Lone Wolf can be a fun game, and sometimes a challenging one. Unfortunately, the documentation leaves a lot to be desired. This gameplay guide attempts to explain a little of the mechanics of the game, as well as to share some gameplay strategies. All advice is based on two normal-difficulty play-throughs, plus internet research, including posts by the game developers.

If anyone has more info to contribute to fill in some of the blanks, feel free to let me know.

ATTRIBUTES

Lone Wolf has three basic attributes: strength, dexterity, and intelligence.

Each point of STRENGTH adds 10-12 points of damage. Also, every 5 points add +1 armor. At level-ups, it will also add to your Vitality.

Each point of DEXTERITY adds +0.5% to your chance of dodging, parrying, or making a critical hit. At level-ups, this will add to your Endurance.

INTELLIGENCE increases the length of your turn. On normal difficulty or below, one can also pause one's turn by selecting one of the four command trees. At level-ups, this will add to your Kai.

Vitality (HP), Kai (MP), and Endurance (stamina) are affected by attributes at level-ups, but equipping items that raise attributes has no effect on these stats. (Or possibly it affects them but the change is not displayed.)

At each level-up (during chapter endings), Lone Wolf will get 3 attribute points. These will be assigned depending on the type of choices the player made during that chapter:

Making strength, dexterity or intelligence choices increase the chances for an improvement in the related attribute. Every Kai Power is based on 2 stats (int+dex, int+str, dex+str) and increases the chances of an improvement of both. Lockpicking raises dexterity, and cube puzzles raise intelligence.

During character creation, I favor putting the starting attribute points into strength, as there are fewer opportunities to raise it, compared to other attributes.

KAI SKILLS

HEALING was by far the best skill I had. It instantly and fully restores both Vitality and Stamina. I'm not sure I could have finished the tougher fights without this skill.

SURVIVAL drains health from your enemies when you hit them. It lasts one round, including during the enemy's turn. It's benefit over HEALING is that you can drain health, take a hit, lose health, and drain it again with another attack. You can even drain health with a counterattack on the enemy's turn. Unlike HEALING however, it does not restore endurance, and the amount of healing done at a time is much less. SURVIVAL also has more story choice applications. Overall, I prefer HEALING.

WEAPONSKILL is quite decent - essentially allowing three stamina-free attacks if used at the start of a round. I used this fairly often.

ANIMAL FRIENDSHIP is also good. It summons a wolf that stays with you for multiple rounds of combat, so try to use it early in the fight for the most benefit. The wolf targets the same enemy you are currently targetting, so if you have just stunned an enemy, change targets quickly to avoid ending the stun. Kills by the wolf regenerate Kai just like any other skill-based kill.

MIND OVER MATTER was occasionally useful in combat as a finishing blow, when I had no stamina, but Kai to spare. The sommerswerd usually got priority however.

MINDBLAST is nice for the ability to stun enemies. Unfortunately it not only requires a successful quicktime event, but uses by far the most annoying one - the circle click one.

CAMOUFLAGE is a skill I basically ignored in combat. It's possible that it's a good skill, but I prefer skills that give concrete bonuses, rather than "increased odds" of combat success. (Particularly when those odds are not quantified in specific numbers.)

SIXTH SENSE works a bit like CAMOUFLAGE in combat, and I avoided using it for the same reasons. However it has two other unique uses. Firstly, in combat it will show one of two pictures over an enemy's head: either three moving dots, or three diamond shaped spikes. When an enemy is showing spikes, it is about to attack. By having this information, the player can time their actions, either to kill or stun the enemy before it attacks, or to activate their shield skill to block. This skill also shows the player how to solve Cube puzzles, instead of doing them manually.

All kai skills have occasional plot uses, such as opening chests, bypassing traps, or (most commonly) softening up enemies before combat.

In the course of the game, you'll find or buy a variety of items and equipment. Most equipment can be upgraded, but since you'll likely find better base items to upgrade, I wouldn't recommend fully upgrading most equipment until later in the game. The exceptions are the starting armor and bag; since these will be used for the entire game, any investment in them will be permanent.

Upgrading your armor will provide more pouch slots to use in combat.

Damaged equipment is less effective (does less damage, or provdes less protection), even if it's not fully broken. In most cases however, I don't recommend repairs, because upgrading an item ALSO fixes it, so it's more cost effective to allow an item to wear down a ways and then upgrade it.

