FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD49 → Unstable Alchemist

Unstable Alchemist

By sneakylemon

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall11203.2226
Fun10813.1026
Innovation11572.9125
Theme10433.2026
Humor9992.5223
Mood10663.1025

Comments

guine 2021-10-04 17:04

Its a beautiful Metroidvania experience! Nice job.

supergamersgames 2021-10-04 19:05

There are a lot of sounds that are playing offscreen that could either be quieter or silent that'd make playing the game easier. Also, why does the player take damage from falling. You have a giant fall right off the bat, so why have the player take mandatory damage?

sneakylemon 2021-10-04 19:10

@supergamersgames You only take fall damage if you have a potion ready, because you know, they're unstable. I figured it fit the theme better that way :) You don't take any fall damage at all if you have no potions.

gale-swift 2021-10-05 02:11

Love the art style, and the premise is super cool. I think your application of the theme was spot on :D I do think the fall damage is a little unforgiving, but probably fine once you get used to it.

sneakylemon 2021-10-05 07:29

@gale-swift You don't take fall damage if you're not carrying any potions :)

preda 2021-10-05 11:16

Man this game is hard. (Or maybe I'm just stupid) It's quite fun with all the fluid animations and I really like the effect on how the vases break

sneakylemon 2021-10-05 11:18

@preda Definitely hard! Ran out of time and couldn't balance it properly.

alan001 2021-10-05 11:24

quite fun controls are hard maybe the acceleration is bit too high and those ripple are pretty cool

0x-void-x0 2021-10-05 11:26

the game could use a bit more balancing, but overall it's not that bad

pixelstuff 2021-10-05 11:27

Nice game! I love the pixelart. It's quite difficult to use the mouse and the keyboard at the same time maybe because I'm more a console gamer…

chargrills21 2021-10-05 11:27

This game was definitely made with a lot of effort and a specific vision in mind. However, it was too hard, and there were times where i randomly took damage. It also would have been nice for the potions to aim in a more straight path. Still a great submission though!

cookie-chr 2021-10-05 11:29

Not a bad game, but too hard for me. The graphics are really fitting tho!

westmave 2021-10-05 11:32

Wow, this is a good one. The Leveldesign fits the mechanics quite well. For me it was unstable in the way, that I killen myself way to often :D. The beginning and the game overall was a bit hard though. Good job!

maluskhan 2021-10-05 11:35

Like others have said, it's too hard. I've died several times on the second skeleton and sometimes I don't understand why I died because I fall off a platform.

Some suggestions:

* the skeleton should not kill instantly. * Red potions on the floor are traps, they should not be the same color as the player's potion. * Keep the space key for jumping and use another key to load the potion.

The idea is good, but from my point of view it's a bit too difficult x)

sneakylemon 2021-10-05 11:37

@westmave That's kind of what I was going for, but judging by the comments I'm not so sure it was the right decision :D

fishtaod 2021-10-05 11:39

Nice graphics and atmosphere! Well done! Some things are not immediately obvious and add to the difficulty of the game: like falling does dammage, how to attack (having a mouse reticulum might make it more obvious) and that potions are not collected they kill you (maybe showing the first skeleton trip over potions might help + have some kind of blinking animation when taking damage, or giving the life indicators more space on the screen...).

sneakylemon 2021-10-05 11:45

@maluskhan As metioned in the description, you only take fall damage if you fall while having a potion :) You also take damage while smashing into things too fast, but also only while carrying a potion. That's most likely the cause of why you're taking random damage.

Acid insta-kills you, but that's the only thing that does. Skeletons don't kill instantly (and if they do it's a bug I haven't found :stuck_out_tongue: , though I have just checked to make sure) and each potion only takes one heart of damage. If a potion hits you and you're carrying another potion, you take two hearts of damage.

I feel like it would be uncomfortable to jump using the space bar and WSAD, while you only have to hold it for a little bit to make potions. You can't really use arrow keys, the mouse, and make potions at the same time. I could perhaps solve that by making the right mouse button make potions though. The controls could use some work for sure.

Thanks for checking it out! And yeah, it's too hard. I didn't have the time to balance it properly.

sneakylemon 2021-10-05 11:49

@fishtaod Yeah, those are all valid points. To be fair, you don't collide with potions on the ground, but their explosions hurt you. I should have made that clearer, but went with it more for the fun of things exploding all over the place.

dalep 2021-10-05 23:57

A little too hard for me. You’ve made breaking things with explosions fun and satisfying, so I thought there should have been more opportunities to do that, like breakable walls, enemies packed closer together to use splash damage on, maybe ways to set up chain reactions using some of the potions lying around (although I wasn’t able to get that far into the game so maybe that’s all there and I missed it).

tetrapteryx 2021-10-06 12:57

I like this concept, and I enjoyed the potion crafting/throwing! I didn't mind it being difficult, but I wish it had ramped up a bit more slowly so I could spend more time getting comfy with the controls before being thrown into real danger. I think there are a lot of cool directions you could take this, so I hope you continue with it after the jam!

denzil-gomes 2021-10-06 19:14

Great interpretation of the theme, that's quite an original idea! Nice punchy sounds and really satisfying pot smashing. I think it could use a little more of a gradual pacing to it, but other than that it was a nice experience with cool mechanics. Well done!