Skip to main content

Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines
A jam submission

The Local AlchemystView game page

There's a new alchemyst in town, and happens to be you.
Submitted by spijkie — 1 hour, 12 minutes before the deadline
Add to collection

Play game

The Local Alchemyst's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Artistic Style#9703.0003.000
Theme#13302.0002.000
Cleverness#14712.0002.000
Playability#14862.0002.000

Ranked from 1 rating. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Did you include your Game Design Document as a Google Drive link?
Yes

Seriously... did you include your Game Design Document?
Yes

Is your game set to Public so we can see it?
Yes

Tell us about your game!
With alchemy I immediately think of those simple phone games where you get some ingredients and can combine them into something new, and you need to try to find all the items.
This led to the idea to use that base idea, but make it more than just a puzzle game, let's try to combine that with some adventure to make the puzzle concept interesting for a broader audience. Let you character go out in the world and gather those things instead of just picking them from a list. And try to let the player think out-of-the-box to find not so obvious ways to get the ingredients, and create the reactions to get to the final goal, the famous alchemists object, the philisophers stone (or isn't it? )

I want the game to be easy to play, only a couple of buttons needed, the basic wasd keys for movement, e and q for respectively interacting with things and gather materials. you can view your inventory with the tab key, and specifically for the prototype the c key to clear the inventory, because at this moment creating a reaction in one the machines is done on the first items in the inventory.

Extra Notes
I really liked doing this. I'm a professional developer, but on a pretty specific piece of software and developing mainly consist of creating changes and additions to that software, to make the lives of the users easier (just easier, not fun).
So the idea of creating something from scratch that people can enjoy, make them smile, made it quite easy for me to say let's do it, let's see how far we can get in two weeks. And it's been a hell of two week2, I think my brain needs something to cool down, and I think I need some extra sleep the next days to make up for the missed hours. But in the end I was able to upload a prototype of a game, it's not perfect, by far, but it's there, people can open, try it, walk around, interect with things, like a real game. I know this won't win the jam, and I really don't care (oh well, maybe a little bit ;) ), I enjoyed it, and will keep working on this game, and who knows what games after it. And definately will join the next jam.

I've always been a gamer, and interested in games where gameplay comes first and graphics second. A game can look beatifull but if the story sucks, it's still a bad game, but if a game has a cool story, plays great, it doesn't really mattter if it's 8-bit ascii-art, 16-bit pixelart, only stickfigures or a full developed 3d unreal 5 game, it can all work just fine. And that 's what I want to focus on as a creator too, it must be fun to play, make you want to play more. The games must be accessible to a broad audience, not narrowed by a very specific genre, but also not narrowed by over the top hardware requirements, people with older or less expensive hardware should be able to play it. And last but not least, the games should be affordable, in reach of everyone, not $120 per game.

Oh, and I think I type too much text ;) TLDR: I liked the jam, will keep developing and join next jam, games should be fun over looks, games should be available to everyone, want to stick to that as creator.

Leave a comment

Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.

Comments

No one has posted a comment yet