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1. I have over 200 books! It's getting tedious to scrap them all, I want a way to bulk scrap them. Maybe make the books stackable?
By the way, I think some inventory sorting function could be useful, so things are in standard order and not change when I use up something and gain more later.
2. With about 100 maps explored, the selection screen is getting cluttered. Now I really want a way to delete old locations.
3. When exploring in the mines, I have an idea: When muffled, the character can use an action to make noise (like knocking the ground), so the centipedes are attracted together while I quietly move to another position, then I can use a single potion to kill a group of them.
4. About Verdant sandals:
This equipment is useless outside of setting forest fires. And even when I'm using it to prepare a forest fire, it's still inconvenient to use.
I think it should inherit the nettle protection from tall boots, as provided by verdant blessing.
If it needs to be buffed, then either give it better utility for preparing the fire, or give it some other utility.
For preparing the fire, it could either be buffed to grow tall grass in a larger range (3x3), or be able to overwrite non-flammable plants like spearmints and foxgloves.
For other utility, it could give hp recovery. Maybe heal 1 hp for every tile of tall grass planted. If that's too much, you can make it heal with a probability.
5. Roses hurt!
Currently rose deal 1 damage when passing through, and no equipment can block this damage. The pathfinder also doesn't try to avoid it. I think this needs to be fixed, either make tall boots block that damage, or make the pathfinder avoid it.
Now I've (almost) completed the game, it's time for me to write a review.
(spoiler warning)
TLDR: Overall, I think the update is great, and still needs polishing. Some balace still need tuning.
1. Centipede and Ghoul droppings are too weak, and don't match their strength.
Centipede drop only gives 1 poison when distilled. For comparison, a toad drops a slime gland, which also gives 1 poison when distilled.
I suggest buff the centipede drop to 2~3 poison.
Ghoul drop gives 0.4 sanguine when distilled. For comparison, a Leech pouch gives 0.5 sanguine when ground in a mortar.
The ghouls are rather frightening, I suggest change them to give sinister instead. Compared to the abundant spider silk (0.25) and fiend powderbox (0.4), and another frightening monster Chimaera (1), I suggest they should give 0.6~1 sinister.
2. Efreet and Centipede show the design intention that I should avoid them, but in practice, they have high speed, and there is often not enough space to sneak by, so I have to kill them. This way I'm no longer outwitting my enemies, instead I'm brute forcing them with my vast potion supplies, and this feels a little wrong.
I suggest add 'dashing' equipments, which can help with sneaking past these enemies. Dashing could work like "the stardust", speed up movement but cost hp every move, and maybe accumulate fatigue so the player can't dash indefinitely.
3. Exploration of T3 fey lake is almost identical to T2 forest, aside from the fairy and the moat.
I hope the forest can have some new threat than the T2 forest, rather than having the riddle be the only difficult part. Maybe some normal creatures like bears? Or some mystical fey creature?
4. Where is the sulfur? So far I have only seen sulfur in a variant of T1 farm, and nowhere else. I hope there are more sulfur later.
5. Flame spire have some rooms with wooden barrels, that start to burn very soon after I enter the map. It's as if they are in chronostasis before I entered the map, which breaks the immersion. I think they should either be burnt at start, or simply not flammable, or be locked well and have no efreet inside.
This save has 2.5 years, and have hoarded a huge amount of items. I have 2k gold, 8k fuel, 1k metal, 12 complete map and 6 unexplored T3 zones. I also have enough materials to make 20 elixir of youth.
Although there is no time contraint, I still try to optimize in-game time usage, and use this to estimate potion costs.
The T3 maps:
Sorting in difficulty, I think it's Spire = Mine = Grave >> Lake. The lake riddle is not taken into account, because the tree trunks give a huge amount of reward without needing to complete the riddle.
I have completed 3 Spires, 5 Mines, 5 Graves, 4 Lakes (but failed all the riddles).
The forest part of spire:
The forest is all burned, and I need to avoid the Efreets. The good part is, the forest is all burned, so the vision is clear, and I don't need to worry about being ambushed around a corner. There is usually enough space to maneuver around them, and I can destroy burned trees to create paths when in need.
It's relatively easy to reach the spire without needing potions. However, the forest have some good materials, and to collect those, I need to kill some Efreets. The rule of thumb is, use a frost potion whenever it could kill 2 Efreets or more.
The magmoss is useful, it's a good source of telluric.
The scorch leaves is less useful, it can be refined into either lawless or volatile, but neither are important.
The smoulderfly is simply not worth gathering. It requires hushing sands to gather, but only gives 1.5 volatile, which is already abundant. I suggest buffing it to 2~3 volatile, and maybe make it take sorting instead of grinding.
Inside the spire:
My biggest problem with it, is the rooms with wooden barrels. They start to burn soon after I enter the floor. When I reach the rooms, I usually see them burn in front of me.
In my opinion, they should either have already burned up before I come to the spire, or be entirely immune to Efreets. Maybe the barrels and chests should be made of metal, or some magical crystal that can be collected for later use.
In the spire, there is usually no longer enough space to sneak around the Efreets. I simply use frost potion to kill all of them. The rule of thumb is, use a frost potion whenever it could kill 2 Efreets or more, and also if a single Efreet is blocking the path.
On average, I use about 20 frost potions each spire.
I also tried using Corpselight potion against Efreets, because the potion description says "freeze all nearby creatures", but it seems to have no effect on them.
Pirate graves:
These are mostly fine imo.
The Ghouls are designed as need to be killed. Each cost 3 fireballs, or 1 black fire + 1 fireball.
The ghoul drops are underwhelming compared to their strength.
On the ground, it's possible to cheese them with crystal potion. I can use a crystal potion on each ghoul and then push them into deep water.
Sometimes, it's possible to crystal a ghoul and put it in a side room. If it has lost track of the player, it will stay dormant and not try to break open the doors. Not having to kill it can save some potions.
The 3 sarcophagus can be solved with the whisper candle, but I always drink a phoenix potion before opening it, just in case.
Mines:
The entrance has renewable sources of glacial water. However, I find it not worth to go there again just for that water.
The mines require having hushing sands active almost all the time. I also use restlessness to make hushing sands last longer, and use food instead of calming infusion to recover health.
The centipedes are deadly. They have 130% speed, and deal 4~6 damage on bite. After the bite, there is also a 50% slowdown, which makes it hard to either continue sneaking or retreat.
There is usually not enough space to sneak around them. With muffled footsteps, they act similar to Efreets, but are somewhat harder to kill.
Sometimes there are very tight corners which blocks most of vision. A centipede can be very deadly in this case.
It's possible to leave some of the centipedes alone, but they usually guard some treasure and valuable ore behind, so I still kill them.
Killing each takes 1 fireball + 1 embers. A single black fire potion can also do the job, and becomes the best option when it can affect 2 or more targets.
The bottom floor has lots of pits. It's possible to use crystal potion + push to kill centipedes. The wyvern is no more difficult than the fort one, so it's just a piece of cake.
When exploring the bottom floor of water variant, I noticed a problem: When I cling to a wall with gecko potion, deep water have no movement penalty, but shallow water still have movement penalty. I think this needs to be fixed.
Fey lake:
The lake can be passed through costing 2~3 floating potions. There's nothing interesting about the lake itself.
