I'm afraid not. Even though you can choose the name, you really are playing as an established character in a story. That part will probably become more obvious with the next update, as I will include more story there.
Moreover, there is a problem of effort, as the game already contains a ton of dialogue, and planned to have even more. Writing that to account for many posibilities is going to complicate things a lot, or unnecessarily neuter the writing.
That makes sense! It was just a little jarring to name my character after myself and then get called “he” straight away, so I wanted to check. I’m looking forward to seeing more of the story you have planned!
Is there anything (or multiple things) planned that use large amounts of one or two specific resources? I do have to do something with 100+ of something dead. Something luminescent + something dead = blinding powder, maybe?
There might be a use that I just haven't encountered, though, since I didn't get hugely far before dying to a mushroom while attempting to hunt witches. I should've gone back home to make more rust dust to carry on through an abandoned fortress.
It might also be interesting to see potions applied in different ways, like as traps.
For now, the main use for something dead is in antidote recipe, but it is, in fact, overabundant. The economy will definitely be changing as I add new recipes.
- Potions, as traps or with creative uses (Possessed weapons vs rust dust? Poison potions as herbicide? A potion as a repellant that makes snakes wander away from you?)
- *Some* gardening aspect. I do need some permanent source of pine sap without having to burn down new herb groves. Perhaps Ricardo allows you to get some potted herbs for your cellar, which regrow periodically?
- An unlockable material stash in your workshop. Once unlocked, you get the ability to leave, say, 10% of any (or all of) your materials there. If you die after leaving that 10%, it appears in a chest in the cellar.
- Golems/elementals! I saw this mentioned by someone else lower down. Unconventional materials on golems would be fun (After all, why not? Why shouldn't I make a golem out of something sticky?). I know I wouldn't be too big on party mechanics though.
Perhaps an easy mode for those who love the style and idea but are looking for a bit more chill playstyle?
It would be a huge win for accessibility, I have a condition where concentration is something I have on a good day. I would love to play this on good and bad days.
Really enjoying this game, but think it would be less frustrating if there was an option to lighten the consequences of death a bit. I keep exhaustively clearing out the missions one by one, but then one bad encounter makes me lose the dozens or hundreds of stockpiled ingredients. So far my record is managing to die near the end of the third mission.
It would be super nice to be able to make consistant/permanent saves when I'm back at the basement between missions, so I only have to repeat the most recent one if I die. Or, if permadeath is important, maybe adding some roguelite new-game-plus features -- like starting with an amount of each raw ingredient based on 10% of your highest previous total. It could be leftovers salvaged from your previous shop.
I will probably not do exactly that, but I am planning to give the player multiple "lives" instead (Devil saving you and transporting you to the lonely tree), which is likely to help this issue.
So far the only way I can survive is through getting some distance and throwing fire potions, so once creatures get too close to me I'm ruined unless I can lose them. I gained access to shock/stun potions once via plot progression, but was saving them for the quest. I haven't managed to unlock anything on the technology tree aside from torches and fire potions. I suspect armor or access to more tools would help, but I keep not getting that far.
It is nice that massive forest fires produce plentiful resources for more fire potions.
I think I should mention here for anyone curious that I've figured out the way to circumvent the issue mentioned below (with help from B R U H moment), and the next release will have a troubleshooting option for that case.
I have the exact same bug as goaty14. I have it both with the windows and .love version. Specifically, it seems like the screen itself freezes but I can still interact with the menu? or move? after I select the horse. I'm not sure what actually happens, but I know if I hit buttons (z and movement keys) until the music changes, then quit the game and reload, the game loads properly in a new area. I haven't figured out yet how to properly choose what area I want to go to yet as I still don't actually know what happens when I use the horse. I really like the concept of this game but this is a pretty difficult bug.
That's very unusual. Thank you very much for this description, I will try to reproduce and fix that.
By the way, it would be very helpful if you gave me a screenshot of what it looks like during the issue. Ideally, if you could record the whole process, that would be super useful.
I'm also interested to know what happens if you close the map (esc or X)
Also, does this only happen with the horse, or when you enter the map by road (from areas that are away from the town) too?
File is too big to post and I didn't feel like uploading to YouTube so I left you a screenshot.
"Does this only happen with the horse, or when you enter the map by road (from areas that are away from the town) too?"
-Yes, also when I go to map from other areas.
"I'm also interested to know what happens if you close the map"
-The game continues to run as it should, except the screen stays frozen. I can still move around though and I hear the audio from my footsteps.
