paul-maxime 2021-10-05 18:07
Starting from a specific chapter would make it easier to unlock all endings, having to do the first days every time gets repetitive!
However, I'm glad I did them all, because the true ending was worth the wait.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD49 → Chemical Love
By der-mondhase
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 463 | 3.72 | 44 | |
| Fun | 320 | 3.79 | 44 | |
| Innovation | 645 | 3.41 | 43 | |
| Theme | 515 | 3.79 | 43 | |
| Graphics | 1143 | 3.11 | 43 | |
| Humor | 108 | 4.04 | 44 | |
| Mood | 209 | 3.96 | 41 |
Starting from a specific chapter would make it easier to unlock all endings, having to do the first days every time gets repetitive!
However, I'm glad I did them all, because the true ending was worth the wait.
Thanks a lot! Yeah, I didn't manage to find a way to add a "chapter jump" that made sense before the end of the jam. I had an idea right 30 minutes after the submission window closed... oh, well, I will implement it as a post-jam improvement probably!
this was so fun and funny!! the idea of making a potion based on secondhand information was really interesting! I'd like to play that post jam version with a chapter jump haha
@loadoftoad this version here has actually a true ending that wraps things quite nicely! I have added a walkthrough txt if I remember correctly, but I will definitely upload a version with chapter skip! My issue during the jam was that ALL bad endings are required for unlocking and seeing the true ending (except the so-called Trigger Ending). Still uncertain on how to do that effectively. Maybe allow for chapter skip only if all the bad endings in that chapter are unlocked?
Humour spot on. Definitely relatable having to deal with this freaky glasses guy. Only managed to get 4 of the endings though. Kept getting spontaneous combustion, maybe that's because I was choosing the answers too quickly? Great work :)
@brotherst thanks a lot, the Stegosaurus ending was my favorite to write, and the "moody" part is all in the true ending :D There is a walkthrough inside the game's folder which lists all ingredients, if you want to give it a shot again! To unlock the true ending - which messes the tone in a way that I don't want to spoil - you need the Combustion, Devil, Stegosaurus, Zombie, Self-Seduction, and Annihilation endings! if you have time/will, please try to get to the end, because I would VERY like to know what people think of the last choice!
P.S. Combustion is the fallback for day 1. For the good ending, you need to select 1,1,1,2 in the list of ingredients and for the Devil ending, 2,2,2,1 (that is, the opposite as the good one).
Well, I must say this is the funniest game I've ever played in a jam, by a lot!
Quite a nice experience, with its serious and even dramatic or wholesome moments and rather well done. Getting the endings was rather tedious, but I guess you can't have everything in a jam.
Overall, a big kudos!
I really like the graphics in this game! Fun game in general. 8/10 great game!
We choose the P ending since it was the more fitting for the mood I guess. Very nice attempt, good job.
Thanks a bunch to you all!
@matthieu-riboulot P ending was also my favorite to write. Overall, I liked that how it worked out the most!
@khelian thanks a bunch! Yeah, sadly I couldn't get a meaningful "chapter skip" function in time for the jam. I will try to improve the experience in a post-jam improvement!
Great concept. I managed to get some of the endings, but at a certain point I felt I was just hacking trough. Like when you have to choose intensity, do you have to guess the correct numbers or is there a hint that I missed?
Overall I liked it very much. It is obvious that you have put a lot of work and thought into it. Great Job!
@sli Thanks! For the intensity, I would have liked to have more time to refine it. There are basically three ranges: 0-2, 3-6, 7-9. 0-2 will always get Self-Seduction or Zombie (single), 7-9 will get Stegosaurus or Zombie (Horde). The trick is that, once you get a Good potion, the "premium" bad ending one is always the exact opposite of it. E.g. if the Day 1 good ending is given by 1,1,1,2, the "premium" bad ending (devil) is 2,2,2,1. For day 2, the "good" range for the intensity is 3-6, to get the other bad endings one need to use the 0-2 and 6-9 range. 6-9, even with the correct ingredients, will spawn the Stegosaurus ending. There *should* be a walkthrough TXT in the game folder. I think I will try to rework the game a bit for a post-jam session! Thanks a lot for the feedback!
