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Alchemyst Apprentice's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Use of the Limitation | #9 | 3.650 | 3.650 |
| Concept | #12 | 3.700 | 3.700 |
| Overall | #13 | 3.550 | 3.550 |
| Enjoyment | #14 | 3.300 | 3.300 |
| Presentation | #15 | 3.550 | 3.550 |
Ranked from 20 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Team members
MGaudi
Software used
Godot, Aseprite
Use of the limitation
You start with no knowledge about your ingredients and only by failing to create the desired effect, you'll understand what each of your ingredients do
Cookies eaten
None. I was too busy jamming
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Comments
Awesome game, great idea and pixel art! But it would be nice if you could take more than 1 item at a time
Thanks for playing and your feedback!
I love the concept! It's fun to experiment, and the notes you get feel very natural. The menus could have been a bit better, and being able to hold more than one item at a time would’ve been great, too.
I love the concept! It's fun to experiment, and the notes you get feel very natural. The menus could have been a bit better, and being able to hold more than one item at a time would’ve been great, too.
Thank you for playing and your feedback! Would you mind elaborating what you would have liked to improve in terms of the menus? I'm still learning the ins and outs of Godot UI concepts but regardless of the engine, always eager to hear what I could do better for the next jam.
Thank you for reading my comment!
Personally, my biggest struggle was with the icons, since they make the notes table a bit hard to read. (I just realized I said "notes" in my original comment, but I meant "mail"—sorry for the confusion!) For example, the O and - icons took me a while to figure out. At first, I thought there were more variations, and I was expecting something more familiar, like an X and a checkmark, which I’m more used to seeing. The effect icons were also a bit hard to follow, especially the one for invincibility. It made the beginning a little confusing until I got used to the icons.
Other than that, I haven't had big issues, but if you're open to suggestions, here are a few ideas to improve it even more:
- I think adding some sort of hover effect to the table (something like the pink hover in the chest menu, but less bright) would help with readability. Right now, the table feels a bit static.
- I’d also suggest adding tooltips to the icons. It would really help with understanding what each one means.
- The brewing window is great, but having icons next to item names and color-coding the success chance would be super helpful too.
- It would be nice to be able to close windows by clicking outside the window boundaries, especially since the character moves with the mouse.
Also, in a game like this, I’d love something like drag-and-dropping each material separately into the cauldron. Though that might be a bit off track.
Appreciate you taking the time for some detailed feedback, that's very insightful. You're making some good points and I'll look into them, either for this game or a future one.
Extremely charming little potion brewer! Took a minute to figure out how to do anything, but once I did it was magical. Gorgeous art too!
Thanks for playing and your kind words!
Absolutely enjoyed this a ton! Sunk a lot of time in figuring out how to not burn someone to ash and felt like I was learning along the way. Good use of the limitation. I was a little confused on what made the notes have a green tick as some ingredients only had one O on a single effect, but other than that good gameplay and cute art style.
Thanks for playing and I'm happy to hear you enjoyed it so much! About the notes: Some ingredients do not have any effect (like water), that's why even if you have only one possible effect left, you might need to verify that it has any effect at all.
However, there is unfortunately a bug in the notes that doesn't consider secure knowledge (green tick) of all other ingredients you used. This could lead to an effect not being checked off even though you have all the required knowledge to do so. If I find the time later today, I'll provide a fix.
Fun game, experimentation is neat and I like how if you keep track of things yourself, you can learn more than the notes say (through deduction).
Is there an ending? I seem to have filled out the notes but the game just keeps going.
Thanks for playing and your feedback! No, there's no actual ending because I thought of it more as a sandbox experience. But you're making a good point, there should be some kind of reward for unlocking knowledge on all ingredients.