Funnily enough, since writing this, the game properly loaded the map once. It was on a new save and the only noticeable difference was that I rushed to the stables to take a screenshot, and so 1. the file is very new 2. I don't have anything in my inventory except the contract 3. This was on Love, but as I said I have tested on Love before and it didn't work so this is an isolated case.
On the same save, I have not since seen the map, after trying both from a new area and the horses again. It has frozen every time after that (at least for a minute or so before I gave up). This was super useful for me though since now I know what the map looks like and how to navigate it. I will keep playing your game, I'm having a blast.
More information: The first time it happened I waited over 30 minutes so it's not just a load time thing Here's the screenshot
That's so, so weird. Thank you for explaining. Seems like some kind of engine problem that I'm not aware of. I'll keep looking into it and let you know if I find the solution.
Oh, if you don't mind, please tell me your GPU model, that might give me some clues.
And, I know it sounds like a very generic answer, but are your hardware drivers up to date?
I'm on a Dell e7440 laptop with Intel Integrated HD 4400 GPU and my drivers are up to date. The game only seems to ever take up about 30-40% of my GPU.
Also thanks for being so responsive! It's good to see your committed to this. I'm happy you're still working on it because I really love the gameplay. You differentiate from classic roguelikes in that the focus is entirely on alchemy (which I love) but the core feeling of game knowledge and preparedness being your best assets is still there. Keep up the great work!
Sadly, I haven't found anything conclusive. Seems that it really is a hardware compatibility issue. I will add some troubleshooting options to the next release that would allow disabling individual graphical features, and, hopefully, disabling coloring shader for the map will solve the issue.
Also (irrelevant for the issue itself but might be useful) can't help but notice that you seem to be using Windows display scaling. You might want to disable it for the game (in compatibility settings), and readjust the tile size in options (64 is the original size), this way they will look less blurry.
By the way, I just had a thought. If you're willing to experiment some more, would you mind contacting me via email? spellsweaver@gmail.com
I haven't encountered this bug before. If you could give some information on what happened beforehand, it could be useful. Does it happen every time?
It's also possible that you should wait a little. The game should be rendering the map when you first load it, so if your system is low-end, it might take some time.
Happens every time, but I'll try giving it time to load in. My computer isn't higher-end yeah (8 gb/~2.3ish GHz?), so I'll leave it an hour and see how it goes.
It's not that bad, and it would probably take something much worse for the game to actually lag enough that it would freeze for even a minute at this point. It's not that demanding, normally it doesn't take enough time to even notice. Are you saying that it happens even if you start the new game? If so, then I really can only assume some kind of hardware incompatibility, but that is strange.
If you don't mind, could you give me your GPU model? Maybe I'll be able to find something out.
I was planning to release certain pieces of UI as a standalone package, since it's been requested so much. But that isn't going to happen soon, as in their current state they are meant for a pretty narrow set of use cases.
so i came to ruins went down and there is one small room only but i can hear the sounds from behind the walls. is this a bug or i 'll get a pickaxe later?
i really need key reassigning, cause jumping between Z and E is uncomfortable.
There are probably illusory walls somewhere in the room. Try equipping a torch and walking near them.
You can destroy walls with fireball/shockwave potions and it can make your way easier but this shouldn't ever be necessary to reach the end of the dungeon.
We are planning to add keys remapping later on in development, thanks for confirming that it's needed. Also it might be more convenient for you to scroll through actions with mouse wheel, if you're using a mouse, or through 'A' menu.
Fantastic game, loved the ideas on it and eagerly awaiting for more content. One criticism I would point though is that gathering large quantities of ingredients became tedious a little later into the game, my suggestion would be to make common ingredients 4x rarer but yield 4x more, that would also increase the dopamine hit of finding them.
I feel like it could really use some things to streamline gathering- some things I thought of:
A "gather all" button that grabs everything within reach
Making the s/highlight function a toggleable mode that you don't have to re-enable every time you want to look at things
Some kind of upgrade that extends your reach early on, just because while I understand the reasoning for it only being one tile, it sure is annoying to need to be that exact with your positioning
A checklist of ingredients you can add to.
More readily available fuel, because I don't know if I'm missing something maybe but I'm like constantly out and my only way of getting more involves venturing ever further into snake territory. Just a small renewable source would make things so much less frustrating.
>Making the s/highlight function a toggleable mode that you don't have to re-enable every time you want to look at things
There already is an option for this in game. Aside from that, I will consider those suggestions. As for easy sources of fuel, you could try burning the forest for charocoal or fell the trees with shockwave.
snakes should avoid slithering towards you, not necessarily run away, but they shouldn't willingly walk into range of you (and then proceed to attack you in "self defense")
or if they do slither towards you, you should be able to stay still to avoid them biting you...
