Ex Arcanum

I think you have a great working prototype with a solid idea. I liked the animations, especially the hair movement and the cauldron sprite looks really cool. I think the story outshines the gameplay at the moment, but I think you can make a great game out of this idea. 

I saw your posts about wanting to add obstacles, which is exactly what I was thinking about while walking back and forth in the large open area behind the counter. I like your rat idea, perhaps they could eat some of your ingredients! 

For even more spin off of that idea, perhaps you could save up money to get a cat that will help you fight off the rats, but might break the potion vials? I also think that the door to the south could become some kind of shop restocking area with its own minigame. I think you have so many options open and I'm excited to see what you implement in the future.

I wished there was a bit more of an ending if you fail. I only tested failing on the first quota so maybe there's more if you fail on other days. I also really liked how the customers slide backwards to the exit when they get impatient xD

Great job! <3

This is really good fun so far. I want to keep playing to find out whats going on with the shadowy guys and see where it goes.

The gameplay loop is quite fun and you can always add more obstacles and tasks as you go.

I like the scarcity of items making you be careful what you pick up and drop.

Maybe a water scarceness would work where when the barrel is empty you have to go press a water pump to fill it back up?

The only other suggestion I might have if you wanted something else you needed to keep in mind is maybe having multiple customers in sometime and having a countdown for how long until you serve them like you do with them waiting for the potion? Only vague ideas but I like what you have!

The graphics are cute and overall you did really well in the time limit especially as it includes a story and some cut scenes too.

A solid foundation for a game with a nice narrative.

So I'm gonna be pretty blunt here. I got totally bored by day 2. My brain was switching off as I ran through the motions of making the potion for the customer but with no variety at all from start to finish it was a bit of a slog to get through it.

The mysterious cult member showing up throughout the game and the final piece of the story at the end was what kept me going because I was interested in seeing what happened.

The character art was nice I liked the design and the pixel art. I especially liked the hooded cult member with the shadowy face. The environment was very basic and flat however. The item sprites and UI were solid though and the shop screen looked great.

The music was simple enough but I liked the music/tone change whenever the cult member showed up. Sometimes it kinda turned dark too and sometimes it didn't, not sure why but it was a nice touch.

Overall the game had me wanting more. You mentioned in the closing statement that you plan to keep developing the game and put it on steam. I'll be really interested to see that, I really like the base mechanics of the potion crafting and shop mechanics I'm excited to see how that develops and what the game turns into, especially with the lingering story beat.

Overall a quite fun little game. The gameplay loop got repetetive about half way through and I felt it was too easy, but the idea of a Papa's type of game with potions is great, and with polish and simply more stuff the game could be really fun. Btw you should look into using assets with consistant pixel sizes, as that would probably make the game look better very easily.

Also for a jam game the story is basically shakespeare, and I saw the light.