Super awesome game! I loved the gameplay and having to figure out what each ingredient did. The chart took me a second to figure out but once I knew what I was doing it was very fun and engaging. Throwing curveballs like a certain ingredient being neutral (at least in my run) was super cool! Super polished and well made. I concur with other users that moving the ingredients felt a bit slow, but you seem to be on that already! Near the end I did have the issue that the chart would not fill out for the last few ingredients, but at that point I could figure out what they all did.
Thanks for playing and your feedback! I will look into the bug about notes not updating correctly, it seems I overlooked adding a necessary check.
Please note that I've provided a few visual and quality of life changes in an update. The original version made during the jam is still available for download and you can refer to a devlog for a detailed list of changes. None of them having any significant impact on the game itself, I recommend playing the current browser version to benefit from the better usability.
Honestly 5 stars across the board, this is really fun and I could see this being a really fun game with more content and fleshing out the crafting system. The only thing I would change is being able to hold more than one item at once!
Thanks for playing and I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it so much! Appreciate the feedback and I'd definitely look into making hauling ingredients a little less of a chore in a possible update. I just felt that it would go well with a clueless apprentice to carry everything individually but didn't find a good way to make it engaging for the player.
This looks interesting and I wanna play it, but don't know how. How do you add more ingredients? It starts a minigame after adding the ingredient.
Oh I finally figured it out! You need to close the menu from x and go get more ingredients. It's bit confusing because the minigame starts right away and the bar gets so tiny.
Ok got my first mail and note. This is facinating! I'm intrigued now what other ingredients do.
I get a real smirk on my face when I craft these potions and give them to the unsuspecting customers. :D
Love it!
Thanks for not only playing but also sharing your experience! Very happy to hear you liked the game so much.
I love the concept of this game! Great process-of-elimination discovery with a touch of humor.
I want to pet the cat, instant good review from me :D
Thanks for making this!
Thanks for playing, happy to hear that you liked it! Kitty is very particular about being petted, if at all it's happening on her terms only ;)
Love your art and ui! The music and sound effects was a good choice. I dreaded doing the next task such pick up items to bring back to the cauldron but it's fun to experiment and read the notes.
Thanks for playing! Can only take credit for the apprentice and the cat, the rest I just slightly altered to my needs based on some asset sets. But glad that you like it. I did feel the walking around between chest and cauldron might get a little tedious but didn't have the time to come up with something better.
Interesting concept, I hope nobody died (:
Thanks for playing and I'm sure the potion effects are only temporary in nature. Except for the fire ones, maybe.
Wow the game is looking so cozy i love this style. I dont know if iam to old but i almost never hit the minigame haha
Thanks for playing and the feedback! I might add an option to slow down the minigame in a possible future update. It wasn't really supposed to be a challenge but rather a little break in pace from walking around.
The mixing and finding out what recipes they are is quite satisfying! I really like figuring stuff out by doing comparison and effects. The game itself is actually quite soothing because of the ambiance. And especially the cute cat!
Im a bit annoyed cuz the character moves a bit slow and I have to add water everytime (when it is quite far away) but that maybe just because of my impatience :P
Good job!
Thanks for playing and your valuable feedback! Kitty is very happy you acknowledged her.
I see your point - I just felt it wouldn't suit the character to move really fast but that decision might not have been the best for gameplay. By the way: You don't need to add water, it simply helps to figure out effects faster as a neutral ingredient and to increase success chances.
I had fun mixing random stuff in the cauldron and giving it to the customers XD
Thanks for trying out my game and I'm happy to hear you had fun!
Nice idea, love the concept!
Thank you for playing, glad you like the idea!
Great idea and very clever use of limitation :) And nice pixel art, too ! Good job, I had fun playing !
Thanks for playing and I'm glad you had fun with my game! Actually, the limitation gave me the idea for the game. After participating in Major Jam, I didn't think I had it in me to do another jam but when inspiration struck, I just couldn't help it...
really nice game! I like the concept that you had to do trial and error for the potions, had fun especially the goblin seducing someone xD
Thanks for playing and I'm happy to hear you liked the idea!