The Little Alchemist
BRIGHT PATH PUZZLE: If you're stuck in the room where you keep being teleported back to the beginning of the room with the bright path, refer to the end of the page for the solution.
We're working on a post jam update, so any feedback is welcome!
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Take control of an alchemist who dwells in a dark dungeon-like place in search of the mysterious Shining Water. Overcome strange enemies and get to your desired treasure in this short adventure!
CONTROLS
| OVERWORLD | IN BATTLE |
|---|---|
| WASD to move around | A, D to dodge |
| Z to interact | QWER to select elements |
| Left Click for choices in general | Left Click to select enemy |
| ESC / Enter to Pause | Right Click to attack selected enemy |
Made by Faulko and Faulkard, known as Team Sanctales, for the 15th Pirate Software Game Jam!
BRIGHT PATH SOLUTION (SPOILER): Try to think of the dark room as the mirror of the brighter room and you'll be able to tread the correct path to the item. This puzzle will be introduced and communicated more properly in the post jam update.
Development log
- The Little Alchemist UPDATE v1.121 days ago
Comments
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Love the art. Gave me huge reminder of the game "OFF", an old rpg maker project. Defo love the vibes.
Enjoyed the length and the writing, but the fighting game was kinda hard to play on an AZERTY keyboard !
A solid project, keep going !
Your game had one of the most unique combat mechanics of any game I played in this jam so far.
Even tho I'm not the greatest at reaction mechanics *(And get smashed by the first bat I encounter)* I still had a lot of fun playing it.
I do think some extra polish would have helped a lot, like re-spawn animations; more attack explanations; and some anti-mashing mechanics and revisit the puzzle..
There are a few bugs I encountered but this is to be expected in a jam game. I'm sure you'll be able to fix them in no time. :D
Good job! Keep it up!
Provided additional UX/UI feedback in the Discord chat. <3
I liked the game once I understood that I needed to press the buttons that appear at the top of each battle. At the start of the dummy fight I felt a bit lost because I only saw “Miss” thinking why am I missing the attacks haha.
I liked the attacks of the enemy before the dog and the attacks from the dog.
I didn’t like that I needed to click each time the enemy when I want to attack because I did the combo first, but I couldn’t attack until I focused on the enemy again, which isn’t that bad, just annoying at the start.
The puzzle was ok, interacting with Z felt a bit strange since I’m too used to using E or a key I can press with my index finger.
Felt a bit strange each time I entered into a battle since the screen froze for a bit and then the battle appeared, I don’t know if it’s my old PC.
I think the game over screen it’s bugged, I wanted to see how the screen was but when I pick any option, nothing happens
And forgot to say, once you grab the object at the end of the puzzle, it would be nice if the bright item also disappeared, to show you got it.
I liked the font and the combo text, the battle song it’s ok, and I liked the ending scene, it was fun to see it. :)
Enjoyed the story, the battling I mashed through and did not need to dodge anything. The dark room puzzle is not quite right lol. I think Z is a weird interact key. I think at least there should be a button above your head when you can interact with something. The battle backgrounds were trippy and cool. Some of the sprites felt rushed... hmm Good job overall but a lot of work to do!
Indeed, a lot to polish and do, but we're working on it! I really appreciate your feedback though.
Thank you for playing!
I really love this concept! My favourite part were the punchout-esque fight sequences - Having each enemy having their own attack patterns, and the way you portrayed them on screen was awesome.
Your game managed to be innovative while also taking me back to childhood memories of playing Pokémon on emulators. I'd like to see some changes regarding UX/UI (specially by relocating the little table for the alchemical elements) but many have already pointed those out. Congrats on the great work on this charming game.
I like the idea for the combats.
But I think the UX could be better, I spent a lot of time looking at my keyboard and, as I'm european, the letters are in a different order. If the four elements were in a horizontal line it would be easier.
And I don't understand why I have to select an enemy when there is only one. Or why I have to click again to attack when I have all the elements.
