Play game
Alkahest's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Art | #16 | 3.667 | 3.667 |
| UI | #18 | 3.167 | 3.167 |
| Overall Fun | #19 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
| Sound/Music | #28 | 2.833 | 2.833 |
Ranked from 6 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
I managed to reach the end of the demo in my first run without reading the tutorial and without dying, I must have been lucky! But it tells one thing: even if it seems obscure at first, you do get the grasp of how things work pretty quickly! Ended up doing three full runs since your progress is saved you keep accumulating power, which is nice.
I really like the retro GB graphics and music (of course more tracks depending on the places/situations would always benefit the game). UI is simple and effective.
As some have already noted, the arrows to the Sanctuary and Temple are reversed in the second area.
All in all, I enjoyed the game and developing further on it with more startegies, areas and enemies will make this game even more fun and interesting!
I'm so glad that you enjoyed Alkahest enough to finish it 3 times! There's going to be an update very soon that will add spells (triggered by combinations of gems), new enemies, a new area, some story elements, more music and bosses! (and of course, a fix for the infamous sign haha)
And I'm really excited that the game was intuitive enough to be learned through gameplay. I have a ton planned for it and I hope you'll try it again in the future!
An interesting gameboy styled turn-based roguelite concept.
The stylized UI is really neat and nostalgic, and the spritework is serviceable, although it's hard to tell what some of the enemies are supposed to be. I also would like if it had some VFX to go with the spells, for instance, having Ruby spells spew flames or Sapphire spells shock enemy shields with electricity. What would be even cooler is if you could combine gems "Magicka" style to create new spells.
The music is uh... honestly a bit grating, and the SFX aren't particularly good, but I believe that's part of the style and charm of the game, so I'm willing to give it a passing grade.
Some sort of an in-game tutorial would be nice, but the description of the game does its job fine. The locations are not labeled right, however. Going right takes you to the Temple even though it says Sanctuary, and vice versa.
The best part of this game is it's uniqueness. I can safely say that I haven't played a game very similar to this one, and I think it has a lot of potential to be a good game with lots of replay value, but it still has a ways to go in terms of balance and challenge.Nice work. I hope future versions further refine this uncut gem of a game.
Thank you for an in-depth review! Some of the things mentioned are unfortunately due to the actual constraints of the GameBoy hardware. Things like VFX would be difficult to implement without reworking how the game is built and the SFX are built into the GB Studio engine and can't really be changed.
As for combining gems to create spells, that's something that I have planned for a future update and I believe that it will really make the combat feel much more dynamic!
I've seen a few people mention the sign and I'll be addressing that among other issues very soon in a future update.
I'm very glad that you found the game unique and hope you'll come back to check out future versions of it!
Also, I wish I could give +2 just for that pun
I love this game's retro portable look-and-feel! The concept for the battle system is interesting; I'm still thinking over pros and cons, but either way I think it's great that you're trying something a little different. A minor complaint: the sign pointing to Temple and Sanctuary seems to have its arrows pointing the opposite way of what's intended. Turn-based retro games are one of my favorite things, so I'm excited to see your game is actively in development. I'm following now with interest.
Thank you! This is my first attempt at making a game and I've learned a lot about game dev doing this. I plan to add items, bosses, more locations, and a story soon in a future update. And I'll make sure to fix that sign too. Thank you for the feedback!