This is a cool project! Mom's knife from Isaac was always one of my favorite weapons. I don't like the fact you are so slow tho, I can't seem to dodge attacks easily. The pixel art and the powerups in the crafting system are really nice, but I found it hard to understand how the crafting works. I kept clicking and got something, but I couldn't recreate it. The way the potion worked was really good tho.
There seems to be a crazy amount of polish in some areas, and too little in others. Still, a really cool game, nice job :)
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Alchemist Knight's itch.io pageResults
Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
Theme | #1330 | 2.000 | 2.000 |
Playability | #1432 | 2.500 | 2.500 |
Cleverness | #1471 | 2.000 | 2.000 |
Artistic Style | #1655 | 2.500 | 2.500 |
Ranked from 2 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Judge feedback
Judge feedback is anonymous.
- Nice little game! I liked the randomly generated dungeons and the art style is nice to look at. Not always easy to actually hit the targets but easy enough to get behind that. I did run into a bug where I couldn't switch back from health potion to weapon but my other runs were fine. A little music could make the experience even better, add some atmosphere. But you made a cool game here, well done!
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!
Random generating dungeon where you can collect items from enemies you kill to craft weapons and consumables that help you in being victorious.
ONLY RECIPES YOU CAN CRAFT ARE SHOWN, SO TRY EVERYTHING.
CONTROLS:
Move - WASD
Use held item - LMB
Toggle inventory - Q
Toggle crafting (when near cauldron) - E
Cycle through usable items - Mouse wheel
Restart - Hold R
Extra Notes
Challenge: Beat the game without crafting.
Comments
Nice work on getting that random generated dungeon crawler working! It must be quite hard to pull off with such little time. The knife reminds me of mother's knife from the binding of isaac, which is a nice touch. The game is a bit difficult, but given that I first tried the final boss, I guess the difficulty is still alright.
That being said, I am having a hard time with the combat in the game, the enemy's attack feels like quite overpowered compared to what the player has. It might be worth to make the enemy's attack a bit slower so that the player can react accordingly. It would also be a good idea to tell the player the crafting recipes beforehand, currently it feels like I am just randomly killing enemies and occasionally get something out of the crafting system.
But anyway, nice job and continue the good work!
Cool game, interesting crafting system.
It's a good idea to have multiple cauldrons throughout the level to avoid backtracking, but due to proc-gen the first 3 rooms I visited were all cauldron rooms with no enemy so that felt weird xD.
Maybe instead you could have a cauldron appear after clearing out a room of enemies?
Also I think I had a bunch of debuff at the top of the screen and was taking damage over time but didn't understand why.
But I love Isaac-likes and being able to craft new weapons very regularly was very fun.
Really cool that you got a randomly generated dungeon! I like how the movement feels and the pixel art is great!
I got confused with the crafting system, since there is no way to know what you are doing I just started clicking random things until I got a big bone and some bullet things?
I guess the bone did more damage but was very slow, but maybe some damage numbers would be nice to see if its actually worth it. I made it to the first boss and was really enjoying it, until I got hit with a tiny bullet and lost half my health, and then he started shooting a lot, almost like a bullet hell. I like the idea of evading a lot of bullets and finding the window to attack, but in my opinion it would be better if it was a little more forgiving.
I overall like the game and hope you continue to work on it!
was playing on a trackpad so had trouble with scrolling items, but otherwise a cool idea of having a "homebase" to go back and craft things (rather than a menu system). combat was tricky, but im guessing better items make it easier. looked good too. really liked that enemies keep attacking your corpse after death, so brutal lol
The sprites and movement are all very smooth and clean! However, the battle is insanely difficult. I think I would either need much more health, or much slower-attacking enemies, or a way to block
I just struggled to last long enough to get established, but this also may be a silly issue on my part.
It was a bit unclear what exactly was happening when I was crafting at the cauldron as well. I think I crafted a vial, and a couple bars, but it was unclear what impact they had on my gameplay.
Still very clean submission!
The game is quite fun but definitely needs some work.
Sprites look good but I think they are from an asset pack, right? The overall composition would be improved if you made noninteractable stuff, like ground and corpses, darker and and with less contrast. One ingredient even homes towards player, making it look like a projectile.
