I got stuck in the Valley of Kings because the ingame maps are difficult to read.

I found a good indepth walkthrough.
Link: https://www.trueachievements.com/game/Pharaonic/walkthrough/3

It has a heavy focous on ahivements and may spoil some secret ones, but it offers good maps, writen instructions that are easy to follow and even some videos of boss fights.

Notes:
- The link above is set to page 3 with the indepth walkthrough, there are some general tips on the previous 2 pages.
- I'm not sure on what version the walkthrough is based (probably Xbox), but in my game the maps are not blank.
- The walkthrough reports crashes in the Royal Quarry. I've experianced none.
- There's point in the walkthrough I need to expand: the quest involving the lost trader's goods.
Giving the quest item to the women will unlock some skill 2 level skill training, but giving them to the man (near the
ghoul cages) will give you acess to a ring that increases EXP/kill and a bunch of other awesome items.
- Near the end of the Valley of Kings there will be 2 paths, 1 going up (towards a boss) and the one going right.
Take the right path. It will lead you to the Oasis.
After activating the shrine there, you can pass freely between the Valley and the Oasis.
The horde of ghouls that blovked your passage will no longer appear.
You can always return back to the ghoul boss later, preferably after geting a few levels.

If you just want to see the ingame maps without buying them ingame, they are posted on Steam.
Link: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=784438785

I hope this helps anyone else who got stuck.

I'm just adding a few of my own observations.

What are your stats?

- vitality AKA HP (does not regenerate over time, but you can heal by drinking water from your canteen) > automatically increases at level-ups

- defense (higher value = less damage recieved) > combined value of your eqipment's defense, shields do not contribute to this value

- stamina (the higher it is the more actions you can perform before having to wait for it to regenerate) > automatically increases at level-ups, works by: max - weight value (e.g. max stamina is 100 - 10 weight = 90 "useable" stamina)

- magic (higher value more = more times a backpack can be used) > automatically increases at level-ups, does not regenerate over time, but you can "refill" it by praying at shrines

What stats does your equipment have?

- shields
+ swiftness (handles stamina regeneration and overall speed of your character)
+ damage blocked (higher value = less damage received when blocking with the shield)

- armor
+ defense (higher value = less damage received just by wearing it)
+ weight (decreases your stamina pool by the specified value)

- weapons
+ damage (harm done to the enemy)
+ stamina usage (how much of your stamina a swing costs)
+ speed (how fast the weapon's swings are and if less then 100% it may slow down your character's movement speed)

- backpacks
+ magic (how much 1 use costs) > you can only use one at a time

- rings
+ don't have any stats of their own but will enhance one stat or another (e.g. make your stamina regenerate faster and increase its max value) > you can only use one at a time

Resources:
- gold (used to buy equipment and maps)
- gems (used to level up skills with trainer characters scattered in the game)
- maps (can be bought from NPCs, but you have to read them manually as there's no character tracking used) > can be accessed by going to the items category or pressing the "M" key on the keyboard.

Other:
- shrines (will restore your magic, stamina, vitality to the max and refill your canteen to 3, but will respawn enemies you've already killed in the area - the letter may be annoying or used for (usually slow) grinding

- teleport plates (will allow you to teleport between game areas for faster travel, they will automatically activate if you go near them - look for the blue glow)

- random drops (will provide random items after killing enemies, they are completely random and don't appear whenever an enemy dies)

- chests (like random drops expect that they can be found at fixed locations and will provide a specific item)

- interactable objects (mostly leavers or doors, will unlock a passage to a quicker route or a different area)

- NPCs (may offer quests or (mostly) just have some trivial dialogue)

Observations with different types of equipment:

Light shields may not block as much damage, but they don't wear down the character as much, while having a light shield your stamina will quickly regenerate even if you are using it to block.
Heavy shields block more damage (90 % or more), but your stamina will regererate very slowly while using them to block, plus they have more wieght and cost more stamina to use. It's easy for enemies to break your defense if you run out of stamina.

