Just, kidding, man.
Never did say I dig your ASCII art! Pulpfist explained to me how to set my window size in my C# text-based RPG. You may wish to consider doing the same at some point. That way, your ASCII art is certain to display correctly. On my screen, the top is cut off.
Also, just a single line giving us play-testers a simple objective or goal to focus on would be helpful -- a quest, that is (I know you're working on "real" quest right now, this is just something for the play-testers to do right off the bat). That way, when we reach the goal, we know we've tested everything you would like. Something like, "Go from the store to the dungeon."
An overall game loop that will keep the game from closing would be nice. That way, when you die, it goes back to the title screen. The player could (Q)uit from there.
Getting to the store is hard freaking work!
I made it to level 2! Yay for me! A "level up" message at some point in development would be nice; just saying. I've not made it to the dungeon yet. The spell seems to do less damage than my weapon (a long sword, at the time, but I bought a scimitar). I know it's not time to balance the game out, but I'd suggest having spells with limited uses do twice both the minimum and maximum damage of your unlimited melee attack. I think the rule of thumb for a generic RPG was to have spells cast-able about five times, but I can't remember.
When I first got to the store, I didn't have enough money to buy anything. But, since I was already in that menu with no way out, I tried to buy the cheapest thing. The game crashed. Maybe have 0 go back to the shop's main menu?
When you exit the store, you have no way of going back in without chancing the dangers of leaving 2,3 -- you probably already knew that, though. Just saying.
Well, on level 2 with a shiny new scimitar, I'm off to brave the wilderness on my quest to the dungeon! Wish me luck!
EDIT: Made it to the dungeon and level 3!
Do you think you could add numbered grid spaces to your map? Something like this (whitespace will be messed up in code tag; see pastebin link):
cout << endl;
string a = " 0 1 2 3 4"; cout << a << endl;
string b = " /---------------------------------------\\"; cout << b << endl;
string c = " | | | | | |"; cout << c << endl;
string d = "2 | | | | | |"; cout << d << endl;
stirng e = " |---------------------------------------|"; cout << e << endl;
string f = " | | | STORE | | |"; cout << f << endl;
string g = "3 | | | * | | |"; cout << g << endl;
string h = " |---------------------------------------|"; cout << h << endl;
string i = " | |"; cout << i << endl;
string j = " | |"; cout << j << endl;
string k = " | dungeon |"; cout << k << endl;
string l = " | * |"; cout << l << endl;
string m = " | |"; cout << m << endl;
string n = " \\---------------------------------------/"; cout << n << endl;
system("PAUSE");
http://pastebin.com/XWjJ4wmi
