First time I'm playing Alhemickal. Here's some gameplay and things I felt strongest about.
- -I thought alchemy system will be clunky with having to juggle 6 elements, but it's really well done. Deciding how much element to use per attack is a fun mechanic. Making combinations is not annoying thanks to slowmo (unlike in Magicka), I'm curious how it holds up for 3 or more element combinations.
- -Fighting feels really dynamic, with slowmo giving time to analyze the situation and set the elements. Even when the room is full of enemies and you're left almost no hp, it never feels chaotic unlike in some games where you don't know what the fuck is going on when there's too many enemies and bullets.
- -Loading protips last too short to read them.
- -It took me like 30 minutes to understand you can have only 1 upgrade per row. I thought you first need upgrade on the left to unlock upgrade on the right.
- -59:43 I was trying to make tar and didn't understand why it's not working. Later I understood that special chemicals need to be unlocked for each new run, but it's not clear since you can see them as discovered/unlocked in the almanac.
- -Nice shoopkeeper interactivity.
- -Visuals look good, but enviros are samey.
- -Getting frozen by ice enemies feels like insta-death sentence, when there's many of them.
- -Really like the almanac. Very readable (expect for status effectiveness, no idea what that is)
- -Toxin needs more love as a unique element. I just realized I never really used it expect as a combination component.
Very solid demo. I can't think of anything actually bad about the game even in the current state. It just needs more and content like enviros. I had good fun during that hour.