Alright, was able to replace a lot of my "if-then" statements with "data" statements. I'm now kicking at less than 4K! However, I will still leave the 8k bankswitching setup in for the sake of having extra room to put more game features in. I've also done a lot of bug-fixing (trap doesn't move around erratically, trap doesn't float in mid air when the terrain is lowered, etc.).
Meanwhile, in the AtariAge chatroom, sloopy gave a suggestion on how to handle the control scheme. I haven't added it in yet, but here's what he said:
Quote
for your controls, have the joystick move, and then
button+down lay trap,
button+up spring trap,
button+left lay bait,
button+right eat dead monster...
I should have that implemented in the next build.