Upgraded items do not sell for more than regular items.

Food can be used between combats at times when travel and meditation are not permitted. The fight to rescue the prisoner at the wagon is a prime example; there are several fights, but they are separated by story pages, and this is an excellent time to use food. Food is cheap, so always carry some and don't be afraid to use it on such occasions. Also, be sure to carry a mix of foodstuffs - ie., don't be stuck carrying only items to replentish stamina, when kai energy might be what you need.

All merchants have a stash where you can store items; this is an excellent place to keep all those crafting ingredients and save bag space, particularly since they can only be used at a merchant anyways. The interface to move items out of the stash is non-intuitive: click, hold, then drag. (A brief pause is needed, or the game will scroll instead.)

For some reason my stash from Rockstarn village didn't appear to carry over to later maps. I didn't encounter this problem anywhere else; all other merchants shared a common stash, so I assume it was a bug.

Lone wolf can have up to four weapons: axe, mace, sword, and sommerswerd. The latter is a purely magical item; it can't be used for regular stamina attacks, but uses kai instead. Each of these weapons has three forms of attacks. Using an attack builds experience with that specific attack; this experience is shown by the round circle that slowly builds around the attack symbol. When the experience 'bar' (circle) is full, a new attack form is unlocked that is in some way better than the original - ie., it does more damage, uses less stamina, etc. When all attack forms for a weapon are unlocked, an additional bonus is granted.

The bonuses are:
1st attack of any weapon - additional damage
2nd attack of any weapon - faster cooldown
3rd attack of any wepaon - lower endurance cost

The bonuses for mastering each weapon are: (these bonuses only apply when the weapon is in the primary hand)
sword - more critical hits
mace - more stuns
axe - more hemmorhages (damage over time)

By switching weapons whenever I had mastered one, I was able to all master weapons by the start of Act 4, with only a little grinding. However I'm not sure this was worth it: I didn't see clear benefits of changing from one primary weapon to another, so perhaps it's better to master one weapon and stick with it, enjoying the bonuses for the entire game. If mastering multiple weapons, you'll spend most of the game without bonuses, as you train each up.

When an opponent is killed, Lone Wolf regains kai energy. In some cases, a kai wolf head symbol will appear on screen for a moment. Clicking it will do a finishing blow, increasing the amount of kai gained. Note that while kai is gained from kills with weapons or skills, it is not gained from kills due to damage over time, ie., fire.
Knowing that each kill will cause kai gain, if your kai bar is full and you are going for a kill with your next attack, consider the merits of using up some kai first, as the kill will get some of it back.

All attacks, skills, and items have cooldown timers in combat. However, if there is a plot prompt to use a skill just before combat, that skill will not be on cooldown when combat starts.

Consider the option of leaving some stamina unused at the end of a round, particularly if using a shield. If you have the stamina while parrying, you may be able to counterattack, hitting an enemy without putting a timer on cooldown.

Some enemies are immune to some status effects.

Some fights have mutliple waves of reinforcements. One of the things that can make these fights difficult is that beating one wave summons the next, starting the next round with many of the player's timers on cooldown. One approach to such fights is to leave the weakest enemy alive for an extra round or two - taking damage from them, and healing with potions if needed - to delay the arrival of the next wave. This allows some of the timers to reset. (The next wave will arrive when the first is wiped out, or on a predetermined round, whichever comes first.)

Specific fights I found difficult and worth being ready for: (ie before trying these, have items saved up in your belt and repair any damaged equipment)
- rescuing the prisoner from the wagon
- crossing the bridge

I found the fights in chapters 1+2 the hardest; later in the game, having upgraded my equipment and skills (partly with a little grinding), and having more maximum vitality to ride out bad luck, things go much easier.

