Just over 10 months it's taken for me to get to this point.

I'm so happy that the next version of my game is finally done. I've put a lot of work into it as well as adding new features.

Feel free to take a look at the devlog I posted below as well as my game Memories, a top-down, fantasy-based RPG.

https://dalegdawg.itch.io/memories

New Features

Since version 0.4, there have been tonnes of new feature additions in the game, here's a list of what's been added:

• Stat Allocation - For every level, each character gains 5AP (Ability Points) to spend on increasing various stats. The allocation of AP is done via the 'Stat Allocation' option from the Menu.
• Turn Order - During battle, you can now see who will act first once you've finished selecting what actions to take beforehand
• Battle Cursor - This is more a 'quality of life' addition that just makes it easier to see who you're selecting to attack/heal during battle
• Repel/Lure - There are now items in the game that allow you to repel monster battles or lure them in with bait items.
• Enemy HP Gauge - After defeating an enemy for the first time, you will be able to see their health bar moving forwards so you can see how much health the enemy has left
• Updated Save Screen - You now have the option to Load and Delete saves as well as viewing more information about a specific save file such as playtime and Gold count etc.
• Enemy Level Scaling - Enemies now scale to your level. This way, the game will always give you some form of challenge (and increased rewards for higher level monsters!)
• Equipment Requirements - Weapons (and in the future, armour), now make you meet certain requirements before being allowed to equip them. You can check a weapon's requirements using the TAB key on a keyboard (I still need to double check for Android devices!)
• Updated Shop Menus - The shop menus have been updated to give more information about the items you're looking at such as the specific effects or stat increases it will have
• Updated Items Screen - As well as the shop menus, your normal item menu has also had a makeover to help give you more information about the weapons, armour and items you have too
• After-battle Info - After a battle, you now get more information about the results such as a visual experience bar, the amount of gold obtained, any dropped items and any new skills learned
• Updated Options Screen - In the menu, the "Options" area has had a visual overhaul to make it easier to navigate.

Changes

As well as new additions, there have been a plethora of changes to the game too;

• Updated Maps - A LOT (not all, yet) have been updated to use a newer, more visually pleasing, tileset. This includes, but isn't limited to, the first few areas as soon as the game starts.
• Immeasurable dialogue changes - There have been a lot of dialogue changes not only to newer NPC's introduced in 0.5, but some of the dialogue affecting store and general NPC interaction too.
• Weapon/Armour Stats and Price - The stats for nearly all weapon and armour has been tweaked and the price for the majority has been lowered slightly.
• New skills - There are some new skills that can be learnt at higher levels. One example is a skill called 'Level Break'. This skill deals a modest amount of damage and reduces the target enemy's level by 2.
• Side-Quests - During the later part of the game, you will now have the ability to undertake side-quests. These provide an adequate challenge with promising rewards. There are currently only 2 side-quests however, more will be added in the future.
• New Weapons/Armour/Items - Naturally there are more of these items available in the game, some of which deviate from the standard 'Bronze, Iron, Steel' approach.
• Fast Travel - The game now incorporates a fast-travel system which can be utilised later in the game (useful in side-quests).
• More Story - Albeit not a huge amount of story has been added, there is still more story to explore. This update mainly focused on providing new features, adding extra things to do in the game that weren't to do with the story and the start of redesigning the older areas.

Bugs

Don't talk to me about bugs... really.

There is literally too many bugs to list that got squashed during the creation of 0.5.

And naturally, because the majority of the bugs were 0.5-related, there's no need to really list them however, there were a couple that were found and squished in the 0.4+ build;

• Screen fades to black and doesn't come back - During the Blacksmith's quest in Rochwood to retrieve their supplies, once you'd returned and given them the supplies, the screen had faded to black but never faded back in. This is now fixed.
• There was some issues with transfer events not transferring to the correct place. These have now been corrected too.

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There is probably so much more I could say I've added, changed or fixed in 0.5 but it's probably better if you just experience it for yourself.

If you've played any of the previous versions of Memories, I highly recommend playing again from the start otherwise you'd be missing out on some of the changes and additions in the game!

0.6 is next on the agenda but as usual, please keep in mind that I'm only one person doing this in my spare time as I have a full-time job and a partner (who also wants my time!). Considering I though I'd have 0.5 released months ago, I'm not going to bother putting an eta on 0.6 as I simply don't know how long it's going to take me.

This isn't to say I'm going to be silent from now on as there may be bugs with 0.5 that I haven't seen which will need patching (please leave a comment if you find one!). There are also a few buildings that are "Under construction" that I want to finish up and add some NPC's to in version 0.5.1.