And I don't understand why sometime in the world I am teleported back. Sometime it feels random and sometime it's always at the same place. I guess it's the bright path thing when it's always the same but I got teleported to an other screen and I don't understand why.
Oh, is your keyboard the AZERTY type? I've been somewhat worrying about that over the last few days. One possibility that I've thought of is letting people select the elements utilizing the arrow keys as well, which was a suggestion from another player. Do you figure that could help?
And yeah, right now, selecting enemies is a hassle. It was originally gonna be a single click, but we had mouse detection issues. This will undoubtedly be changed in the update, though!
And to make it clear what's happening with the rooms: when you exit the tutorial room or the bright path room, they take you to the same spot in that corridor room with the locked door. It absolutely does look confusing! And in the bright path room, there's a side of it that's completely in the dark. If you follow the wrong path there, it takes you to the beginning of the bright path, since it's meant to be a bit of a puzzle. All of this, too, will go through changes to clear up what's happening, and the connection between rooms in an overall will be improved!
Thank you for playing and for leaving this feedback. We'll be working to improve all of this!
Yes, it's an AZERTY keyboard.
I don't know about the arrow keys, maybe if you never use the mouse in game and you still need to change the UI to make clear what element is on each key.
Maybe using the numbers instead, I think it's universal.
You can also switch the Z key to E or F. I don't remember a game using Z as the interact button.
The numbers are a really good idea!
(And the Z button was because I got used to the Undertale/Deltarune control scheme 😅)
Thank you for the feedback though, we'll look into all of it!
I got some Undertale vibes, especially from the overworld (might be the bright path that resembles similar puzzle from UT) and also the battle backgrounds really make me think of Earthbound (even if I haven't actually played it).
Balancing between the dodging and inputting the correct elements might be good as a general concept, but I feel the execution here doesn't quite work? Might have something to do with enemy attacks being kinda wobbly and hard to tell the direction of to the point I couldn't quite react in time, and quickly making elemental attacks was effective enough I didn't really need to dodge in the first place. Undertale's system of having attack/action sections and dodging sections works better in that the player can focus on one thing at a time.
Other than that, the game was pretty short and sweet. The overall story reminded me of Homunculipse, if you played the game you may notice why. Nicely done, overall. ^^
The path puzzle was absolutely inspired by Undertale, though our execution is lacking in comparison. It's cool to see someone get that, though!
The combat's gonna go through a bit of a makeover for sure! We're still deciding on a couple of key aspects but I've got in mind a few different ways to help the player know where to go during an attack.
I'm happy you can tell what we tried to pull off though, and I'm excited to polish it more! I haven't played Homunculipse yet but it's on my list, as is your game. I'm excited to give them a try later.
Thank you so much for playing and leaving feedback, it helps us a lot!
absolutely loved the enemy designs.
liked the idea of having to juggle optimal attacking with dodging enemy attacks.
Tho I did notice a lack of penalty for attacking poorly, and with no cool down.
so I began button mashing QWER + Left/Right Mouse and hilariously just melted every encounter.
But I'm sure you're working on it. :)
Yeah, the intention is to keep that juggle going. There's some balancing to be done but I'm glad you see what we're trying to pull off. I'm excited to release an update whenever it gets finished!
Thank you for playing and for your feedback. It means a lot!
Finally, the gamer girl bathwater is mine.
+ Very interactive combat that reeks of earthbound
+ Enemy attacks have much smoother animations than you'd expect
+ Fun overall tone
- Juggling the elements to attack is a bit awkward. I never found myself memorizing which button was what.
- Having to re-target enemies for each attack is arduous. Especially with the encounter rate being kinda high.
- That maze puzzle is the devil and those hitboxes are his grand design.
Yo, thanks for checking the game out!
There's definitely some big changes we're gonna be making for the attacking process, both UI and mechanically, to make it simpler and a bit more comfortable. And yeah, something overtook me the day I made that puzzle...
But I'm glad you also enjoyed aspects of it. We hope to improve this a lot with the update.