Combat difficulty in this game tends to be caused by several factors, many of which the player has no control of. There are fights where initiative, or even the number of enemies faced, depends on the choice the player makes before combat. Unfortunately the game saves immediately after this choice is made, and some choices require a specific skill to be available at all. It is entirely possible to have a fight start with the enemies attacking, and have them kill Lone Wolf before he has any chance to take action. What's more, if this occurs, it's likely due to a the choice made before combat, and may be a semi-permanent loop, excepting a lucky miss by an enemy, or reloading from an earlier save. This is one of the most frustrating parts of the game; I've had a combat that I've had to reload over a dozen times until I got lucky. This said, there are steps that can be taken to reduce the risks and frustration:

Always meditate to recover vitality and kai when possible. This can be done at almost any location that you've cleared. Locations in parts of the map further from the start point have a higher chance of random fights while meditating; this can be a good or bad thing depending on if you're farming or actually need a rest. There's rarely a need to pay a merchant for a nap - if you get ambushed while resting, you can just reload from a previous checkpoint. (One exception: consider paying for a nap in the caves, due to a double fight at the next map location.) If you have the gold to spare however, you may wish to pay for a rest simply to avoid the annoyance of dying in combat and then reloading from a previous checkpoint, as there is no way to access the load menu without first dying or exiting the game.

Note that exiting the progam does NOT save the game. The game autosaves at pre-determined points; in most cases this means "after any fight". This is bothersome, because Lone Wolf is usually injured after a fight, and can't simply meditate to heal and then save. The end result is that on loading a saved game one needs to remember that Lone Wolf will usually start off injured from the fight before the save, and needs to rest as his first action.

The game autosaves before and after fights. This can be useful for losing a minimum of progress, but can force the player to completely restart the game if for some reason they entered the fight unprepared, as they could be stuck in a fatal loop. I nearly had this occur at the wagon fight; I had enough potions etc for the first wave, but only survived the second wave with many, many reloads. One way to avoid this is to back up your save files manually.

My save directory was: (yours may be a little different)
E:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Joe Dever’s Lone Wolf\savegames
I'd also recommend making a backup save once each chapter, ideally before you enter a map location with a difficult battle. That way if you decide the battle is too hard and you need to farm for potions or item upgrades, you have the option of going back to an earlier save, rather than being stuck at that point.

OTHER TIPS

Strength or weapon skill may open a chest... but it may destroy the contents as well. Lock picks are preferred.
Shanti cubes explode when the puzzle times out. According to the developers, they do 85% of Lone Wolf's base health - if you have the luxury of healing up before a puzzle, then it might be an option to intentionally let it explode. Optionally, get the Sixth Sense skill; this will show the solution (there is a minor kai cost). If solving the puzzle, be aware that not only does the shape need to be right, but it must be facing the correct way, ie., as if it were about to be pushed into the keyhole.

Grinding for weapon experience and equipment is recommended. I probably spent about 40% of the game grinding, and found chapters 3+ to be much easier than the earlier chapters.

(This part is going to be a bit vague - I'm adding it months after playing from memory, due to a reader request.)

There are a bunch of story choices in this game, where one must choose one option or the other. For the most part, I have not found them to make a big difference; in most cases either route will yeild a somewhat similar reward, with no obviously "better" choice.

WARNING: PLOT SPOILERS AHEAD!

The choices that I can recall:

Free Merok from jail
reward: ring to show your friendship with the bandits. At first I thought this was huge, because they offer merchant services, but I seem to recall that they offered it to me on the playthrough where I didn't rescue him as well.
alternate reward: if you leave him to rot, a girl who's family were victims of his gang gives you a different reward ring instead.

Befriend Leandra
reward: an ending where you are friends, and where she lives
alternate route: I can't recall the details - I know it's a bit sadder, but I don't remember if she survives the final battle

Free the Shianti Spirit
reward: the necromancer spirit helps you out in the chapter boss battle. This is the one case where I would definitely encourage picking a specific route. The alternative provides no benefits.

Trust the Mage (give him the crystal to heal with)
reward: the mage creates an amulet that gets you through the poison smoke.
alternate reward: you go through the poison, but then heal yourself with the blue crystals. Basically not much different.

Take the cursed shield
reward: instant death. Feel free to do so, it just results in a reload after you die.

There are a handful of other mutually exclusive choices. Just after the mage, you'll have to search two of three caverns looking for the items he needs. I believe this always results in one cavern unsearched, though I can't recall a big difference in loot.

In the mines, there is a side route that is essentially a dead end, but results in rescuing a boy, who gives you a ring as a reward.

At the very start of the game (at the avalanche) there is a route that leads to getting proof of a village boy's death, which can be given to a family member for a reward. I can't recall how to get it however; it might require a specific kai skill. (Nemo, in the comments, notes that this can be achieved by choosing the DEXTERITY option twice.)

If you want to experience more story options without playing the game twice, try saving the game before (or at) a story choice, backing up the save, and then playing through each route.