@der-mondhase I see. Maybe you could add a hint then that you can either be good or evil. As I played I always tried to do the right thing :angel:
Very nice VN ! I appreciated the walkthrough file :wink: It's really sad to have no proper good ending :cry:
the concept is hilarious and enjoyable. the choice can cause a variety of options for the ending of the game, which crack me up. hopefully, you can make a visual graphic for the game appealing but the game overall was dope.
@sli yeah, in the limited span of the jam I couldn't explore all things :D More than evil, the protagonist can just be... not really proficient with potions! This was at least my take!
@wakobu Thanks a lot! the P. ending is the nearest to a good ending, the Am. ending is more bittersweet, while the An. ending is a downer. The power is on the player's hands to choose what is the most apt. I wanted to make that choice matter, so this is why the game "locks" down after that event!
@aznz Thanks! Programmer art struck again! Honestly, I would have loved have an artist friend of mine join the fray, but he was unfortunately too busy and couldn't produce art for the game in time. Maybe for a post jam version? I would love to expand it a bit!
@der-mondhase Oh no I did the Am. ending :cry:
@wakobu if you really want to see the other ending, you can delete the save.rxdata file to "reset" the game. The An. ending is very similar to the bad An. ending, so I would suggest a second replay only if you want to see what happens in the P. ending!
@der-mondhase I will definitely give it a try, thank you dude :wink:
music is funny, and dialogues are fun.. nice job
I'm glad I noticed your comment about the walkthrough, or I might not have bothered to push through after the first three endings. ^_^;
Like others have said, the only real issue I have is that you have to go through the entire loop each time to see any new endings. That said, I really appreciated the QoL feature where the game warns you if you've made a concoction leading to an ending you've seen before.
A really humorous and polished game! Can't believe it was done in a jam's time constraint. Like everyone's said, to unlock all endings could be a bit of a grind, but the fun of first 6 endings and the wholsomeness of the true ending is really worth it. Overall I really enjoyed the experience. You must be very talented in making story-focused games. Well done!
@morcado thanks! Since the music was not original, I didn't make my game take part to the audio category, but I had a lot of fun writing the dialogues - especially some of the most bizarre endings!
@ryusui thanks! And yeah, now after the jam I had an idea on how to implement a "chekpoint system", but I stupidly didn't get it while I was working on this. I will add it to a post-jam version after the voting period ends. And yeah, I should add a note about the walkthrough being in the game folder, hoping someone will read it :id:
@voyagerix thanks a lot! Honestly, storytelling is my specialization/forte. Writing stories is like breathing for me, I cannot live without. The RPG Maker engine was the easiest choice for me to build a narrative game. I had the inspiration while talking with a friend about the theme - Unstable - and speedran the writing in about 6-7 hours. I am very proud of how it came out!
Wow, who knew you could get such great comedic timing with just a flash of light an a stick figure appearing! I was shocked at how emotional and engaging this title was with only 2 colors and a handful of sprites! Excellent writing, loved the pacing, and really enjoyed the experience. Thanks!
@ugly-robot Thank you very much for the kind words! Limitations foster creativity, I didn't have the skill to draw very good graphics, so I went for a minimalistic tone - and I am pretty happy it paid off!
the game is fun, interesting dialogues as well. it could use a bit more refining in terms of Art/Audio but I guess this is to be expected for a quick Jam Game, other than that the game is pretty well designed, I would love to know out of curiousity what Engine/Library was it made with ?
