rzfmzn 2021-10-05 00:07
Interesting concept, I was able to heal most of the ppl without dying :P
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD49 → Black Cat Apothecary
By omiya-games, twainwright and Sunshiner
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 908 | 3.40 | 39 | |
| Fun | 1090 | 3.09 | 38 | |
| Innovation | 480 | 3.56 | 39 | |
| Theme | 1062 | 3.18 | 40 | |
| Graphics | 1037 | 3.26 | 41 | |
| Humor | 781 | 2.85 | 36 | |
| Mood | 540 | 3.59 | 39 |
Interesting concept, I was able to heal most of the ppl without dying :P
Cool, got to the end. Wasn't sure exactly what I had to do to have people not be suspicious of me, but I did make it out alive! Interesting idea. I like people coming back to you and having their own stories that unfold.
Great Job! Love this idea and how it relates to current events. Interesting take on the theme and how gossip and misinformation are de-stabling.
The concept was interesting, but I wish it went further. At first I thought I had to discover what potions did what with trial and error but when I discovered the cheat sheet I felt like the game became too easy. A way to take this a step further is if you had to mix the potions yourself and you gradually discover what ingredients cure/cause certain ailments.
Quite an interesting idea. The "depth" of the underlying system intrigued me. I don't know how much of the dialogue I managed to see, but it was fun to watch the townspeople react or become suspicious of the effectiveness (or lack of results) of the potions. At one point they started repeating themselves a bit, so assume there was some randomness to it, or their speech options were just limited. I really liked how they had different personalities and stories btw.
After dying the first time, it was easy to find a strategy to "win" though. I managed to survive to "retirement" on my second play-through, which left me with little to no motivation to play further.
It was fun, albeit brief. The entry overall is quite polished. I missed a sense of progression or "time passing" at least. A visible goal (like survive a year, with some time-skip in between) would also have helped a bit to raise the stakes or create tension beyond the dialogue.
I really liked it! Very original take on the theme.
I liked how this game made you think about your choices. Each action you did had a consequences. It really reminds me of the game "Reigns". If you haven't played it you definitely should. The hyper realistic art didn't fit the style unfortunately, but I don't think that was too big of a deal. Also, I wish the potions had a bit more depth, like, if you give somebody a cure they shouldn't have, something bad could happen, idk. Again, I suggest Reigns. I think if you made this game, and took some of the aspects from that game, but made it your own you could have something great. Also, thanks for playing my game!
Interesting idea, the polish is superb and the characters are fine. I like the idea of too much of something good can lead to bad. Some of the art is meh but that is to be expected because other art looks really really good. I felt overwhelmed with the amount of illnesses at first but later i got used to it... until i got burned at the stake lol. The writing was fine enough and the character art is superb. The music is also good, i know that its kevin macelods but i still consider it part of the game. Overall, a nice experience that could be turned into a much bigger project
No cat in this game, would not recommend
@notexplosive Thanks for the comment! That's a very interesting observation. I wonder what lead you to think our game was about trialing which potions were the correct ones, and how to make out whether they were the right choices or not.
I want to be clear that I'm not saying the direction you've suggesting is wrong or bad at all: in fact, I personally think that would be a very cool game! That said, it's a bit different from what our team initially intended. I ask the above question because, at least for me, I want to better understand how we've created this game design vs expectation disconnect so we can improve the presentation in both this and in future games we develop.
For context: as I understood @sunshiner's game idea, the original intent was to focus on emerging character stories, and using that to gauge whether you want to help them or not. In that sense, the cheatsheet is a deliberate feature: it shifts the focus away from the potions, and more into the customers themselves. Still, I confess that all of us in the team had at least one day during this Jam that we weren't available in, so the game's polish level is certainly not at where we've hoped it'd to be.
Again, thank you for your valuable feedback!
I played it through and was too good and died and then played again and picked potions at random but then felt bad because people were not doing well and started healing them and survived (but the old lady died :cry: )
I think it's interesting that you survive if you wait longer to heal people and that you're not too effective. It kind of feels like a loss to me though, even if you survive, if you had to sacrifice someone else's well being to do so. I think I'd rather go through with how I played through the first time though hard to say how one might respond in a situation in real life.
I liked the character art and how they were somehow idealized? It was like realistic but at the same not with slightly adjusted proportions, like hyperreal. Really made me pay attention to the faces more haha.
Nice job!
Interesting narrative idea.
I think a bit more polish around the endings would help sell it a bit better, but you can't ask for too terribly much during LD. This would certainly be worth playing around with a bit more in a post LD version. I think there's a lot of potential here; it just needs a bit more time to bake.
Nice work!
Nice narrative choice, making us working as an apothecary during Salem's event. It was quite an unstable situation indeed. I would love to see the overall idea pushed further. Maybe with systems where you have to unlock the "Cheat sheet" instead of having it directly at the beginning (and your discoveries would stay from one run to another. I kinda found the experience close to the game "Potion Craft" but without all the potion making system. Anyway, nice job on this game. It was really cool to play!
I liked the concept of this game, but I couldn't realize what to do with the potions, I just can choose one but not all the time the illness that people have correspond to most of that are in the potions, I was a little bit confuse, but the feeling to heal someone was great : ) with a polish this game would be even better, maybe add an system to build the potions, or get information from people at the town of what kind of herbs need to heal other person : )
Amazing artwork. I had trouble remembering all the disease names and medicines for them. Good thing there was a cheat sheet :)
I didn't read the description going in, it was a wild surprise when I got burned up! I think you've done a great job with the theme, managing the balance and letting my biases toward the other villagers guide my hand was a neat and unique experience. Nice job!
The only thing better in this world than cats is playing with cats.