I've been busy the last month, trust me.
First of all, I've now scripted out the upgrade system.
Well to make a bad site developer's joke, I guess Ryanna's HP could not be found
The upgrade system allows you to do a limited amounts of updates. As you progress in the game, the number of upgrades the game allows may be increased. The game does not allow you to change your weapons or your armor, only to upgrade them.
I am planning though (no promises yet, but very likely it'll be there) a system that allows you to put some jewels on your character, and make your level deciding on how many jewels that will be, allowing some extra effects like more poison resistance or even a few stat boosts. This shouldn't be too hard, since my earlier game Star Story has a similar system (although Star Story was not made with LÖVE, it does use Lua as its scripting language, meaning I can very well use those routines in this game too... Well almost).
I can also say that I've almost put the last hand on the city of Windville and with that the first city is done. City creation is something I really hate when I make an RPG. It's a load of work designing the city itself and to put in enough people and to make them say something that is not entirely bullcrap. Of course, since this game is a parody, nonsensical things could now contribute to the clichés I'm trying to spoof
The city also hides a lock that any gamer who knows the history of gaming should be able to open. Trust me, the solution is legend.
It will take awhile before I can really release a playable demo, but I do already allow a few people to see the current alpha version. It's not much, only one opening spot, one dungeon and one city, but it can show a little bit how I work, and if you find bugs, I got an issue tracker on GitHub for this game. If you want, lemme know, and tell me if you are on Linux, Mac or Windows. (Mac and Windows come in 'full builds' for Linux you will need to install LÖVE 0.10.2 and a few extra instructions may be given as I've not fully followed the rules of LÖVE. Once public releases draw closer I want to find out if I can make an AppImage, but as I am running Linux in a VM now testing is hard on me, and I could never get LÖVE on the move within that VM. Speaking on VMs. I could start the Windows version in WINE (I'm on Mac), but I suppose that's not the best way to test, and Windows and I are not the best of friends).
I've a hidden page (with a password) on itch.io on which the alpha is now updated every day I work on the game (I love that Butler tool, and that is why I use itch.io and not Game Jolt, and I know I shouldn't)
If you play the alpha please note, the game is incomplete. Many features do not yet work or are not yet stable (can may cause the game to crash), and some graphics are still placeholders. This is very extremely alpha
If you are not into games in such an extreme premature state, better wait for the demo.
Now people who know me (and my games) from Game Jolt, may recognise some NPCs as playable characters from my earlier work. That was not laziness, that was done on purpose. They are cameos. They are easily recognised since unlike any other NPC character, none of them are mentioned by name when you speak to them (or when people speak about them), but only by a vague description. It's a bit of a reference (or a kind of ad) to my other games, but also, when you make a parody of others, you shouldn't be afraid to parody yourself as well, and so I did.
I've now also scripted the part in which Nino joins the party. I haven't yet done all the work on Nino (the game will crash now if Nino gets himself into combat, for starters), and that will now be my prime concern. The game is now slowly yet surely coming to a point that the "skeleton" of the game, or the "engine part" (as far as you can speak of that about a game written in full Lua code) is mostly done allowing me to focus on the content, and that's where it gets interesting for me. I won't complain. It's the price to pay when you don't use fully set up engines like RPG maker, but it also makes the game a lot more satisfying for me to work on when I take into account what I had to do to get the game fully set up the way it's now.