The knife attack is a little slow, and I would like to see some visual feedback if I hit an enemy.
The absence of any dash mechanic would be tolerable, if not for the mages that shoot homing projectiles. Right now they are the hardest enemy in the game.
The whole crafting mechanic needs to be explained in the game. You can’t see which items are ingredients and which are not, you can’t see recipes for what you can craft, you won’t know what potion does unless you use and possibly waste it. Even a simple stuff, like tooltips with items’ names would go a long way.
On that note, there are a bunch of different status effects, but now way to see what they do.
My first run experience: I got to the boss on a 3rd room without ever engaging with crafting. Boss got stuck in a corner and I just spammed him to death. After he died, I kept hitting him, which made him drop loot again and apply some sort of debuff that slowed the player. Eventually I got so slowed that I couldn’t move or attack.
First impressions: looks really good, character controls nicely.
Some things I wrote down while playing:
-Hard to know from a glance what is an enemy projectile, loot on the ground, environment art, character or something else.
-Thats propably because the enviroment, almost every object and character had the same amount of contrast and the same kind of outlines so It's hard to know what is what.
-Speaking of characters and pixel-art in general. Love it! Super cute and animations look good! The attacks though (melee and ranged) feel much too slow for me. Faster attack swings and projectiles could feel more impactful. If I were to do it and I really wanted to keep the slow feeling of the attacks, I'd make the anticipation before the attack happens really slow and then make the actual swing, with damaging frames, happen in just a few frames with a long recoil afterwards. (Just my version and thoughts on the matter.)
-Shurikens fly slow and look like loot or an enemy so I end up dodging my own throwing stars.
-Hit flash (and maybe some particles) when damaging enemies would go a long way! ATM it's hard to know if my attacks landed or had any effect.
-Crafting items was simple, streamlined and quick to do. Excellent.
With all that said... I did enjoy playing it! Had a few near death moments, had fun with the small, but ample weapon variety, the boss gave me a good challenge but made it through by the skin of my teeth in the end!
I really like the idea, the number of craftable things feels great. I do wish it was possible to know what those items are before crafting somehow but that’s fine.
I did manage to beat the game without crafting once as I simply did not have the opportunity. As I understand it, the boss room is always the top leftmost room in the map? If you spawn close to it, just bee-lining to it is not too difficult.
The boss itself is not as hard as trying to kill one of those skull guys without taking damage. They lock on to your position right before flying in, instead of when they stop and start charging. They are very difficult to dodge and it never feels fair in my opinion.
It is a fun game. There is potential for a longer game.
EDIT: Found a pretty annoying bug where recipes that use health can kill you, instead of not letting you see that crafting option like what happens every other time you are missing items for a recipe.
Really fun! Like an old LOZ dungeon and the art is very clean and nice, the gameplay in general felt really nice but I think it needs more player feedback and pressing E on cauldron didn't seem to do anything. But I overall really enjoyed it.
Good game! I liked the inventory system&item using and zelda-like dungeons. The room generation is also good but i think it would be better to make it place the final boss far away from the starting room. In my first playthrough i just walked into him and finished the game with like 2 rooms, besides that good job!
Great concept! Great implementation!
Had some struggling with choosing ingerdients.
I love a good roguelike and this looks like it has the potential to be one if it wasn't for a few issues at the start:
You really need to put the Controls on the actual page. People won't see this info above once the jam is over. Which is part of the bigger issue that without what is written above you have no idea about any of these systems by just playing. It's unclear whether you are crafting things or being asked to do or anything related to the inventory system.
The random dungeon generation is nice, the knife action is fun and the enemies work well. It's the extra elements you need to show the player and incorporate into the game.
It'd also be nice to see some of your own artwork rather than a Kenneys asset pack. You can make a character sprite! Give it a go!
Lots of potential and some easy fixes for QoL issues. Good luck building on it or in your next game!
I really enjoyed the implementation, its solid and dungeon generation is a good addition but I didn't feel game is for me. Probably with more content and more visual effects it can become a strong project. I think could be fun on Steam Deck or other console. Anyways, great job on the game.
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