Ruby Wolf

The game (demo) is missing lots of things, title screen, introduction, instructions, etc.

Here's a quick guide.

Enemies are always visible on the map and move when you do. If you keep moving and don't stop, you'll move faster than most enemies. Once you defeat an enemy, it is gone for good, it will never respawn if you leave and come back. You should avoid fights with enemies you don't know you can easily defeat. Once you can, you should hunt them all down to gain EXP. Even a single level gained can make a difference.

Avoid fights even if you feel you're on equal ground. You cannot heal during battle, ever, you don't regenerate health or energy, and if you escape, the enemy is fully restored. You really should only ever escape if you didn't mean to start a battle. You're faster than most enemies in the game, it will almost always work.. But if you're not, there's only a 10% or 30% chance it will.

You don't regenerate health or energy, you cannot grind, and there are no shops. You have to save and use what you can find inside. This requires some strategy, especially when you reach the area where almost everything keeps poisoning you. In that case, you should only use a remedy when you don't think you won't just get poisoned again, but you can't hold off too much since it never goes away and damages you per step.

You'll keep finding yellow item boxes full of treasure. This will increase your score. You don't have to get any of them to complete the game, but you won't get a good ending if Sofia leaves the ruins empty-handed. Strike a balance between how much risk you want to take. Getting 100% completion will be an accomplishment.

The blue item boxes always have equipment inside. You probably need many of these to complete the game or you'll be too weak. As you collect a lot of equipment, you'll notice you can sort of customize Sofia's stats with different combinations of equipment. Try to always go for these.

Every boss in the game will be optional (except for one). You can just walk right by them. Of course, you really want to power up and then take them on. Each boss is loaded up with gear that they'll fight you with. They also have five times the amount of health and energy they normally would. Remembering that you cannot heal during battle, be sure you can last that long. If you can defeat a boss, you get to take all their stuff. There's always going to be at least one piece of exotic or better equipment on them. So with every boss you defeat, the game gets easier for a bit. There's only one to fight in the demo so far.

This game is really tough on you and throws away all the JRPG tropes that made these kinds of games too easy (grinding weak enemies, buying 99 potions, etc.), but I do let you save anywhere from the menu. Do it. Save often. Don't save yourself into a corner though. If you like to save too often, try using up the other save slots. They'll get descriptive names, statues, etc. later. Since there is no game over sequence written yet, the engine suddenly closes after you die. Game over. You're dead. You'll have to load a previous save to continue.