The forest is almost identical to the T2 forest. There are no additional threats. There are additional resources, the mandrake and the resources in tree trunks. The fairy dust and strange drinks are all useful materials, and if I fully explore the map, it can give far more than 4 map fragments.
The fairy riddles are very difficult for me. So far I have tried 4 times, and no success. Some riddles are clear enough that I'm confident of the answer, but some are vague, and I need to guess and end up failing. Maybe I need to ask ChatGPT for help?
I'm not asking for a nerf to the riddle difficulty, I just hope there's nothing important locked behind them in
The hotbar is a huge QoL improvement, now I can't live without it. Unfortunately it only has 10 slots, which is not really enough for late game builds.
It partially solved the frequent equipment switching problem, by making the switching easier.
There is a cheese with repeatedly turning lights on and off to trick bats. It already existed in old versions, but the hotbar makes it actually viable.
The ability to unequip potion in also very helpful, especially when combined with the hotbar. It has prevented misclick many times.
New Items (and changed items):
1. Black fire:
This update buffed its damage, and added 2 types of enemies that can be affected by it: Ghouls and Centipedes. Black fires now deal about 1.8x damage of fireballs at 2.4x cost, which makes it a direct upgrade.
While this sounds like less cost-effectiveness, it can make good use of oppertunities when a single potion can affect multiple targets. The spread is still hard to use, but it's good enough without the spread. Overall I think it's well-balanced.
2. Unruly flame:
Its damage is too unstable and unreliable for main dps. I had a try at it, but it can't even reliably one-shot ghouls. At this price, it's not very useful.
3. Rime potion:
It's now in a strange position. Currently it's used only in the spire, but it's unlocked very early, and the spire is a late game T3 map. So there is a very long time, I have unlocked rime potion but have no need for it.
4. Chaos potion:
For the drinking and applying part:
When I want to apply a buff on myself, in most cases, only 1~2 of the buffs are needed. The chances of rolling the needed buff is low. For drinking, it's a little better, because it can give healing, but this usually results in overflow, so it's not useful either.
For the throwing part:
It's possible to use this as a damage potion. While there are many different thrown potions, a good number of them deal damage in some way, so there's a good chance to deal some damage.
However this has some problems. The first problem is the rift potion. You can accidentally exchange your position with the target. So it's only useful when fight a single enemy. Otherwise you may end up in the middle of a group of enemies, or dangerously close to a strong enemy. The second problem is immunities. Some enemies can be immune to some of the potions, reducing the chance of dealing damage.
I've tried using chaos potions to deal with single centipedes in the mines, but the result is far from ideal. It usually takes more than 6 to kill each.
The cost of the potion is not trivial. Overall it's still not useful.
5. Poison gloves:
The passive effect is very useful. It allows curing rot effect, which is useful for the ghouls in graves.
The melee effect is somewhat useful. I can now kill bats in 1 hit, which needs less turning lights on and off.
The poison cloud buff is useless. All major threats in T2 and T3 maps are immune to poison.
6. Restlessness potion:
This potion multiplies player speed by 1.15x. This is not useful for sneaking past Centipedes and Efreets, because the player has no way to tell when the extra turn will occur.
The main use of it, is to pair with hushing sands and gecko potion, so these potions last longer.
The loss of calming infusion is actually not a big problem. Calming infusion often results in healing overflow, so it usually heals less than the theoretical 60 hp. Food from richardo is cheap enough to be a good alternative.
7. Dream catcher: This is rather helpful, as it can generate lots of high tier materials. Holy, Sinister and Semipiternal are all very useful.
8. Phoenix potion: This seems to be a specialized potion for solving the pirate grave. I usually keep a few in inventory, but not use them often.
9. Whispering candle: This item reveals some interesting lores. I have tried listen to them in each type of map. They are mostly useful in pirate graves, to steal the secret from the pirate. In other places it's mostly just cool.
10. Potion of blood transfiguration: This potion is more expensive than fireball, and fireball can do its job nicely.
11. "The Stardust": The Fey lake area gives tons of fey essence (hundreds), so I can brew lots of them to sell. Still have nowhere to spend that much money though.
12. Shadowbane potion: It's throw effect is useful at clearing densely packed shadow clouds. However, it's also ok to just rush through the cloud, it only costs 3 hp.
The drink effect lasts too short to be useful. I think it should be at least 40 turns to be a worthy alternative.
13. Kingsblood: Works as intended, but not useful outside of unlocking their locks.
Kingsblood can be used to fool the living armor of the T2 mansion. However this doesn't work in practice, as 15 turns is not enough to loot the main treasure. I can use 2 potions, but it's no longer cost-effective this way.
14. Floating: Works as intended, but no use outside of the fey lake. Duration is too short for other use cases.
I haven't used either potion of recollection or discord. I think discord could be useful when it's affecting 2 ghouls or centipedes, but haven't tried yet.
Richardo T2 shop adds something useful in late game. The important goods are: Metal sun symbol, ivory dice, ink, black feather. Bloodstone and black quartz can be useful, but I found them not cost-effective.
It's getting tedious to check the shop every in-game day. I hope the T2 shop can have bigger capacity and restock slower.
Loving all the changes, you put a lot of work in and it shows. I'd say hostile creature diversity would be something nice to work on. Having the same couple enemies on every map type gets boring, maybe slightly different variants at least would spice it up. Random/rare encounters like running into a bear in the woods or a pack of wolves would add some nice pucker factor. There's a lack of wildlife diversity for sure. More difficult and varied encounters would be cool. Chimeras for an example only appear in that one abandoned farmhouse subtype, but could really be distributed into later dungeons amongst the other enemies.
Something Boreal is very frustrating to source in significant quantities because you can only get them from glacial water, which is random and usually you don't even get much, or spearmint leaves, which are insanely inefficient. Could you buff the amount of "Something Boreal" you get from spearmint? .30 is painful when potions cost 1.50, not to mention it already uses up 1.00 of something umbral which is very hard to get a lot of until later in the game, and .30 of something ephemeral which is used in a lot of different potions as well.
Thoughts on items: Could you just have the higher tier versions of the gloves/boots stack the previous effects onto the upgrade? It's very tedious having swap gloves and boots back and forth depending on what I'm doing. Also verdant sandles seem to be extremely pointless. I don't think it would be broken if you rolled up the benefits of the basic gloves and sinister gauntlets into the shock gloves, it would be a slight buff, but really more of a QoL thing than anything.
Is there a win condition in the current game? I have all the potion recipes and have been going completionist on the lore fragments. I'd like to know if there's something hidden or if it's just not implemented yet. I think it would be cool to have multiple win conditions with different pathways. Lichdom, going through the veil to another dimension, finding celestial language words to get immortality. Definitely would be good for replay value.
Maybe. I might add a couple of additional sources. But I think you underestimate the amount of glacial water that becomes available in the late game, which is when you actually need it the most. And if you have no idea what I mean: look at the entrances to mines.
>Could you just have the higher tier versions of the gloves/boots stack the previous effects onto the upgrade?
I saw several people actively considering their equipment during their playthroughs, and I don't want to remove that from the game. Verdant sandals may need a buff, though.
>Is there a win condition in the current game?
No. If you see no active quests (besides Ricardo's friends, which is always active), it means there is nothing else left in the story. All that's left is to explore until you've had enough.
I'm playing the new version (paid on steam) and started a new save.