It makes sense but that would probably make the snakes way too easy to avoid. Which is already a pretty trivial task. Consider this case as though the snake was trying to intimidate the intruder and when that failed, attacked.
I will be adding a lot of new things as time goes on (which will quite possibly include what you mentioned) but for now my targets are mostly about setting up the core gameplay loop.
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amazing game but....
snakes they are everywhere!
Snake problem is something I'm working on. Latest devlog mentions some changes I'll be making to them.
its nice to see a game dev do someting with the comments/comunity.
This seems really interesting! I’m looking forward to digging into it a little deeper.
Are there any plans to allow you to customize your character’s gender – or better yet, specify preferred pronouns/nouns (woman/man/person, etc.)?
I'm afraid not. Even though you can choose the name, you really are playing as an established character in a story. That part will probably become more obvious with the next update, as I will include more story there.
Moreover, there is a problem of effort, as the game already contains a ton of dialogue, and planned to have even more. Writing that to account for many posibilities is going to complicate things a lot, or unnecessarily neuter the writing.
That makes sense! It was just a little jarring to name my character after myself and then get called “he” straight away, so I wanted to check. I’m looking forward to seeing more of the story you have planned!
I understand your problem.
I'll think of a better way to convey the question. Probably rephrase it as "What's his name?" or something similar.
Is there anything (or multiple things) planned that use large amounts of one or two specific resources? I do have to do something with 100+ of something dead. Something luminescent + something dead = blinding powder, maybe?
There might be a use that I just haven't encountered, though, since I didn't get hugely far before dying to a mushroom while attempting to hunt witches. I should've gone back home to make more rust dust to carry on through an abandoned fortress.
It might also be interesting to see potions applied in different ways, like as traps.
For now, the main use for something dead is in antidote recipe, but it is, in fact, overabundant. The economy will definitely be changing as I add new recipes.
So far things I'd be interested in seeing:
- Potions, as traps or with creative uses (Possessed weapons vs rust dust? Poison potions as herbicide? A potion as a repellant that makes snakes wander away from you?)
- *Some* gardening aspect. I do need some permanent source of pine sap without having to burn down new herb groves. Perhaps Ricardo allows you to get some potted herbs for your cellar, which regrow periodically?
- An unlockable material stash in your workshop. Once unlocked, you get the ability to leave, say, 10% of any (or all of) your materials there. If you die after leaving that 10%, it appears in a chest in the cellar.
- Golems/elementals! I saw this mentioned by someone else lower down. Unconventional materials on golems would be fun (After all, why not? Why shouldn't I make a golem out of something sticky?). I know I wouldn't be too big on party mechanics though.
>Possessed weapons vs rust dust?
There are animated armours that are specifically weak to this potion.
>*Some* gardening aspect.
That's possible, but not very likely, as I expect the player to go explore anyway.
>An unlockable material stash in your workshop
Probably won't happen, I have certain plans for the story that won't fit with this mechanic. But I do plan the "lives" mechanic instead.
>Golems/elementals!
In all likelyhood, there will be one golem, since I, too, don't enjoy large parties very much. But I haven't yet decided on the details.
Perhaps an easy mode for those who love the style and idea but are looking for a bit more chill playstyle?
It would be a huge win for accessibility, I have a condition where concentration is something I have on a good day. I would love to play this on good and bad days.
I am planning to add optional extra lives in the next update.
Next update! :) That is awesome thanks
Really enjoying this game, but think it would be less frustrating if there was an option to lighten the consequences of death a bit. I keep exhaustively clearing out the missions one by one, but then one bad encounter makes me lose the dozens or hundreds of stockpiled ingredients. So far my record is managing to die near the end of the third mission.
It would be super nice to be able to make consistant/permanent saves when I'm back at the basement between missions, so I only have to repeat the most recent one if I die. Or, if permadeath is important, maybe adding some roguelite new-game-plus features -- like starting with an amount of each raw ingredient based on 10% of your highest previous total. It could be leftovers salvaged from your previous shop.
I will probably not do exactly that, but I am planning to give the player multiple "lives" instead (Devil saving you and transporting you to the lonely tree), which is likely to help this issue.
That would probably help! I'll give it a rest for a while and come try again when I remember next. Really neat game in general by the way
By the way, if there were some specific things that gave you trouble, feel free to tell.
