Finally got the solution for the major display bug that was causing the npcs to appear above their perspective - another big thanks for https://mikhail-pomaskin.itch.io/ for providing the sample and the support to fix it. If the game looks like crap it's because of me, not because of mikhail :)

Fixing that display bug allowed me to consolidate the walls and other npcs into a single group, which means the events that display the walls only have to be run once, rather than actions  for each npc class. That should make it run a little better. I also removed some redundant objects that were created from copying scenes so each scene only has the objects it needs.

I have a couple other options to explore where I can maybe shrink things a little bit and hopefully have it run a bit smoother, and get back to adding more levels, obstacles, and npcs.