It seems there is a change in the book loottable, which makes it harder to deliver potions to the travelling merchant in time. I also accumulated ~12 academic knowledge in mid-game, before being able to use them in the new techs.
The new t3 maps are really difficult. I have already died twice in the flame spire, mostly because I went there too early. Luckily I picked the infinite life option. I think they will become easier when I get used to them, but will still cost a lot of potions to explore.
I encountered Raemus heir. In the conversation, he forcefully took 5 piece of gold from me. (he asked for 15 but I only had 5 at that time)
I wonder whether this is a scam, or is there some more story behind him?
5 pieces of gold is not a big deal, but I'm angry that someone can rob money from me and then show up as if it's completely justified. If this is really a scam, then I want him DEAD.
I wonder whether we can get some form of curse in the later stages of the game, to deal with this, or hire assassins to do this. Richardo is already doing those shady things (the 4 potions are probably used for them), and our alchemist should be able to afford such a cost in mid game.
Yes, some books are replaced with map fragments, but it's around 1/10 in the early areas, so it shouldn't change much. The rest is just randomness (or the areas you choose to explore, since the selection varies between areas).
>I encountered Raemus heir.
Yes, you got scammed. He's a reminder not to trust random strangers (and you could avoid this result).
But you aren't the first one to get angry at him, so maybe I'll add some way to get back at him. Not assassins, though.
Recently came back to this game, and it’s still as amazing as I remembered!
There were a few things that I wanted to note / ask from my playthroughs:
I feel like clairvoyance potions should counteract the vision-reducing effects of fog.
Why can’t I get “Something toxic” from fiend’s powderbox mushrooms? Given their effects in-game, I would think they would be a potent source of it.
Some way to “unequip” potions from the throw action would be nice. I’ve lost a game due to an errant mouse wheel and 2 fireball potions, so it would be nice to have some way to prevent that. If a way does exist right now, I think it should be indicated better.
After a while, the list of locations you can visit becomes rather crowded. I think it would be useful if there were some way to remove locations from the list once you no longer intend to visit them.
I also have a couple of suggestions for the game, though obviously you shouldn’t feel compelled to add them. I’m mostly just throwing around ideas I had while playing:
I feel like all the mid-game research is all bunched up on the third row of the tech tree, and it would be better (both for readability and progression) if the third row were split into 2 rows, resulting in 2 rows for early-game research, 2 for mid-game, and 2 for late-game.
I think it would be interesting if there was some way to “transmute” one alchemical ingredient into another. Perhaps tempering “Something to burn” into “Something volatile”, or vice-versa. Or maybe condensing “Something metallic” into “Something that glitters”.
All in all, keep up the great work, and I look forward to the upcoming Steam release! Don’t feel pressured to rush on the update, your health & personal life is more important than getting an update out sooner.
Hello, thank you for your input! >I feel like clairvoyance potions should counteract the vision-reducing effects of fog.
That is a cool idea. It fits the flavour. I will probably make it that way.
>Why can’t I get “Something toxic” from fiend’s powderbox mushrooms? Given their effects in-game, I would think they would be a potent source of it.
They used to give that, but I changed it to something sinister at one point for more usefulness, as something toxic is abundant anyway. Now that I think of it, though, I can just make both options available.
>Some way to “unequip” potions from the throw action would be nice.
I never considered that it would be useful, but implementing it won't take long, so I will.
>I think it would be useful if there were some way to remove locations from the list once you no longer intend to visit them.
I will need to think of such a feature.
>I feel like all the mid-game research is all bunched up on the third row of the tech tree, and it would be better (both for readability and progression) if the third row were split into 2 rows, resulting in 2 rows for early-game research, 2 for mid-game, and 2 for late-game.
What is currently a late game won't be for very long, and specifics of the research tree, too, will be subject to change.
>I think it would be interesting if there was some way to “transmute” one alchemical ingredient into another
Something like alchemical gold is a possibility, but I don't have any specific thoughts yet.
I have a few small suggestions that I hope can give this game more appeal to people trying it out and give it the recognition it deserves:
The introduction is a bit redundant when you are asked to give your soul to the devil. Many people would normally not agree to this and the game forces them back to the title screen and redo all the tutorial crafting and prison escape again. Its not a ton of time lost but can be pretty frustrating especially for a new player who is deciding if they want to play any further.
I suggest having the narrator come in after the second time you refuse and say something like "After realizing that there is no exit, the alchemist reluctantly agrees." and move the story forward instead of ending the game and wasting the player's time.
Another idea would be to put in an option in the title menu to skip the intro section altogether and start directly after the prison escape. Choices for extra lives could be selected in this menu. This would be perfect for players who want to just go directly into the real game.
Feels like the upgrade for the boots/gloves should be cheaper, the upgrade seems to be the kinda thing you'd smack out in like...the first three areas. But consistently I have 5-7 areas available to explore and only 1-3 max common-knowledge (I forget its actual name), so I'm running around getting hurt by nettles/snakes when that feels like something I should be able to solve in the first five minutes. Knocking the cost to 3 shouldn't be a huge deal should it?
Hello, dear creator of this game and everyone else here.
There is a unofficial subreddit for this game called r/Alchemist_rougelike.
There currently are no rules and if you have any suggestions just message me on reddit.In the moment I am writing this comment I am the only moderator.
If the creator of this game wants the subreddit to be removed just message me.
My only issue with it is that the correct spelling is "roguelike", not "rougelike". Would be great if you fixed that. I'm fine with the idea otherwise and won't mind posting some updates there.
I just wanted to leave my feedback after playing for a couple of hours, but first, a preamble.
In videogames I have two favourite things - necromancy and alchemy. I'm also of the opinion that both of these elements of fantasy are horrifically underutilized. Both, of course, because the elements that I like most about them would often necessitate the creation of a game built entirely around them and not merely have them be classes in something larger... Which brings us to Alchemist, a game built entirely around alchemy.
I think you've knocked it out of the park, all in all. I love the elegance of the system you've presented here. Just enough moving parts to make you feel like your little alchemist is brewing and distilling without drowning players in the nitty-gritty details (Said by one who adores such details in, say, Cataclysm DDA). Additionally I adore the idea that this is a game in which you are intelligent, not strong, and appreciate your stance on preparation and observation being the keys to making it in this game. The lack of armour +1 and flametongue swords that enable me to just run in and eviscerate every last viper in the forest is a lovely and grounding choice. It makes me pay more attention to the world and brilliantly sells the fact that you are just an alchemist. I adore it, and think that what you do have here is brilliant and, again, elegant. The focus on the fact that you are an alchemist and not the generic roguelike hero is refreshing and exciting alike. I read earlier that you want to keep permanent upgrades relegated to tools, which I would also like to gush about, but this is long enough already.
The music in the main menu was excellent for setting the mood, and I do quite enjoy the writer and listener's back and forth while discussing the story. It's personable and well written all in all, though I did want to go through at some point and collect any typos I've found if that would be something you'd consider valuable.
The weather having an effect on the world, the lighting, the graphics easily and readily conveying all of the important information, the intriguing story... I've nothing but praise and excitement for this game and really very much just wanted to offer my encouragement. I'm most assuredly and certainly an ardent and enthusiastic fan, and look forward to buying it the second I see it pop up on Steam. (Stalked your reddit posts a bit, noticed it was a priority for you.)
Question: Is there any time pressure, aside from the travelling merchant and cyclical things like fireflies and shop restocks? Any other quests or events that can just expire if I take too long hanging out in early zones?
