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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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.