Basic concept for a map exploration game I'm working on. If anyone has any tips for improvement, I'd love to hear them!

I like the style. Should probably have a east-west anim that's different from up and down. Most classic 2D games would use three anims:

1. running north
2. running south
3. running east,northeast,southeast (all same, xflip for west)

Your character is generic enough to use the same for north/south, but an extra sideways one would seal the deal for your aesthetic.

Very nice:) You could change the direction of the sprite to NE or SW when respectively pressing up or down keys, which makes navigating a bit easier.

On top of that, collision with walls (dark blue for instance) could be done by checking the bottom Y position of each blue pixelcolumn and make it inaccessible when there's one below the sprite's bottom y position. (I hope that made any sense;))