Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD51 → MAGIC-281: Intro to Alchemy
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 97 | 3.77 | 24 | |
| Fun | 205 | 3.40 | 24 | |
| Innovation | 2 | 4.54 | 26 | |
| Theme | 81 | 4.02 | 24 | |
| Graphics | 391 | 2.88 | 24 | |
| Humor | 29 | 3.85 | 23 | |
| Mood | 121 | 3.57 | 23 |
Unlike other projects; I think that's the best way I could describe it. I had a lot of fun with it because it was such a change of pace. I like the worldbuilding and thought put into it. I *did* take notes and it was very stressful.
Why am I doing fictional studying instead of actual studying I should be doing.
Definitely an interesting take. I won't lie, I cheated a little because I couldn't remember which law was which, but I tried to keep it to a minimum and still got a lot of answers wrong, particularly the lore ones (I guess lecturers love to include questions unrelated to the subject, which is pretty on-point lmao) Neat game!
Worth it just for the fun lecture!
Very different, and a bit hard to get into, personally.
I love this, what a great idea. I had fun learning about alchemy (and I was surprised with how well I did on the test). Naturally, I cheated. Just like I would have done if this was a real test :laughing:
Great job on a very different and surprising game! It was fun playing a magic student cheating my way through alchemy
This was phenomenal, I got 14/18, no cheating. I'd read an entire book with this magic system, it was a lot of fun to learn about. Thanks for making it!
Liked this a lot. Was able to get 13/18 with a little cheating. Had forgotten how difficult it was to take notes during class.
I don't even know what to say, this is probably the most innovative game I've seen and it's honestly such an interesting concept! I liked the amount of detail put into the subject and it's surprisingly consistent, of course I didn't understand most stuff and still have alot of questions but I mean that's what you get from a crash course right? I think it would be even more magical with voice acting. I'm looking forward to lecture part 2 :D (edit: also I'd like to know the answer to the bonus problem)
I got 13/18 btw no cheating
Wow, I just passed the exam with points 13/18. Very unique and unexpected idea, and the content of the lecture is very detailed too. Nice work!
@oolimry Thanks for the praise! That's awesome to hear
Spoilers for the test. Here's the answer to the bonus problem
It is actually possible to make the bonus recipe. The key thing is that you can use flux as a proxy for one of the components. The flux can be used to copy some plant or metal, so that you have the required amount without breaking qluix's law. Here's an example of how you'd make this Add 5qx of Plant then add 6 qx of Metal. {Kudu's law is not broken because there isn't any weird water yet} Add 4 qx of water, which immediately turns into weird water Add 3 qx of plant {now at 8} Add 1 qx of metal {not at 7} Add 1 qx of flux, which copies the last ingredient, which is metal. You now have 8qx worth of "metal" but one of it is flux Now you have 4qx weird water, 8qx of plant and 8qx of metal without breaking any of the alchemical laws along the way. This is just one arrangement of how you could make this, there's actually quite a bit of flexibility in how you achieve recipes in this system
After a long day of studying I simply wanted to play some games, and you tricked me into more studying!
In all seriousness though, this was a really fun and unique experience. The lecture was incredibly accurate to many I've had before, although the subject matter was more interesting. Seriously though, everything from going "ah, that makes sense" during the lecture to trying to choose between two answers in the test was astoundingly similar to a lot of the courses I've had in uni. And yet you still managed to make it fun and engaging.
Considering I only went through the material once, having to skim read a lot of the text in 10 seconds, and didn't write anything down or rehearse for the test, I'm pretty proud of an 11/18. I pretty much had the basic theory down, but had to guess on a lot of the trivia about Qluix and Kudu, since I hadn't thought that historical figures would be an important part of the scope for the test.
I always enjoy having new and unique experiences when playing jam games, and this was most certainly one of those to the utmost degree. Good work!
I like the concpet of learning through slides and testing.It would be easier to understand if you have some animation in slides or have some experiment playground.
