Day There Are More Days Left Than I Thought?:
So I've been throwing a bunch of last minute stuff in and I finally looked at the game jam overview page again, and apparently I have more time to work on this game than just tomorrow afternoon during my regularly scheduled lunch break? (I always stress about things happening when I'm taking an enforced mental break from caring about those things.)
It looks like submissions are due by Sunday morning, which means I actually have until Saturday night to finish working, which means that if I get all the last bits of coding done tomorrow I can actually spend Saturday going over every line of code all over again just for quality check. I probably won't, but I could, which is nice to realize.
I spent at least an hour today working on the in-game consumable items. Typing this I just realized the 'sell only' item I used for my screenshot example shouldn't be consumable, so I'll go fix that right now. I needed something for the new character I'm introducing to steal, so I had to have this system set up first. I was kind of ignoring it, in favor of having the player use the inn to heal up after battling, but this allowed me to waste a lot of time adding flavor events around the world for the player to find random items, so that was definitely a good use of time.
And I finally added in Alasie! She's maybe my favorite character so while I could have skipped her for this version of the game... I didn't. She's a thief, and if you track her down she'll join the party and help you fight the main boss. Alternatively, you can completely ignore her, and only have two party members for the boss battle. I like the idea of giving the player that option - even though I intend the player choosing one option, being given that option is always a nice illusion of control.
Did a little more work on enemies, primarily adding drop items (and lowering their rewards; the game's gonna be played in maybe twenty minutes or less, no reason to build up thousands in gold). I also reworked the troop combos a bit and changed their appearance rates, so the more difficult enemies appear closer to the portal for the next map, to indicate to the player that things will be getting more difficult from map to map.
The last major update I made was to add a couple shops! Some of the enemies drop non-usable items that are just to sell, so I needed a few spots where they could be sold. So far they only have items - no weapons or armor. I need to work those items tomorrow, though I'll probably rely on the pre-designed weapons and armor that come with the program.
The major task I need to accomplish tomorrow is designing the boss battle. The flavor of the battle itself needs to be programmed, as well as the scene introducing the battle, and the victory scene/credit roll afterwards. Once that's done then the game will technically be playable.
I also need to do some beta testing. I've been beta testing scenes as I wrote them, and checking to make sure events process as planned and battles play out properly, but I haven't yet sat down start-to-finish tested the game as a whole. Once I finish designing the last battle scene, I'll test the whole game through to see if I need to make any changes to random encounters, or drop rates, or store prices, or any of those seemingly minor details that add up to an unenjoyable play experience.
If I get extra time, I'll want to add in more flavor events, including more potential for dialogue between the main characters. For now, though, I'm going to try to get the project done by tomorrow night, then see what I feel in the mood for on Saturday.