I am interested in how people perceive the game's difficulty.
So far the only way I can survive is through getting some distance and throwing fire potions, so once creatures get too close to me I'm ruined unless I can lose them. I gained access to shock/stun potions once via plot progression, but was saving them for the quest. I haven't managed to unlock anything on the technology tree aside from torches and fire potions. I suspect armor or access to more tools would help, but I keep not getting that far.
It is nice that massive forest fires produce plentiful resources for more fire potions.
this game look so good, but i cant seem to be able to open it?
What is your OS and what did you do?
Fantastic! Looking forward to more development.
I think I should mention here for anyone curious that I've figured out the way to circumvent the issue mentioned below (with help from B R U H moment), and the next release will have a troubleshooting option for that case.
I have the exact same bug as goaty14. I have it both with the windows and .love version. Specifically, it seems like the screen itself freezes but I can still interact with the menu? or move? after I select the horse. I'm not sure what actually happens, but I know if I hit buttons (z and movement keys) until the music changes, then quit the game and reload, the game loads properly in a new area. I haven't figured out yet how to properly choose what area I want to go to yet as I still don't actually know what happens when I use the horse. I really like the concept of this game but this is a pretty difficult bug.
That's very unusual. Thank you very much for this description, I will try to reproduce and fix that.
By the way, it would be very helpful if you gave me a screenshot of what it looks like during the issue. Ideally, if you could record the whole process, that would be super useful.
I'm also interested to know what happens if you close the map (esc or X)
Also, does this only happen with the horse, or when you enter the map by road (from areas that are away from the town) too?
File is too big to post and I didn't feel like uploading to YouTube so I left you a screenshot.
"Does this only happen with the horse, or when you enter the map by road (from areas that are away from the town) too?"
-Yes, also when I go to map from other areas.
"I'm also interested to know what happens if you close the map"
-The game continues to run as it should, except the screen stays frozen. I can still move around though and I hear the audio from my footsteps.
Funnily enough, since writing this, the game properly loaded the map once. It was on a new save and the only noticeable difference was that I rushed to the stables to take a screenshot, and so
1. the file is very new
2. I don't have anything in my inventory except the contract 3. This was on Love, but as I said I have tested on Love before and it didn't work so this is an isolated case.
On the same save, I have not since seen the map, after trying both from a new area and the horses again. It has frozen every time after that (at least for a minute or so before I gave up).
This was super useful for me though since now I know what the map looks like and how to navigate it. I will keep playing your game, I'm having a blast.
More information:
The first time it happened I waited over 30 minutes so it's not just a load time thing
Here's the screenshot
That's so, so weird. Thank you for explaining. Seems like some kind of engine problem that I'm not aware of. I'll keep looking into it and let you know if I find the solution.
Oh, if you don't mind, please tell me your GPU model, that might give me some clues.
And, I know it sounds like a very generic answer, but are your hardware drivers up to date?
I'm on a Dell e7440 laptop with Intel Integrated HD 4400 GPU and my drivers are up to date. The game only seems to ever take up about 30-40% of my GPU.
Also thanks for being so responsive! It's good to see your committed to this. I'm happy you're still working on it because I really love the gameplay. You differentiate from classic roguelikes in that the focus is entirely on alchemy (which I love) but the core feeling of game knowledge and preparedness being your best assets is still there. Keep up the great work!
Sadly, I haven't found anything conclusive. Seems that it really is a hardware compatibility issue. I will add some troubleshooting options to the next release that would allow disabling individual graphical features, and, hopefully, disabling coloring shader for the map will solve the issue.
Also (irrelevant for the issue itself but might be useful) can't help but notice that you seem to be using Windows display scaling. You might want to disable it for the game (in compatibility settings), and readjust the tile size in options (64 is the original size), this way they will look less blurry.
By the way, I just had a thought. If you're willing to experiment some more, would you mind contacting me via email? spellsweaver@gmail.com
Hey, I have a bug where the game freezes/blackscreens whenever I click on a horse in the stables. Is this something new, or is there a fix for it?
I haven't encountered this bug before. If you could give some information on what happened beforehand, it could be useful. Does it happen every time?
It's also possible that you should wait a little. The game should be rendering the map when you first load it, so if your system is low-end, it might take some time.
Happens every time, but I'll try giving it time to load in. My computer isn't higher-end yeah (8 gb/~2.3ish GHz?), so I'll leave it an hour and see how it goes.
