Alchemysterious

dante2001 2021-10-11 05:14

Hey man! Just saw your entry and played it for a while. So about the entry: Its a shame you did not finish it, but if I were you I'd fix up at least to the first part of the game. The mood, graphics and audio are really nice and I liked the thematic of alchemy mixed with an escape room. I could not find the axe which I think was the first step of the game, dunno if its missing or am an idiot.

You should give this one a chance. You've got a nice base for a game and its playable (clipping through walls is just a box collider away of solving it!)

You should rate games of other people to be rated after getting at least the first step working like, say, getting the axe.Once you get the axe you can just state that the game ends there because it needs more work. The lab is nicely done and you can fidget with things and the notes which give you an insight in how the game is supposed to be. I'd also upload this to itch.io rather than mega since it allows you to put updates. I hope you don't give up!

Cheers! :D

patatenouille 2021-10-13 00:11

@dante2001 Hi ! Thanks for playing ! We originally planned to just fix up the few missing things, but we got carried away and are redoing the whole level, clues, recipes and machines. For ratings it would be better indeed to release just a hotfix version with the few missing parts fixed, but at this point we're really just doing it for the fun of doing it rather than the jam itself...

For the axe, you actually don't have to pick it up anywhere, it shows up when you interact with a mineral deposit (the things that looks like piles of rocks and say "Hold to mine" when looking at them). This is a rather good example of how unclear the game is xD

The walls actually have a collider, but we used Rigibody.MovePosition, which despite sort of having collisions seems to have issues with small colliders (probably not doing sweep test, even though it's set to continuous detection), using the velocity instead works perfectly.

You're right about itch.io ! We choose mega because it was faster to upload there, and we finished uploading ~30 seconds before the end of the submission hour... But we could and definitely should do it now that there's time.

As for rating other people's game, we're waiting for a proper version of our game (which we want to get out by the end of the week) before rating, so that as few people as possible try the game in this messy version.

dante2001 2021-10-18 19:20

@patatenouille Hey! Wanted to pass by if you made any progress! How is it going? I think you're still on time. I'd just start rating games and post a warning saying its incomplete. I think you can get high grades in audio, mood! Hope you manage to get it on time! Good luck!

patatenouille 2021-10-19 10:56

@dante2001 Hi, we're on the final strecth, expect a build uploaded today ! We did not had much time during the week-end so it was a bit delayed, but we reached a quality we're proud of. We're finishing the last details, doing some more playtesting to ensure we don't forget crucial elements this time.

If we go on a rating spree we should be able to get some ratings before the end of the jam !

patatenouille 2021-10-20 02:43

@dante2001 Ok, the new version is up ! We encountered some issues with the lighting and a font that weren't fixed in time, but we added temporary solutions and at least this time the game is doable ! Hope you'll enjoy !

In the meantime we'll get some well deserved sleep and go rate as many games as we can before the end of the jam.

gamebucha 2021-10-20 13:30

Your game is excellent, you gave me unforgettable emotions!

lilkrit 2021-10-20 15:07

The game might be buggy, but it's insane how much content you got in it. Congrats.

nekopi 2021-10-20 18:12

It's really crazy how many details you've put in the game! Nice submission!

lychee 2021-10-20 23:42

I was having trouble interacting with objects properly in the jam build. I could tell you put a lot of effort into the systems and it looked polished visually. Maybe just a bit too much scope for the jam length! Props for reworking it though, the updated build looked very nice, gives me an elder scrolls vibe with the appearance.

patatenouille 2021-10-20 23:58

@gamebucha @lilkrit @nekopi @lychee thanks to you all for playing and commenting !

@lychee yeah for the three days we had it was a bit overscoped, tho we did waste the entire first day looking for assets, coded all the necessary things during the next two, but only started actually making the game level in the last 4-5 hours... It was quite frustrating to have made everything, but simply did not had the time to use it and properly design the level.

Also I am curious how far each of you made it into the game ? Were the hints sufficient to understand what to do ? or did you get stuck at some point ?

lychee 2021-10-21 00:09

I didn't get much farther than mining rocks and carrying them around, I'm pretty rubbish at figuring out puzzles honestly so I just kind of explored the environment xD

fabula-rasa 2021-10-21 12:57

I played the jam build, and it feels very buggy. Like you can't actually do anything. I mined rocks, but it didn't seem to do anything (I was never holding any actual rock pieces, nor did any inventory pop up where the mined rocks would go). I could interact with the machinery, and it made proper sounds, as if I was doing something, but I think I wasn't actually doing anything (as again - no material in my hands) :laughing:

The environment is nice and the lighting with the moody music create an interesting atmosphere of mystery and woe. I liked the mechanics of finding clues in the environment. I wish there also were some clues to which rock is which - maybe some alchemical geology book with pictures or something to that effect :)

patatenouille 2021-10-21 13:46

@fabula-rasa Hi, yeah the jam build is very buggy unfortunately, it can't be completed as its missing several crucial items and even a hint to make the final step

xsangyhix 2021-10-21 14:02

Positive things: the music is nice, it ends after a while thoug. Other than that I think the game is locked behind the bugs. My main feedback here is: when starting the project - go to the core mechanic as fast as possible, make it work and check if it is fun. Even if it means just putting cubes and capsules in. Then build on that and replace meshes with fancy assets (which you definitely had : P).

patatenouille 2021-10-21 14:21

@xsangyhix thanks ! Yeah, I recommend checking out the V2 if you want to see a fixed up version. We actually did a lot of playtesting while making the game, the game started working at half the jam, but we sticked to dev test scenes without making an actual level, which we only started making at the end of the jam...