Thanks for the answer! I think the travelling merchant is a good kind of way to handle time pressure, you want to move fast enough to get the bonus, but it's not run-ending if you don't.
Just wanted to say I saw this game and picked it up, and I'm really enjoying it so far! I'm hoping as I get past the earlygame and into mid/lategame that I can learn cool new ways to use alchemy to improve the player character. If that's not a thing, consider that a suggestion! Also, it would be nice if one could leave notes for locations and mark them as cleared so they don't clutter up the list.
If you press "F" in the examination mode (or click the icon with the magnifying glass and the door), the game will point the camera at one of the exits from the area. If you press it again, it will move to the next exit.
You can also move the camera by holding Ctrl or mouse wheel and either moving the mouse, or pressing the movement keys.
I've played a new save to have a look at the lumberjack quest and the church shop, which I have missed before.
The lumberjack quest unlocks a new buff potion, and it seems that this potion can also be sold for money. 5 gold each.
I think this potion itself has some limited use, as an early game replacement of rift potion (for escaping) and time freeze potion (for other actions).
This potion accelerates player action, which is useful for dangerous situations. However it costs HP, so it can also cause problems. I think in early game this can be used to solve some farm dungeons that are otherwise difficult. It won't have much use in late game.
Selling this for money is only viable in mid-game, when you have a steady supply of blood from the scarlet flask, and you still go to tier 1 forest for mandrake.
In early game I don't have much spare sanguine essence for this. In late game I don't often go to tier 1 zones, and tier 2 zones don't provide enough something fey for crafting this. There is also no need for so much money in late game either.
About the church shop, it sells ingredients for something holy, but I don't need much of it either. It is indeed an early-mid game shop, just like the dev log said.
Hey, a quick question. I think it would be relatively easy to add visually impaired/blind support to this game. Is this something you'd be interested in?
You're already doing quite complex sound work, even including spatialization, so most of what would need to be added would simply be more of this. The rest is text and menu accessibility, which would need to be spoken using TTS. You're using Love2D, so you could use the Love2Talk package by Pitermach on GitHub to easily add TTS to the game.
I don't want to overwhelm you with too much info right off the bat, I've just been following your progress on this game on YouTube for a long time now, and I'd really love to be able to play this game myself, and I believe adding blind accessibility shouldn't be a huge task! There is quite a big community of blind gamers out there that would potentially want to play it as well. But if this is something you'd be interested in, please feel free to reach out, I'd really love to help!
I am not actively opposed to this idea, but currently my priorities are elsewhere (I want to complete the core game first). I might return to it after the game is fully complete.
I've played this game again in v2.1. It's so addicting, I've been playing it for 3 days. I've reached 2 years, solved all the areas, and unlocked all the potions except the lumberjack one. It seems I have missed the lumberjack quest, and now I can only buy wood from him.
It seems I have also missed the shop of the lonely church.
As of now I have 3k something dead and 6k fuel, and ~900 money. I wonder whether there will be a late game Richardo shop upgrade, as I have nowhere to spend this money now.
I have encountered a bug. It caused a crash. Reloading the game and repeating the steps caused the game to crash again.
I was exploring the fort area, in depth 2. I was trying to kill the wyrm. My tactic is, first use rot potion, then retreat and wait until it has only 1 hp, then go back and use a fireball.
The wyrm is usually in a special room with only 1 exit. This crash happens when the only exit is blocked by pits. I threw a rot potion from the other side of the pit, and retreated. About 4 turns later the game froze, and I have to kill the process by the taskmanager.
This tactic would work perfectly without the pit. Eventually I killed the wyrm with a different tactic, and moved on. I guess there is some problem with the wyrm's pathfinding logic.
I have some thoughts about the new items and changes:
1. The skeleton key is super powerful. It trivializes the traps in the dungeon, as they can now be lockpicked for no cost.
2. The bestiary is also very powerful. It allows the player to make effective tactics without trial and error of death.
3. The weather system caused something luminiscent to be less abundant, but there's still enough for me. This is mainly because the rains cause the fireflies to hide.
The weather visual effect is a bit too heavy, and it causes some difficulty for me to see the path. But I don't want to turn it off completely, maybe there should be an option to reduce weather visual effect.
4. I can't find a use for the black fire. It deals only 15~20 dmg, and is not enough for the stronger enemies. It is also too expensive for killing weak enemies. I tried it in a forest and it didn't spread well. It also has severe issue of potential backfire.
I think this potion is designed against swarm enemies but there is no such enemies in the game for now.
5. The scarlet flask makes something sanguine quite abundant. It's now a little too abundant, as this component is only used in healing and curing potions.
6. The leatherskin potion seems powerful, but isn't actually that powerful, since not many enemies deal physical damage.
7. The eelskin potion seems to be designed against crimson ivy. It could probably be helpful in later combats like crystal mansion, and it's quite cheap. I didn't use it though, because I could already kill the enemies quickly enough, and I prefer to avoid the damage completely.
8. The salamander boots make burning down forests easier. Instead of finding somewhere safe from fire, I'm now immune to flames.
9. The sparkling gloves are quite powerful, it can kill enemies easily in wet environments, and it's quite powerful in crystal mansion, saving a lot of shockwave potions. I think both of this is by design.
10. The efficient burner seems helpful, it saves a lot of fuel in distilling, and saves a little fuel in brewing.
Strangely, it halves the fuel cost of ember potion, but some of the fuel is supposed to be a part of the potion, instead of used in brewing. Maybe the effcient burner makes fuel in the potion also burn more efficiently?
Some previous problems:
1. The snake problem is solved. The snakes are a lot less aggressive now. The bestiary also explains why they are sometimes aggressive.
2. Umbral essence seems to be not that scarce now. I think the coffee thing is added in this version, and it provides some umbral essence. This allows me to use some frost potions, though it's still not very useful. I think frost potion can solve crimson ivy, but we have eelskin now.
3. The loot overlay now has its own UI component, together with a new creature overlay. Nice job done.
This update has also caused a new problem: Frequent switching of equipments.
In the previous version, I only have 2 equipments, and I use the sinister gloves most of time. There isn't much switching between them. In this version, I have 3 equipments, and I often need to switch between the sinister glove and the sparkling glove.
I think some equipment effects should be merged. As I can switch to the basic gloves at anytime with no time cost, its effect should be merged into all of the more advanced gloves. The same with boots, though verdant boots might have some adverse effects, so making it permanent is not good.
I think this could be solved be adding a new mechanism: Equipment enchantment. When you unlock more advanced equipments, some lower tier equipments can be turned into enchantment. Enchantment can be equipped with other equipments at the same time, but doesn't stack with its original equipment.
Suggestion: When starting a new game, there should be an option to start with the items in the cellar, the inn, and the border of town automatically collected (perhaps at the expense of a bit of time if that really matters, though I doubt it does.)
Collecting them by hand is fun the first time but gets repetitive, and since there's no danger or complexity to it there doesn't seem to be any value in having the player go through it again with every new game.
Perhaps also a "go to travel map" shortcut from the basement or just outside it. It could take a bit of time, but walking the entire path to the stables manually is time-consuming and boring.
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Some side thoughts:
1. I have over 200 books! It's getting tedious to scrap them all, I want a way to bulk scrap them. Maybe make the books stackable?
