Initial upload of The Lost Spellforge version 0.1

It has been far too long in the works, but here it is: The Lost Spellforge is now uploaded to the internet and technically playable.

This project started near the beginning of the Covid-19 quarantine. I lost my job and began trying to find a new career path, I found the RPG Maker VX Ace lite (trial) version and started playing around with it. After making a simple little game within the limitations of the demo, I thought of an interesting challenge to myself: Learn how to make games by taking apart and reconstructing an already existing game. So I got out my starter set books from Dungeons and Dragons 5E, The Lost Mine of Phandelver, and started to recreate the maps. Each battle map was already arranged on a grid which translated to the grid-based tileset map generator nicely. Then I started work on implementing the pregenerated character sheets that came with the adventure module in video game form, which was harder, and involved a bit of trial and error with tweaking the numbers in order to fit the way that the program calculated the damage formulas, but I managed to get the first level characters made, and the later levels could wait until another time. I used the same logic with the enemy stat blocks and created the whole set of monsters that you encounter within the adventure as written. After adding a few connecting story bits, I had a semi-playable game. Excited by my creations, I shared this with my closest friends and family. Surprising none of them, it was actually really well received and they all seemed to genuinely enjoy what I had made so far. It was around this time that some of my best friends conspired without my knowledge to all pitch in and put together enough money to purchase the full version of the program. I protested because it was a lot of money that they had gathered, and I wasn't even remotely sure of my abilities to complete this type of project and asked them if they were sure they didn't want to wait and see how the finished trial version looked before investing in it... They very simply stated that they weren't investing in my project, they were investing in me, as they had every confidence in my creative talent and ability... Then the strangest thing happened, it rained somehow, inside my apartment, and only on my face...

Fast-forward a few months, to November. I am now finished, not with the project, not even remotely close, but I am finished recreating what I had made in that trial version, now in the full version of RPGMaker MV (which after some deliberation I chose to get instead of getting the full version of the program I was already working with, due to the constraints that VX Ace had). I have made considerable changes to what was there based on learning from the first process, which saved me some time in the second iteration. I have also made a number of additions that weren't there in the original project. Based on my current understanding of video games, and my current understanding of my personal process, and my current plans for how far I want to go with this project: I would say that I am currently about one-tenth of the way to completion. So here it is, version 0.10, and when I get to version 1.0, I will be finished and then I will hopefully have enough knowledge and experience to begin my own works, potentially on a path into a game development career or maybe just a lifelong hobby, but either way, I intend to give it my very best attempt. After all, it would be a disservice to my friends to not at least try to be all that they believe me to be.