It's not that bad, and it would probably take something much worse for the game to actually lag enough that it would freeze for even a minute at this point. It's not that demanding, normally it doesn't take enough time to even notice. Are you saying that it happens even if you start the new game? If so, then I really can only assume some kind of hardware incompatibility, but that is strange.
If you don't mind, could you give me your GPU model? Maybe I'll be able to find something out.
Stencil is the answer to your question.
https://love2d.org/wiki/love.graphics.stencil
I was planning to release certain pieces of UI as a standalone package, since it's been requested so much. But that isn't going to happen soon, as in their current state they are meant for a pretty narrow set of use cases.
This game is top-notch, lad! It's beautiful, challenging, and FUN! Thank you for your work!
But it seems works with the last LÖVE version, 11.3, sorry.
Ubuntu 18.04.5 LTS
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 blob driver 460.80
LOVE 0.9.1 (Baby Inspector)
Alchemist 0.0.3b (.love package)
$ love Alchemist.love
Error: functions/tryCompilingShader.lua:1: attempt to call field 'getSupported' (a nil value)
stack traceback:
functions/tryCompilingShader.lua:1: in main chunk
[C]: in function 'require'
shaders/gradientOutlineShader.lua:1: in main chunk
[C]: in function 'require'
functions/colorIcon.lua:1: in main chunk
[C]: in function 'require'
models/interface/images.lua:1: in main chunk
[C]: in function 'require'
models/player/playerActions.lua:1: in main chunk
[C]: in function 'require'
models/player.lua:3: in main chunk
[C]: in function 'require'
models/world.lua:1: in main chunk
[C]: in function 'require'
main.lua:4: in main chunk
[C]: in function 'require'
[string "boot.lua"]:360: in function <[string "boot.lua"]:241>
[C]: in function 'xpcall'
The version of love you're using is incompatible with the project. 0.9 is way too old.
so i came to ruins went down and there is one small room only but i can hear the sounds from behind the walls. is this a bug or i 'll get a pickaxe later?
i really need key reassigning, cause jumping between Z and E is uncomfortable.
There are probably illusory walls somewhere in the room. Try equipping a torch and walking near them.
You can destroy walls with fireball/shockwave potions and it can make your way easier but this shouldn't ever be necessary to reach the end of the dungeon.
We are planning to add keys remapping later on in development, thanks for confirming that it's needed. Also it might be more convenient for you to scroll through actions with mouse wheel, if you're using a mouse, or through 'A' menu.
yeah. accidentally scrolled my mouse and found out about this. xD
Fantastic game, loved the ideas on it and eagerly awaiting for more content. One criticism I would point though is that gathering large quantities of ingredients became tedious a little later into the game, my suggestion would be to make common ingredients 4x rarer but yield 4x more, that would also increase the dopamine hit of finding them.
Thanks. The game economy is likely to change but it's already moving in the direction of more condensed item sources.
I feel like it could really use some things to streamline gathering- some things I thought of:
A "gather all" button that grabs everything within reach
Making the s/highlight function a toggleable mode that you don't have to re-enable every time you want to look at things
Some kind of upgrade that extends your reach early on, just because while I understand the reasoning for it only being one tile, it sure is annoying to need to be that exact with your positioning
A checklist of ingredients you can add to.
More readily available fuel, because I don't know if I'm missing something maybe but I'm like constantly out and my only way of getting more involves venturing ever further into snake territory. Just a small renewable source would make things so much less frustrating.
>Making the s/highlight function a toggleable mode that you don't have to re-enable every time you want to look at things
There already is an option for this in game. Aside from that, I will consider those suggestions. As for easy sources of fuel, you could try burning the forest for charocoal or fell the trees with shockwave.
Thanks for the tips!
the toggle breaks on alttab
Alt is an alternative key for loot highlight as many games use this. So alt-tab causes it to switch as well.
snakes should avoid slithering towards you, not necessarily run away, but they shouldn't willingly walk into range of you (and then proceed to attack you in "self defense")
or if they do slither towards you, you should be able to stay still to avoid them biting you...
It makes sense but that would probably make the snakes way too easy to avoid. Which is already a pretty trivial task. Consider this case as though the snake was trying to intimidate the intruder and when that failed, attacked.
Would you add things like the ability to create homunculus, chimera or even golems in future update?
I will be adding a lot of new things as time goes on (which will quite possibly include what you mentioned) but for now my targets are mostly about setting up the core gameplay loop.
I'm finaly trying it ! I would have liked to do it sooner but I'm working a lot + school.
Looks good, UI is a little strange to use, however it has a lot of potential. Exited to see where it goes!
love the idea and interactions, im looking forward how it goes!