By the way, I think some inventory sorting function could be useful, so things are in standard order and not change when I use up something and gain more later.
2. With about 100 maps explored, the selection screen is getting cluttered. Now I really want a way to delete old locations.
3. When exploring in the mines, I have an idea: When muffled, the character can use an action to make noise (like knocking the ground), so the centipedes are attracted together while I quietly move to another position, then I can use a single potion to kill a group of them.
4. About Verdant sandals:
This equipment is useless outside of setting forest fires. And even when I'm using it to prepare a forest fire, it's still inconvenient to use.
I think it should inherit the nettle protection from tall boots, as provided by verdant blessing.
If it needs to be buffed, then either give it better utility for preparing the fire, or give it some other utility.
For preparing the fire, it could either be buffed to grow tall grass in a larger range (3x3), or be able to overwrite non-flammable plants like spearmints and foxgloves.
For other utility, it could give hp recovery. Maybe heal 1 hp for every tile of tall grass planted. If that's too much, you can make it heal with a probability.
5. Roses hurt!
Currently rose deal 1 damage when passing through, and no equipment can block this damage. The pathfinder also doesn't try to avoid it. I think this needs to be fixed, either make tall boots block that damage, or make the pathfinder avoid it.
Now I've (almost) completed the game, it's time for me to write a review.
(spoiler warning)
TLDR: Overall, I think the update is great, and still needs polishing. Some balace still need tuning.
1. Centipede and Ghoul droppings are too weak, and don't match their strength.
Centipede drop only gives 1 poison when distilled. For comparison, a toad drops a slime gland, which also gives 1 poison when distilled.
I suggest buff the centipede drop to 2~3 poison.
Ghoul drop gives 0.4 sanguine when distilled. For comparison, a Leech pouch gives 0.5 sanguine when ground in a mortar.
The ghouls are rather frightening, I suggest change them to give sinister instead. Compared to the abundant spider silk (0.25) and fiend powderbox (0.4), and another frightening monster Chimaera (1), I suggest they should give 0.6~1 sinister.
2. Efreet and Centipede show the design intention that I should avoid them, but in practice, they have high speed, and there is often not enough space to sneak by, so I have to kill them. This way I'm no longer outwitting my enemies, instead I'm brute forcing them with my vast potion supplies, and this feels a little wrong.
I suggest add 'dashing' equipments, which can help with sneaking past these enemies. Dashing could work like "the stardust", speed up movement but cost hp every move, and maybe accumulate fatigue so the player can't dash indefinitely.
3. Exploration of T3 fey lake is almost identical to T2 forest, aside from the fairy and the moat.
I hope the forest can have some new threat than the T2 forest, rather than having the riddle be the only difficult part. Maybe some normal creatures like bears? Or some mystical fey creature?
4. Where is the sulfur? So far I have only seen sulfur in a variant of T1 farm, and nowhere else. I hope there are more sulfur later.
5. Flame spire have some rooms with wooden barrels, that start to burn very soon after I enter the map. It's as if they are in chronostasis before I entered the map, which breaks the immersion. I think they should either be burnt at start, or simply not flammable, or be locked well and have no efreet inside.
This save has 2.5 years, and have hoarded a huge amount of items. I have 2k gold, 8k fuel, 1k metal, 12 complete map and 6 unexplored T3 zones. I also have enough materials to make 20 elixir of youth.
Although there is no time contraint, I still try to optimize in-game time usage, and use this to estimate potion costs.
The T3 maps:
Sorting in difficulty, I think it's Spire = Mine = Grave >> Lake. The lake riddle is not taken into account, because the tree trunks give a huge amount of reward without needing to complete the riddle.
I have completed 3 Spires, 5 Mines, 5 Graves, 4 Lakes (but failed all the riddles).
The forest part of spire:
The forest is all burned, and I need to avoid the Efreets. The good part is, the forest is all burned, so the vision is clear, and I don't need to worry about being ambushed around a corner. There is usually enough space to maneuver around them, and I can destroy burned trees to create paths when in need.
It's relatively easy to reach the spire without needing potions. However, the forest have some good materials, and to collect those, I need to kill some Efreets. The rule of thumb is, use a frost potion whenever it could kill 2 Efreets or more.
The magmoss is useful, it's a good source of telluric.
The scorch leaves is less useful, it can be refined into either lawless or volatile, but neither are important.
The smoulderfly is simply not worth gathering. It requires hushing sands to gather, but only gives 1.5 volatile, which is already abundant. I suggest buffing it to 2~3 volatile, and maybe make it take sorting instead of grinding.
Inside the spire:
My biggest problem with it, is the rooms with wooden barrels. They start to burn soon after I enter the floor. When I reach the rooms, I usually see them burn in front of me.
In my opinion, they should either have already burned up before I come to the spire, or be entirely immune to Efreets. Maybe the barrels and chests should be made of metal, or some magical crystal that can be collected for later use.
In the spire, there is usually no longer enough space to sneak around the Efreets. I simply use frost potion to kill all of them. The rule of thumb is, use a frost potion whenever it could kill 2 Efreets or more, and also if a single Efreet is blocking the path.
On average, I use about 20 frost potions each spire.
I also tried using Corpselight potion against Efreets, because the potion description says "freeze all nearby creatures", but it seems to have no effect on them.
Pirate graves:
These are mostly fine imo.
The Ghouls are designed as need to be killed. Each cost 3 fireballs, or 1 black fire + 1 fireball.
The ghoul drops are underwhelming compared to their strength.
On the ground, it's possible to cheese them with crystal potion. I can use a crystal potion on each ghoul and then push them into deep water.
Sometimes, it's possible to crystal a ghoul and put it in a side room. If it has lost track of the player, it will stay dormant and not try to break open the doors. Not having to kill it can save some potions.
The 3 sarcophagus can be solved with the whisper candle, but I always drink a phoenix potion before opening it, just in case.
Mines:
The entrance has renewable sources of glacial water. However, I find it not worth to go there again just for that water.
The mines require having hushing sands active almost all the time. I also use restlessness to make hushing sands last longer, and use food instead of calming infusion to recover health.
The centipedes are deadly. They have 130% speed, and deal 4~6 damage on bite. After the bite, there is also a 50% slowdown, which makes it hard to either continue sneaking or retreat.
There is usually not enough space to sneak around them. With muffled footsteps, they act similar to Efreets, but are somewhat harder to kill.
Sometimes there are very tight corners which blocks most of vision. A centipede can be very deadly in this case.
It's possible to leave some of the centipedes alone, but they usually guard some treasure and valuable ore behind, so I still kill them.
Killing each takes 1 fireball + 1 embers. A single black fire potion can also do the job, and becomes the best option when it can affect 2 or more targets.
The bottom floor has lots of pits. It's possible to use crystal potion + push to kill centipedes. The wyvern is no more difficult than the fort one, so it's just a piece of cake.
When exploring the bottom floor of water variant, I noticed a problem: When I cling to a wall with gecko potion, deep water have no movement penalty, but shallow water still have movement penalty. I think this needs to be fixed.
Fey lake:
The lake can be passed through costing 2~3 floating potions. There's nothing interesting about the lake itself.
The forest is almost identical to the T2 forest. There are no additional threats. There are additional resources, the mandrake and the resources in tree trunks. The fairy dust and strange drinks are all useful materials, and if I fully explore the map, it can give far more than 4 map fragments.