Thank you so much for playing and for your thoughts!
I like the direction and the art design - i agree it's clearly Undertale inspired :)
One thing: I got beaten by the one-eyed-dog and on the "try again?" scene I could not click on the yes or no button, and z also did not work.
Nevertheless, nice submission! Congrats!
Oh, my sincerest apologies, it seems the game over screen isn't working as it should...
...We really do have a bad precendent with game over screens, don't we?
It makes me happy that you enjoyed the game so much, though! We hope to improve it a lot with the post jam update (including this nasty game over screen oversight).
Thank you for stopping by, playing and giving your thoughts! We appreciate it!
I can very much see the Earthbound/Undertale inspirations here, from the battle backgrounds to the sprites and UI, to the general weird/unsettling feel of the game at times, especially with the excellent sfx and music. Honestly, I had a lot of fun with it, even with how short it was!
One thing I will say is that the combat system, while super interesting, can be a little bit frustrating as well. I did find out you could just spam through encounters with mouse and keys, but I didn't use that since I wanted to experience the game as intended.
The frustrating part for me really comes down to the fact that, if you get the first element wrong in the sequence of the attack, you still need to go through the effort of doing the remaining elements (right or wrong), then attacking just so you can miss. I think if the attack cancelled immediately upon getting something wrong, it would be a lot smoother.
It also wasn't clear at some points what could and could not be interacted with. I got stuck for a while since I didn't realize I could interact with the key block.
Overall, amazing idea for a game, which could use a little polish to truly take it to the top. Loved the ending. Found it very charming.
Yo, thanks for trying the game out!
I appreciate you holding back the spam, I know it can be tempting. We're definitely seeing our options to punish the player in the case of a miss or getting hit, so we'll be taking a second look at the attack aspect of things.
And that item sprite was meant to be spinning in order to draw attention to it, but I got too sleep deprived and completely forgot about it!
However, I appreciate that you managed to have fun with still and that you see potential in it. Hopefully the post jam update can address most of the concerns that have been brought up by you and other players.
Thank you so much for playing the game and for this thoughtful feedback. We truly appreciate it!
I like the combat system and I think this is a cool idea. I agree with some of the other comments here about the 2x2 layout of the QWER attacks and the room to the left. I had no idea what was causing the teleportation and decided to stop playing. I knew there was a puzzle, but I didn't know what it was. I think an animation of falling through the floor would have given me an indication of the puzzle type.
Hey, appreciate you checking out the game!
Honestly, I personally saw this game as a concept test to see how things would work, reception, among other things. I'm happy that, despite the issues, you got the gist of what we tried to pull off.
That's an interesting suggestion for the puzzle room too! I'll juggle it with a couple of other ideas we have to improve that area.
Thank you so much for giving the game a chance and some of your time!
Cool battle system , not sure got stuck going left, feel the battle frequency is a bit too high, but overall feels like an interesting game that has a lot of charm
I'm glad you see potential in it. We'll definitely be tuning the battle frequency and improving that puzzle room on the left. Thank you for playing and leaving feedback!
i loved the game! When the text comes on screen to explain how combat works, i feel i had to re-read it a few times because it would go up a line as it added more words. Not sure if you want to try different way of showing text, maybe a line at a time or the whole thing? It also wasn't clear to me to hit z to continue the text. The moving background behind the enemies, you may want to slow down or make a certain solid pattern, it does hurt the eyes and might cause issues to some players. It's also unclear when you should dodge and what direction? i was just spamming a/d not knowing if i was actually going to dodge an attack. also i had to afk but couldn't pause with enter after i got the key, and i lost xD but i had fun! cant wait to see wait you have planned!
Hey, thanks for checking out the game!
The tutorial texts and other normal dialogue share the same system, which is why it adds words bit by bit. That animation can be skipped by pressing Z while it plays, but that information is never conveyed in the game, which is our fault. Same thing goes for having to use Z to get through the tutorial text too; that's on us too.
