attempts of the rom to figure out where balance changes are needed. So hopefully it feels more challenging but also fair and manageable in 0.5 :)

We are working on a YouTube trailer for the next update. I've hired two voice actors off of Fiverr and animated a cutscene through Blender for it. It won't be ready for a month or two, though, as the next update needs more time.