The fairy riddles are very difficult for me. So far I have tried 4 times, and no success. Some riddles are clear enough that I'm confident of the answer, but some are vague, and I need to guess and end up failing. Maybe I need to ask ChatGPT for help?
I'm not asking for a nerf to the riddle difficulty, I just hope there's nothing important locked behind them in
The hotbar is a huge QoL improvement, now I can't live without it. Unfortunately it only has 10 slots, which is not really enough for late game builds.
It partially solved the frequent equipment switching problem, by making the switching easier.
There is a cheese with repeatedly turning lights on and off to trick bats. It already existed in old versions, but the hotbar makes it actually viable.
The ability to unequip potion in also very helpful, especially when combined with the hotbar. It has prevented misclick many times.
New Items (and changed items):
1. Black fire:
This update buffed its damage, and added 2 types of enemies that can be affected by it: Ghouls and Centipedes. Black fires now deal about 1.8x damage of fireballs at 2.4x cost, which makes it a direct upgrade.
While this sounds like less cost-effectiveness, it can make good use of oppertunities when a single potion can affect multiple targets. The spread is still hard to use, but it's good enough without the spread. Overall I think it's well-balanced.
2. Unruly flame:
Its damage is too unstable and unreliable for main dps. I had a try at it, but it can't even reliably one-shot ghouls. At this price, it's not very useful.
3. Rime potion:
It's now in a strange position. Currently it's used only in the spire, but it's unlocked very early, and the spire is a late game T3 map. So there is a very long time, I have unlocked rime potion but have no need for it.
4. Chaos potion:
For the drinking and applying part:
When I want to apply a buff on myself, in most cases, only 1~2 of the buffs are needed. The chances of rolling the needed buff is low. For drinking, it's a little better, because it can give healing, but this usually results in overflow, so it's not useful either.
For the throwing part:
It's possible to use this as a damage potion. While there are many different thrown potions, a good number of them deal damage in some way, so there's a good chance to deal some damage.
However this has some problems. The first problem is the rift potion. You can accidentally exchange your position with the target. So it's only useful when fight a single enemy. Otherwise you may end up in the middle of a group of enemies, or dangerously close to a strong enemy. The second problem is immunities. Some enemies can be immune to some of the potions, reducing the chance of dealing damage.
I've tried using chaos potions to deal with single centipedes in the mines, but the result is far from ideal. It usually takes more than 6 to kill each.
The cost of the potion is not trivial. Overall it's still not useful.
5. Poison gloves:
The passive effect is very useful. It allows curing rot effect, which is useful for the ghouls in graves.
The melee effect is somewhat useful. I can now kill bats in 1 hit, which needs less turning lights on and off.
The poison cloud buff is useless. All major threats in T2 and T3 maps are immune to poison.
6. Restlessness potion:
This potion multiplies player speed by 1.15x. This is not useful for sneaking past Centipedes and Efreets, because the player has no way to tell when the extra turn will occur.
The main use of it, is to pair with hushing sands and gecko potion, so these potions last longer.
The loss of calming infusion is actually not a big problem. Calming infusion often results in healing overflow, so it usually heals less than the theoretical 60 hp. Food from richardo is cheap enough to be a good alternative.
7. Dream catcher: This is rather helpful, as it can generate lots of high tier materials. Holy, Sinister and Semipiternal are all very useful.
8. Phoenix potion: This seems to be a specialized potion for solving the pirate grave. I usually keep a few in inventory, but not use them often.
9. Whispering candle: This item reveals some interesting lores. I have tried listen to them in each type of map. They are mostly useful in pirate graves, to steal the secret from the pirate. In other places it's mostly just cool.
10. Potion of blood transfiguration: This potion is more expensive than fireball, and fireball can do its job nicely.
11. "The Stardust": The Fey lake area gives tons of fey essence (hundreds), so I can brew lots of them to sell. Still have nowhere to spend that much money though.
12. Shadowbane potion: It's throw effect is useful at clearing densely packed shadow clouds. However, it's also ok to just rush through the cloud, it only costs 3 hp.
The drink effect lasts too short to be useful. I think it should be at least 40 turns to be a worthy alternative.
13. Kingsblood: Works as intended, but not useful outside of unlocking their locks.
Kingsblood can be used to fool the living armor of the T2 mansion. However this doesn't work in practice, as 15 turns is not enough to loot the main treasure. I can use 2 potions, but it's no longer cost-effective this way.
14. Floating: Works as intended, but no use outside of the fey lake. Duration is too short for other use cases.
I haven't used either potion of recollection or discord. I think discord could be useful when it's affecting 2 ghouls or centipedes, but haven't tried yet.
Richardo T2 shop adds something useful in late game. The important goods are: Metal sun symbol, ivory dice, ink, black feather. Bloodstone and black quartz can be useful, but I found them not cost-effective.
It's getting tedious to check the shop every in-game day. I hope the T2 shop can have bigger capacity and restock slower.
Loving all the changes, you put a lot of work in and it shows. I'd say hostile creature diversity would be something nice to work on. Having the same couple enemies on every map type gets boring, maybe slightly different variants at least would spice it up. Random/rare encounters like running into a bear in the woods or a pack of wolves would add some nice pucker factor. There's a lack of wildlife diversity for sure. More difficult and varied encounters would be cool. Chimeras for an example only appear in that one abandoned farmhouse subtype, but could really be distributed into later dungeons amongst the other enemies.
Something Boreal is very frustrating to source in significant quantities because you can only get them from glacial water, which is random and usually you don't even get much, or spearmint leaves, which are insanely inefficient. Could you buff the amount of "Something Boreal" you get from spearmint? .30 is painful when potions cost 1.50, not to mention it already uses up 1.00 of something umbral which is very hard to get a lot of until later in the game, and .30 of something ephemeral which is used in a lot of different potions as well.
Thoughts on items: Could you just have the higher tier versions of the gloves/boots stack the previous effects onto the upgrade? It's very tedious having swap gloves and boots back and forth depending on what I'm doing. Also verdant sandles seem to be extremely pointless. I don't think it would be broken if you rolled up the benefits of the basic gloves and sinister gauntlets into the shock gloves, it would be a slight buff, but really more of a QoL thing than anything.
Is there a win condition in the current game? I have all the potion recipes and have been going completionist on the lore fragments. I'd like to know if there's something hidden or if it's just not implemented yet. I think it would be cool to have multiple win conditions with different pathways. Lichdom, going through the veil to another dimension, finding celestial language words to get immortality. Definitely would be good for replay value.
also ` words of power?
>Something Boreal
Maybe. I might add a couple of additional sources. But I think you underestimate the amount of glacial water that becomes available in the late game, which is when you actually need it the most. And if you have no idea what I mean: look at the entrances to mines.
>Could you just have the higher tier versions of the gloves/boots stack the previous effects onto the upgrade?
I saw several people actively considering their equipment during their playthroughs, and I don't want to remove that from the game. Verdant sandals may need a buff, though.
>Is there a win condition in the current game?
No. If you see no active quests (besides Ricardo's friends, which is always active), it means there is nothing else left in the story. All that's left is to explore until you've had enough.
I'm playing on steam. When playing with the whispering candle, I noticed the whispers are missing for the T2 forest.
Oh. Turns out, there is a bug. Thankfully, it's only lore that you're missing, but still.
I will fix that by the next release.