I'm going to complain to the academic affairs office about this course. I'm here to learn the pure alchemy, but one third of the exam is about history and I almost flunked because of it! (′Д`)
To be honest, it's an amazing try. Connections between a game and a course may be numerous. According to a friend of mine, gameplay and education can be viewed as the same thing. They are both to understand a system more and more efficiently, developing interest through step-by-step feedback. Will they go across in the future? We'll see. This game is an inspiring example of it.
(I am now in a rush to test as many games as possible to help, so please do not mind the cursory reviewing style.)
1. may be silly, but the game’s cover reminds me of the first screen from the ‘ultimate’ video from *The Witness* 2. game page: either line break or full stop or brackets for "to skip this"; "experience ." -> "experience." 3. ‘people could argue with me whether this is even a “game”.’ -> A game is an optional challenge where you have to accomplish a task for no tangible reward in itself. This is a game :) 4. just looking at the ‘Qluix’s law’ capture, bad memories from thermodynamics nightmare come back XD (but better ones from electromagnetism :)) 5. … and the ‘Weird Water’ conjures up some fast algebra lecturers of advanced mathematics conferences (‘Hey, it’s all summed up in bullet points, so it must be understandable in less than 10 seconds!’ -> **reality** XD) 6. a thought: this game might be a grand demonstration of how non-practical pedagogy is terrible (as opposed to the general natural {discover -> solve -> learn} process) 7. trying a bit: I have a technical problem with the .ppsx: it only sometimes gets to the next screen after 10 seconds! ._. I suspect this is because of the focus changes when I toggle the notepad (since we should take notes!!)… I may switch to the MP4, then. Ah, disregard that: it goes so fast that I will actually NOT take notes! XD 8. course ended; just checking the number of pages: hey, 33! Did you know this was an esoteric number (especially prized of Freemasons)? Fitting for alchemy! 9. weirdly enough, the slideshow’s link leads me to a Google Drive page about updating the navigator (I use Firefox), while the itch.io page’s link leads me to the correct form. Probably related to PowerPoint 10. "If Kudu passing is used, how many Qx of Friendship would 4 people generate?" -> HAHAHA, this is SO reminiscent of thermodynamics!! XD (the only physics subject where I was completely at sea) Were you traumatized too by such analogous experience? X) By the way, I missed just the end of the slide explaining Kudu passing, and was thus at a loss for this part during the presentation/course 11. reaching page 2 of the test: wow, scenario-based questions! This is great, you really managed to mimick true tests. By the way, fun fact: I had the occasion to help designing higher-educations tests, especially one where I designed the whole problem with fictional context (I have always been fond of devising games at heart, even involuntarily!), it was a great experience :) (although I do not want to be involved with the noxious official ‘education’ system anymore, but I liked the students and… writing them lenghty feedback while tearing my hair out over what decimal part to assign, as I do here XD) 12. by the way, I realize the theme was doubly incorporated: as the slide duration, **and** as the (al)chemical reaction duration 13. "Robyn is planning to start a violent revolution against the government." -> haha! XD How about Molotov cocktail instead of Weird Water? 14. "Sarah and Jessica are on a date" -> First the crypto-Molotov sorcery Black Blocks, now this. XD Actually, from my short time in a (French) university (including behind the scenes), this is actually quite faithful to how some professors blatantly inject ideology (breaking all neutrality commitments) even in totally irrelevant courses (there was even a Thought Police unit that would make recommendations). For the record, the students **hated** this XD (I know because I chatted with them, they had a liking for me and my voluntary extra tutoring) 15. all right, many questions about computations, but if you missed some basic law, then… you are sorry. As I am X)
(1/2)
(continued: 2/2)
16\. I end up answering almost all questions randomly: I missed too much from the course (to be fair, I also had lunch between the course and the test, but I do not think this made much of a difference). A big problem for me is that I am the kind of person that needs careful comprehensive parsing of information (to an almost pathological point…) before really being satisfied, understanding and retaining it; reading each page in 10 seconds really made my understanding superficial, I merely got some facts at the beginning and the first law, and I suspect even this has to do with my reading it in the game page’s captures X)
17\. finished the test; wow, 10/18!! That is so much more than I expected! XD I know some tests give you penalties if you answer incorrectly, as an incentive not to try your luck
18\. my first error was precisely where you had to know the Kudu passing formula, which I barely missed (I needed one or two more seconds) because it was at the bottom of a page… ._. Suggestion: for such important information, let the formula for several pages (and real courses sometimes do this)
19\. no correction for bonus question? Nor points! (ah, I see you give the answer in the comments; but why not in the form?)