I can definitely look into the background related stuff too. Our monitor's got faulty colors, so it can be a little rough for us to tell the amount of contrast certain colors may have with one another or how hard to look at some of the backgrounds may be. It's good to get some feedback on that.
There is some amount of learning of enemy patterns that is intended and I did push for some attacks to be a little more unpredictable (like Crys for example), more so to test the possibilities we could have for making harder enemies in, say, a longer game for example. However, there are readibility issues on the moves. Starting enemies shouldn't have cutthroat attacks, so there will definitely be some tweaking in the attack animations.
And yeah, the pause menu seems to glitch there. Another glitch to be fixed...
I'm glad that, despite these issues, you had fun with the game. There's a lot of fixing and changes to be done, but hopefully the post jam update will resolve at least a majority of the issues. Thank you for playing and giving your feedback! It matters a lot to us!
One of the most unique and interesting combat systems I've ever seen in a game.
It's a shame I figured out you could just spam mouse+buttons and win every fight in 2 seconds and ruined it for myself.
I genuinely mean that though the combat was super interesting but I feel like I was quite confused by the layout of the elements I had to select. Maybe if they were in the same row order as QWER it would have made sense to my brain but being in a 2X2 grid in the corner felt weirdly disconnected to me.
Pretty sure I don't even need to open your GDD to know it was inspired by Earthbound, I loved the wacky *** characters and backgrounds. The clear Undertale inspiration is there too in the environment and I don't blame you because either of those are awesome, but you brought your own style and spin to the formula that made it your own and it was very cool
The music and SFX were great too and at one point there was laughing in the music that was creepy and awesome af. Really cool job.
The ending was really funny I thought and well done. I would have been interesting to know what you thought the other fights/scenarios were in the "real-world". I hope the dog is okay!
The combat has a lot of potential and the story is pretty goofy for what it is
neat!
I think the combat mechanics are actually really cool and I was a big fan, it took me a second to figure it out but from there it was actually quite intuitive and I could easily recognise which symbol matched which key on the keyboard. I think T got stuck at one point as I kept being teleported back, but I would have definitely liked to see more of the game!
Hello there! I'm considering making a couple of changes to the UI to make it easier to associate the keys with the elements, so hopefully it'll help with that.
And about that room, there is a little puzzle going on in there but it wasn't made very clear what to do. If you ever decide to visit it again, seeing the main similarities and differences between the room with the bright path and the dark room beside it should help.
Thank you for playing!
This was awesome! I kept teleporting in the room with the key and I'm not sure why, maybe I followed the path wrong or something.
Apart from that, I really love the enemy designs and the twist at the end!! I had a lot of fun playing this, especially with such a unique battle mechanic. Feels like I'm playing a rhythm game and Punch-Out at the same time. :P
(take this as a reminder to hydrate)
Hey, I'm really glad you enjoyed it! You definitely had the right idea about the room with the key but we do need to make a little clearer what to do there, so that's on us.
I'm also glad you caught the twist! We're hoping to explore it a little more in the post jam update, I think it'd help the game a lot.
Thanks for playing! May you have the best hydration out there.
I like the combat, although I feel like the getting hit isn't really punishing and I can go through spamming the attacks.
Also, I don't know if this is intended but I keep on getting teleported from the room with the crystal thingy back to the room on the right and it's very annoying which made me stop playing.
That's a good thing to point out. I've got some ideas on how to make getting hit a little more punishing since right now you can just tank through attacks and cheese enemies a bit.
That is indeed intentional! There's a puzzle going on in that room that involves taking a specific route when going into the dark part, but both from your and other player's feedbacks, it wasn't made very clear what's going on there. We're gonna work on that.
Thanks for checking the game out!
I think it's because from the intro room I was conditioned into thinking I just go through areas, fight enemies, get items and unlock new areas, no indication of a puzzle aspect to the game. I think when designing a game, you should assume the player has no idea what you do in the game or how it works.
That's a very fair point! We're planning on making a post jam update so I'm hoping to expand things a bit and give a proper introduction to the puzzle aspect.