I'm playing the new version (paid on steam) and started a new save.
It seems there is a change in the book loottable, which makes it harder to deliver potions to the travelling merchant in time. I also accumulated ~12 academic knowledge in mid-game, before being able to use them in the new techs.
The new t3 maps are really difficult. I have already died twice in the flame spire, mostly because I went there too early. Luckily I picked the infinite life option. I think they will become easier when I get used to them, but will still cost a lot of potions to explore.
I encountered Raemus heir. In the conversation, he forcefully took 5 piece of gold from me. (he asked for 15 but I only had 5 at that time)
I wonder whether this is a scam, or is there some more story behind him?
5 pieces of gold is not a big deal, but I'm angry that someone can rob money from me and then show up as if it's completely justified. If this is really a scam, then I want him DEAD.
I wonder whether we can get some form of curse in the later stages of the game, to deal with this, or hire assassins to do this. Richardo is already doing those shady things (the 4 potions are probably used for them), and our alchemist should be able to afford such a cost in mid game.
>It seems there is a change in the book loottable
Yes, some books are replaced with map fragments, but it's around 1/10 in the early areas, so it shouldn't change much. The rest is just randomness (or the areas you choose to explore, since the selection varies between areas).
>I encountered Raemus heir.
Yes, you got scammed. He's a reminder not to trust random strangers (and you could avoid this result).
But you aren't the first one to get angry at him, so maybe I'll add some way to get back at him. Not assassins, though.
No offense but goddamn it took you long enough to get this update released.
I'm very excited to play this as soon as I have free time.
It's my bad and I admit it.
How is the development going? The release date on steam is close, will it be postponed again?
I think so. I got back on track, though, so it will hopefully be the last time.
Recently came back to this game, and it’s still as amazing as I remembered!
There were a few things that I wanted to note / ask from my playthroughs:
I also have a couple of suggestions for the game, though obviously you shouldn’t feel compelled to add them. I’m mostly just throwing around ideas I had while playing:
All in all, keep up the great work, and I look forward to the upcoming Steam release! Don’t feel pressured to rush on the update, your health & personal life is more important than getting an update out sooner.
Hello, thank you for your input!
>I feel like clairvoyance potions should counteract the vision-reducing effects of fog.
That is a cool idea. It fits the flavour. I will probably make it that way.
>Why can’t I get “Something toxic” from fiend’s powderbox mushrooms? Given their effects in-game, I would think they would be a potent source of it.
They used to give that, but I changed it to something sinister at one point for more usefulness, as something toxic is abundant anyway. Now that I think of it, though, I can just make both options available.
>Some way to “unequip” potions from the throw action would be nice.
I never considered that it would be useful, but implementing it won't take long, so I will.
>I think it would be useful if there were some way to remove locations from the list once you no longer intend to visit them.
I will need to think of such a feature.
>I feel like all the mid-game research is all bunched up on the third row of the tech tree, and it would be better (both for readability and progression) if the third row were split into 2 rows, resulting in 2 rows for early-game research, 2 for mid-game, and 2 for late-game.
What is currently a late game won't be for very long, and specifics of the research tree, too, will be subject to change.
>I think it would be interesting if there was some way to “transmute” one alchemical ingredient into another
Something like alchemical gold is a possibility, but I don't have any specific thoughts yet.
Oh no, steam release is postponed again...
Yes, sorry about that. There are reasons I can't fully concentrate on development lately.
I stil have 0.1
I have a few small suggestions that I hope can give this game more appeal to people trying it out and give it the recognition it deserves:
The introduction is a bit redundant when you are asked to give your soul to the devil. Many people would normally not agree to this and the game forces them back to the title screen and redo all the tutorial crafting and prison escape again. Its not a ton of time lost but can be pretty frustrating especially for a new player who is deciding if they want to play any further.
I suggest having the narrator come in after the second time you refuse and say something like "After realizing that there is no exit, the alchemist reluctantly agrees." and move the story forward instead of ending the game and wasting the player's time.
Another idea would be to put in an option in the title menu to skip the intro section altogether and start directly after the prison escape. Choices for extra lives could be selected in this menu. This would be perfect for players who want to just go directly into the real game.
There is an option to skip the tutorial that appears after you meet with Ricardo.
As for replaying the introduction, there is a purpose, but I might make individual parts skippable.
Really like the game so far
Feels like the upgrade for the boots/gloves should be cheaper, the upgrade seems to be the kinda thing you'd smack out in like...the first three areas. But consistently I have 5-7 areas available to explore and only 1-3 max common-knowledge (I forget its actual name), so I'm running around getting hurt by nettles/snakes when that feels like something I should be able to solve in the first five minutes. Knocking the cost to 3 shouldn't be a huge deal should it?
Everyone is going to have different experience in terms of which and how much knowledge they find at any given point. You seem to be getting unlucky.
The cost of the research is proportional to its benefits. It would not make sense to have it lower.
Hello, dear creator of this game and everyone else here.
There is a unofficial subreddit for this game called r/Alchemist_rougelike.
There currently are no rules and if you have any suggestions just message me on reddit.In the moment I am writing this comment I am the only moderator.
If the creator of this game wants the subreddit to be removed just message me.
My only issue with it is that the correct spelling is "roguelike", not "rougelike". Would be great if you fixed that. I'm fine with the idea otherwise and won't mind posting some updates there.
Thanks for correcting me, English is my third language with the other 2 being Romanian and Russian.
Hello!
I just wanted to leave my feedback after playing for a couple of hours, but first, a preamble.
In videogames I have two favourite things - necromancy and alchemy. I'm also of the opinion that both of these elements of fantasy are horrifically underutilized. Both, of course, because the elements that I like most about them would often necessitate the creation of a game built entirely around them and not merely have them be classes in something larger... Which brings us to Alchemist, a game built entirely around alchemy.
I think you've knocked it out of the park, all in all. I love the elegance of the system you've presented here. Just enough moving parts to make you feel like your little alchemist is brewing and distilling without drowning players in the nitty-gritty details (Said by one who adores such details in, say, Cataclysm DDA). Additionally I adore the idea that this is a game in which you are intelligent, not strong, and appreciate your stance on preparation and observation being the keys to making it in this game. The lack of armour +1 and flametongue swords that enable me to just run in and eviscerate every last viper in the forest is a lovely and grounding choice. It makes me pay more attention to the world and brilliantly sells the fact that you are just an alchemist. I adore it, and think that what you do have here is brilliant and, again, elegant. The focus on the fact that you are an alchemist and not the generic roguelike hero is refreshing and exciting alike. I read earlier that you want to keep permanent upgrades relegated to tools, which I would also like to gush about, but this is long enough already.
The music in the main menu was excellent for setting the mood, and I do quite enjoy the writer and listener's back and forth while discussing the story. It's personable and well written all in all, though I did want to go through at some point and collect any typos I've found if that would be something you'd consider valuable.
The weather having an effect on the world, the lighting, the graphics easily and readily conveying all of the important information, the intriguing story... I've nothing but praise and excitement for this game and really very much just wanted to offer my encouragement. I'm most assuredly and certainly an ardent and enthusiastic fan, and look forward to buying it the second I see it pop up on Steam. (Stalked your reddit posts a bit, noticed it was a priority for you.)
Thank you very much, means a lot.
Question: Is there any time pressure, aside from the travelling merchant and cyclical things like fireflies and shop restocks? Any other quests or events that can just expire if I take too long hanging out in early zones?