20\. side question: I wonder if ‘Qluix’ and ‘Kudu’ are some sort of references!
**Takeaway:** clearly original, and absolutely faithful as a spoof of real-life university courses and tests (at least, those I can relate to). I just think some in-slide repetitions for critically applied information (I am thinking of laws) could help while still being realistic, because the 10-second time limit is harsh. Agreed with oolimry that a voice would make it feel even more like the true thing; this would also be a great opportunity for more humour (speech mannerisms — ‘Mmmmmkay?’ —, joke-cracking teacher, digressing…). The whole alchemical background and test structure are a nice piece of work; I know this kind of spoof material exists, but yours went a further degree into internal coherence and ‘seriousness’. You are right this is experimental; I would even say this is midway between a video game and a tabletop game of sorts!
To build upon Lsy’s comment, the concept the game relies on should serve as a funny yet serious counterexample against standard accepted-wisdom towards mainstream pedagogy: ‘Hey, before playing this fairytale medieval RPG, you should definitely **learn** some alchemy! Have this course!!’. (Popping right when you thought you were about to get into the action. XD This would be a tremendous joke.) What a take on the theme; nice idea. :)
*Side note:* a funny overwhelming game that relied on instantaneous information intake rather than longer-term retention is [*RNGenie Corp*](https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-jam-2022/rate/1618553); I guess this is an easier formula for keeping the player’s interest. Longer term is interesing, but extremely punishing, in a sense!
@real-human-1000
> Why am I doing fictional studying instead of actual studying I should be doing.
As a personal incentive you could settle, the Pomodoro method (which I have been using since last year, with some software) could do the trick. I advise you to look into it. :)
---
@lsy
> According to a friend of mine, gameplay and education can be viewed as the same thing.
This is so true that ‘gamification’ is a concept (and word) you can now encounter (especially in some online courses). And the catch is: since the best learning in video games is through *implicit tutorials (= practice)* rather than *long wordy otherworldly explanations*, then the whole standard pedagogy applied in (many?) education systems is **fundamentally flawed**. (At least, this is true in France, up to the point of caricature.)
I had seen a (French-speaking) video series (three videos, I think) by a Quebec psychologist that explained memory is essentially a *reconstructive* process: it is something that is able to build back the information from your mind (through neural networks), rather than merely accessing something somewhere (which would be mere *passive* retention). He went on to say that a study hinted that the phase where you learn the most (ie *retain* the best) is not reading course material, but *taking the test*. That’s right, the phase where you learn the most is when you actually **run into the ‘real’ thing**. (The study used three groups of pupils/students, that had different preparations before taking a test.) Because seeing the real difficulty makes an impression on your brain and forces it to *create* the right connections to solve problems.
Concretely, this means that teaching should put a gigantic emphasis on *exercises* and *practical sessions*, and very little on formal courses — although the foundations are always useful and students should have clear indications how to get to them quicker.
@mossieur-patate Thanks for your feedback, you brought up many interesting points. Your perspective is really interesting, i'm grateful that my game got to be the target of your stream of consciousness.