@0x-void-x0 good, old, dated, reliable RPG Maker XP, with some additional Ruby scripts :D I used to play with that engine A LOT ten or so years ago - I literally learned how to program thanks to it - and I'm still pretty proficient with it. At odd times, when I need something proven and working, I dust it off and put it to work again ;)
Very fun! You missed an opportunity to make a *Potion of Remember Past Failures* on Day 3, lol. The manual/walkthrough was very useful and I guess you can promote it as a "real manual" in the game lore, like Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes does (or [this other LD entry](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/stable-inc)).
I liked that the "good" ending is unlocked only after all the other, over-the-top ones. I did not expect the zombie apocalypse and the potions guy *definitely* needs to remove the business name from the flasks :laughing: Great work!
@kumber Potion Guy must really start avoiding advertising his shop. But there is no such thing as bad publicity, or? :D Out of curiosity, which true ending did you choose? P., Amn. or An.?
@der-mondhase P. It seemed the most fitting, the freaky glasses guy didn't need Am., to maybe return to old habits, and An. seemed too nihilistic (not a solution, either).
@kumber P. was actually my favorite ending to write. Am. is bittersweet and An. is very nihilistic. I tested them all, but I always got back to P., eventually. Thanks a lot for taking the time to go through it!
Really enjoyed the game, very very funny! You are not rated by audio, but it's actually great! :D
wow, this was really cool! Even though the presentation was quite simple, the execution of gameplay and narrative was great! I played all the way through the final ending (and in the process - I think - unlocked all other endings, too). Just one thing, it was not clear to me in the beginning who the potions I was brewing were for. So I wasted a few attempts. other than that, great submission!
@notke thanks a lot! The audio is not rated because it wasn't produced for this jam. The comedic main theme was composed quite a lot of time ago, the ominous theme is a Creative Common CC-BY-4.0 asset and the sound effects are from the RPG Maker runtime package. It would have been unfair to ask people to rate my game for assets I didn't make explicitly for this game!
@lauchsuppe fair point about the first day. The first potion should have been for the girl, but I could make it clearer. Which true ending did you choose? P., Am. or Ann.?
@der-mondhase I chose P. - just assumed this was the one true ending; didn't realize the other options are also valid.
@lauchsuppe All endings are the true ending - it is up to the player's choice. The P. ending is the nearest to a good ending and what I consider the best ending. The Am. ending is an alternate, bittersweet ending which leads to a different conclusion. The An. ending is VERY similar to the bad An. ending, except this time it is deliberate.
Inovative and good gameplay for me. It not reminde me much of the theme. Sorry but you graphics is horrible, try next time to invest more time to that. Average fun game, but maybe next time you will polish the gameplay and it will be better. I like mood in this, game really I like it.
One last note: I always write down honest review, because everybody need that, not just nice craps with some bullshit, but sometime I will appreciate very good games. So if this review insult you, but use it well :) Anyway every game is counting so :)
@hadik Agree that the graphics are not that good. I am a programmer, not an artist and did it all alone, so point taken! :D The theme was "unstable" as in "miss one ingredient and everything goes wrong". One ingredient is the difference between "Potion of True Love" and "Potion of Self Combustion", what can be more unstable? I think you are wrong on this. The core of this game was the mood/story, so I am happy that worked well. No offence taken ;)
You did well in focus at the programming and let the graphics be. It's a very good story on this game. It made me play again and again to try new storylines. Good job!
@jpatchz thanks a lot! Glad that you enjoyed the story! Which true ending did you go for? P., Amn. or An.?
Wishing I had paid more attention in chemistry. Very fun.
@mighty-tiny the owner of the potion brewery should have paid more attention to his chemistry classes too :'D
This was pretty interesting. I played it for a while trying to get different endings. Great replayability! For a game made in such a short time it was fun. The humour was dark, and a cool twist on an RPG staple.
@fromthechasm thanks a bunch! Yeah, I have actually liked to try and twist the theme on its head, I still find the P. ending cathartic, the Amn. ending bittersweet and the Ann. ending simply sad. I think I will try to rework the game a bit for as a full post-jam submission, with some additional QoL features!