Currently, there isn't.
Thanks for the answer! I think the travelling merchant is a good kind of way to handle time pressure, you want to move fast enough to get the bonus, but it's not run-ending if you don't.
Just wanted to say I saw this game and picked it up, and I'm really enjoying it so far! I'm hoping as I get past the earlygame and into mid/lategame that I can learn cool new ways to use alchemy to improve the player character. If that's not a thing, consider that a suggestion! Also, it would be nice if one could leave notes for locations and mark them as cleared so they don't clutter up the list.
If you press "F" in the examination mode (or click the icon with the magnifying glass and the door), the game will point the camera at one of the exits from the area. If you press it again, it will move to the next exit.
You can also move the camera by holding Ctrl or mouse wheel and either moving the mouse, or pressing the movement keys.
I've played a new save to have a look at the lumberjack quest and the church shop, which I have missed before.
The lumberjack quest unlocks a new buff potion, and it seems that this potion can also be sold for money. 5 gold each.
I think this potion itself has some limited use, as an early game replacement of rift potion (for escaping) and time freeze potion (for other actions).
This potion accelerates player action, which is useful for dangerous situations. However it costs HP, so it can also cause problems. I think in early game this can be used to solve some farm dungeons that are otherwise difficult. It won't have much use in late game.
Selling this for money is only viable in mid-game, when you have a steady supply of blood from the scarlet flask, and you still go to tier 1 forest for mandrake.
In early game I don't have much spare sanguine essence for this. In late game I don't often go to tier 1 zones, and tier 2 zones don't provide enough something fey for crafting this. There is also no need for so much money in late game either.
About the church shop, it sells ingredients for something holy, but I don't need much of it either. It is indeed an early-mid game shop, just like the dev log said.
Hey, a quick question. I think it would be relatively easy to add visually impaired/blind support to this game. Is this something you'd be interested in?
You're already doing quite complex sound work, even including spatialization, so most of what would need to be added would simply be more of this. The rest is text and menu accessibility, which would need to be spoken using TTS. You're using Love2D, so you could use the Love2Talk package by Pitermach on GitHub to easily add TTS to the game.
I don't want to overwhelm you with too much info right off the bat, I've just been following your progress on this game on YouTube for a long time now, and I'd really love to be able to play this game myself, and I believe adding blind accessibility shouldn't be a huge task! There is quite a big community of blind gamers out there that would potentially want to play it as well. But if this is something you'd be interested in, please feel free to reach out, I'd really love to help!
I am not actively opposed to this idea, but currently my priorities are elsewhere (I want to complete the core game first). I might return to it after the game is fully complete.
I've played this game again in v2.1. It's so addicting, I've been playing it for 3 days. I've reached 2 years, solved all the areas, and unlocked all the potions except the lumberjack one. It seems I have missed the lumberjack quest, and now I can only buy wood from him.
It seems I have also missed the shop of the lonely church.
As of now I have 3k something dead and 6k fuel, and ~900 money. I wonder whether there will be a late game Richardo shop upgrade, as I have nowhere to spend this money now.
I have encountered a bug. It caused a crash. Reloading the game and repeating the steps caused the game to crash again.
I was exploring the fort area, in depth 2. I was trying to kill the wyrm. My tactic is, first use rot potion, then retreat and wait until it has only 1 hp, then go back and use a fireball.
The wyrm is usually in a special room with only 1 exit. This crash happens when the only exit is blocked by pits. I threw a rot potion from the other side of the pit, and retreated. About 4 turns later the game froze, and I have to kill the process by the taskmanager.
This tactic would work perfectly without the pit. Eventually I killed the wyrm with a different tactic, and moved on. I guess there is some problem with the wyrm's pathfinding logic.
I have some thoughts about the new items and changes:
1. The skeleton key is super powerful. It trivializes the traps in the dungeon, as they can now be lockpicked for no cost.
2. The bestiary is also very powerful. It allows the player to make effective tactics without trial and error of death.
3. The weather system caused something luminiscent to be less abundant, but there's still enough for me. This is mainly because the rains cause the fireflies to hide.
The weather visual effect is a bit too heavy, and it causes some difficulty for me to see the path. But I don't want to turn it off completely, maybe there should be an option to reduce weather visual effect.
4. I can't find a use for the black fire. It deals only 15~20 dmg, and is not enough for the stronger enemies. It is also too expensive for killing weak enemies. I tried it in a forest and it didn't spread well. It also has severe issue of potential backfire.
I think this potion is designed against swarm enemies but there is no such enemies in the game for now.
5. The scarlet flask makes something sanguine quite abundant. It's now a little too abundant, as this component is only used in healing and curing potions.
6. The leatherskin potion seems powerful, but isn't actually that powerful, since not many enemies deal physical damage.
7. The eelskin potion seems to be designed against crimson ivy. It could probably be helpful in later combats like crystal mansion, and it's quite cheap. I didn't use it though, because I could already kill the enemies quickly enough, and I prefer to avoid the damage completely.
8. The salamander boots make burning down forests easier. Instead of finding somewhere safe from fire, I'm now immune to flames.
9. The sparkling gloves are quite powerful, it can kill enemies easily in wet environments, and it's quite powerful in crystal mansion, saving a lot of shockwave potions. I think both of this is by design.
10. The efficient burner seems helpful, it saves a lot of fuel in distilling, and saves a little fuel in brewing.
Strangely, it halves the fuel cost of ember potion, but some of the fuel is supposed to be a part of the potion, instead of used in brewing. Maybe the effcient burner makes fuel in the potion also burn more efficiently?
Some previous problems:
1. The snake problem is solved. The snakes are a lot less aggressive now. The bestiary also explains why they are sometimes aggressive.
2. Umbral essence seems to be not that scarce now. I think the coffee thing is added in this version, and it provides some umbral essence. This allows me to use some frost potions, though it's still not very useful. I think frost potion can solve crimson ivy, but we have eelskin now.
3. The loot overlay now has its own UI component, together with a new creature overlay. Nice job done.
This update has also caused a new problem: Frequent switching of equipments.
In the previous version, I only have 2 equipments, and I use the sinister gloves most of time. There isn't much switching between them. In this version, I have 3 equipments, and I often need to switch between the sinister glove and the sparkling glove.
I think some equipment effects should be merged. As I can switch to the basic gloves at anytime with no time cost, its effect should be merged into all of the more advanced gloves. The same with boots, though verdant boots might have some adverse effects, so making it permanent is not good.
I think this could be solved be adding a new mechanism: Equipment enchantment. When you unlock more advanced equipments, some lower tier equipments can be turned into enchantment. Enchantment can be equipped with other equipments at the same time, but doesn't stack with its original equipment.
Thank you for such a detailed feedback. And for catching that bug especially.
Suggestion: When starting a new game, there should be an option to start with the items in the cellar, the inn, and the border of town automatically collected (perhaps at the expense of a bit of time if that really matters, though I doubt it does.)
Collecting them by hand is fun the first time but gets repetitive, and since there's no danger or complexity to it there doesn't seem to be any value in having the player go through it again with every new game.
Perhaps also a "go to travel map" shortcut from the basement or just outside it. It could take a bit of time, but walking the entire path to the stables manually is time-consuming and boring.
It's complicated. I see the issue, but I don't like the suggestion. I will have to think.