#6 I feel like the best satire comes from a place of love. I'm one of the rare students who can actually get a lot out of the traditional lecture and theoretical explanations. I love the experience of learning, and often just attending classes is enough to turn around my day. That said, this system is also incredibly flawed. You're totally right that discovery and problem solving is a much better way to actually learn things. I set out to make this game to show both the best and worst of the traditional education style I have experience with.
#7 I didn't really consider that there would be focus problems on the actual presentation. It makes obvious sense now that if someone is also using another program to take notes it'll mess with the timing. I actually don't know how to solve this without making my own presentation environment. I think it was the right choice for the jam to use powerpoint. From what I can see the .pptx file actually works better for taking notes then the .ppsx file does, which is not what I was expecting.
#8 Development fun fact: I actually was happy with 30 slides because that would mean time wise the presentation takes exactly 5 minutes, but i had to add 3 more after I playtested and realized that some slides weren't helpful enough.
I am very glad to hear that the test succeeded in what I was going for. It was the most rushed part of the jam for me. My process for making it was thinking about my playtest with someone experiencing the presentation and going "what would be absolutely evil to put on the test". All the scenarios were written in a little bit of a trance as i had mere hours left before the deadline. A lot of the questions on the test are intentionially on things that aren't actually that important , stuff you'd know if you memorized the presentation but stuff you could struggle with even if you have a really good grasp on alchemy. I do think the best questions on the test are the ones that actually engage with the fundamental understanding, like the scenarios and bonus question.
Also I tried to go out of my way to reinforce the laws. Generally the information slides are meant to be "challenges" and the diagram/picture slides are there to be actually helpful aids in understanding to the player. The diagrams about different types of the same components still being able to break laws are explicitly there to reinforce the concept of those laws. It's good to know that I could have improved on this aspect though. On the one hand, I wanted to evoke the feeling of being overwhelmed, but on the other hand it's a shame to waste a chance to actually teach the interesting system. To me the obvious compromise is that I should split things up into more slides {or as you said repeat critical information on more slides} , although that has an obvious time cost. The idea for this game was born from wanting to make a slideshow that advanced every 10 seconds, but I think it'd be cool to try to make something that doesn't have to deal with that limitation and cares more about actually teaching rather than taking potshots at education systems.
#20 I created the name Qluix because I wanted to make something weird to pronounce, and thought starting with a q and ending with x would be unwieldy and memorable. I also liked the resemblance to the word quick, which made me think of quicksilver. The name Kudu is stolen from an extremely minor character in Dune.
What a peculiar concept! On some aspect it kinda feel like learning the rules of a game from its manual. While questions about specificities (like the Emperor's name, dates, etc), only felt like tricky questions on an exam, understanding the rules of alchemy and applying them to the questions was a really cool puzzle! The setting of an actual school exam also hints on an interesting universe that we want to explore more. Also while the format and a video and a Google form is original and functional for the jam, I think a game like this would benefit from having its own unique interface. Maybe with actual simulations of alchemy, or just a framing to immerse even more in the universe. Anyway, this was totally unique and surprising! I enjoyed learning so much about alchemy.
A really nice experimental concept. I do think this could be turned into an actual game, at least something narrative with the alchemy lectures as a side thing. I took notes and tried to take it as seriously as I could, but, alas! I suck at studying, I only managed to read about half of each slide. I wonder if I would have done better if I instead tried to read all the slides as quick as possible and rely on dumb memory.
C'mon Morris, couldn't you have let us read some of the textbooks *before* throwing us that exam...? I don't think my 11/18 passes...
A shame I missed the rating window, I would have at least given this 5 stars in Theme and Innovation.
Amazing idea and it was executed way better than I thought. The rules make a lot of sense and I could imagine playing a puzzle game that used it(maybe the imagination is better than the real thing?) and the charm was great.
I got 15/18 without any notes, but I was robbed with Sarah & Jessica! I said Plant, since they were on a grass field. Does grass not count as Plant?
This was really great :)