After seeing an ingame example, I consider the use of heavy shields to be penalized.
I'll take the "Army Shield" (level 1 heavy shield) as an example.
If I have 0 gems in the heavy shields skill, the shield has these stats:
- damage blocked: 100%
- swiftness: 4% (-6%) > the pentaly makes the character's swiftness stat -2% due to the lower skill level pentaly
If I have 1 gem in the heavy shields skill (equal level as the shield), the shield has these stats:
- damage blocked: 100%
- swiftness: 14% (+2%)
Yes, the swiftness is increased, but it will still bring my stamina to 0 and break my block (resulting in the character getting stuned and wounded) after only a few uninterupted blocks.
So haveing a heavy shield means having to time the moments when to block almost to a "t" and to just haul the shield around most of the time, especially for a low level character.

What about light shields?
I'll take the "Torn Shield" (level 0 light shield) as an example.
If I have 0 gems in the light shields skill, the shield has these stats:
- damage blocked: 70%
- swiftness: 60%
If I have 1 gem in the light shields skill, the shield has these stats:
- damage blocked: 70%
- swiftness: 62%
There's barely any increase in swiftness, it's to be expected since this is the first (and likely weakest) shield you get in the game.
However, there's a huge difference between 62% swiftness (even if you're blocking your stamina will regenrate back to its total amount in 3 seconds maximum) and 16% swiftness (I'd say around 7 seconds or so, but that will mean plenty of time for more enemy attacks and not enough stamina to dodge).

Light weapons are faster, but may not reach as far as some heavy weapons and they drain less stamina.
Heavy weapons generally have a greater reach (e.g. spears), but they're slow and drain your stamina faster.

There's not much difference between armor types. There's just the question of "max stamina decrease vs. damage blocked while wearing it".

I'll take the "Ceremonial Lapis Breastpiece" (level 0 heavy armor) as an example.
With 0 gems in the heavy armor skill it has these stats:
- defense: 50
- weight: 37
With 1 gem in heavy armor it has these stats:
- defense: 50
- weight: 33
It's not a very noticable difference and the total stamina of the two characters isn't far apart either:
- the one with 0 heavy armor skill: 599 max stamina - 59 wight (all level 1 light armor while having 1 gem in that skill)
- the one with 1 heavy armor skill: 582 max stamina - 80 wight (all level 0 heavy armor while having 1 gem in that skill)

Backpacks can be offensive (deal direct damage to enemies) or supportive (regenerate one of your stats while active). Regardless of the type, both need magic to be used.

Some general observations:

There's no hard limit of how many quest or equipment items you can carry.
You are limited to using 1 weapon and 1 shield at the same time, you cannot use 2 weapons or 2 shields instead.

You can have different character builds by investing gems into different skills, but leveling-up will increase your stats on its own so it offers no customization.

By having more gems invested in a skill you can use better equipment of the matching skill type, lower penalties of the equipment that's the same as your current level of its skill and improve the usage of lower level items (e.g. your light weapons skill level is 1 and the weapons skill level is 0, it will cost less stamina per swing).

In this game timing is everything.
I prefer a more agile character, so I can study enemy attack patterns and avoid getting hit. Get a couple hits in and get out of the enemy's attack range.
If you want to pretend you're a walking fortress, go with heavy equipment.
Luckily it's possible to have a mix as well if you'd prefer it.

So far, combining heavy armor with light shields and weapons proved to be the most effective for me.

While the game uses similar mechanisms as Dark Souls, it's nowhere near as unforgiving as DS (I'd love to experience the story of Dark Souls, but I can't even beat the first level. XD ), but it does require patience and definitely falls under the category of slow to master.
While I have figured out impatience to finish off an enemy is costly in this game, I'd probably still get a "died a 100 times" achievement if it existed, and NOT because I'd be aiming to get it. XD

Disclaimer:
I'm by no means an expert on the game or its mechanics.