like all the fundamentals to create a completed game, or a full game code-along that isn’t pong or breakout
Take a look at the sample apps prefixed with ./samples/99_genre_*. There are definitely sample apps that are non-trivial.
Things like figuring out top down 8 way movement.
The third directory of sample apps does exactly this. Located at ./samples/03_rendering_sprites/03_animation_states_advanced. There’s also a topdown RPG 99_genre_* directory that has more advanced implementations. The specific method is args.inputs.directional_vector that returns a normalized value depending on what the D-Pad/left analog reports back.
setting up long quests with dialogue and branching conditionals
There are a couple of sample apps under the ./samples/99_genre_rpg directory that cover branching narratives (one of them is called Return of Serenity which has fairly complex branches).
happily reading a tutorial book for the engine made
If it’s the book Building Games with DragonRuby, we have a channel on our Discord Server where you can report bugs and give feedback. The Discord Server in general is a fantastic place to get help (and probably the best place to get help as of right now, we’re still a relatively young engine and working on getting more content out there).