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
Starting off, you are genius with the cat idea. I was thinking similarly with the rats but then wasn't sure how to make that more engaging (and not so annoying to deal with long term). I want to flesh the shop out and make more items that give buffs/help the player (I thought of a backpack for starters that increases the inventory to 3 slots so you can grab flasks ahead of time for example).
The doorway in the bottom right was actually supposed to lead to the room of the cutscene after day 1! My original plan was to have the player wake up there at the beginning of the day and my original vision was having a cutscene later in the week where the player wakes up during the night and brews some potions in preparation for an attack or something. This got cut because of time of course so unfortunately it looks awkward. I do want to redesign the brewery possibly and make it better (maybe you can buy ingredients at a merchant or something?)
Rest of the issues came down to time sadly. I had more planned but then realized I wouldn't finish in time, so they are now added to the roadmap to Steam launch!
Also, customers aren't supposed to slide when they get impatient, but I may keep that if I think it's funny enough LOL.
Once again I appreciate the great ideas and kind words!
I'm glad you liked my suggestions and if you ever want to brainstorm I'd love to contribute! My favorite part of game dev is the idea phase and art! :P I also encountered time issues when it game to animations and improving on gameplay concepts but I think you have a great start. I like the backpack idea, especially early on. I think it also makes sense that an alchemist would be able to make some buffs for themselves.
I can imagine the customers throwing their arms up out of frustration and essentially T-posing their way out of the shop. 😂 Feel free to DM me on Discord at any time if you want a playtest or anything! <3
I might have to take you up on that offer haha! Also, I did also have an idea of making a keybind to consume a potion you created to help boost the player while brewing stuff for customers (such as support giving a speed boost). I also plan to make more than just 3 potions that can be brewed so I can rename and possibly make buffs they give for like say, 30 seconds?
I am thankful for your offer to help test things out though. I hope we can keep in touch! I plan to make a demo page and keep this as the legacy build so you can keep up with the Steam roadmap updates!
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.
I like these ideas to flesh out the scarcity aspect. I wasn't sure about adding scarcity to the flasks or water initially as I didn't want to make too many things/overwhelm the player with mechanics and make it a game on micromanaging. I will, however, see how these fit in with stuff and experiment!
I think multiple customers in the building could build on that (maybe I can use the other customers and make them request a flask or request some ingredients and they trade you an item for example?)
I think right now I just need to experiment and see what feels fun so I can make the game as quality as I know it can be. Plus I want to flesh out the cutscenes!
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.
Thanks for the feedback! A lot of stuff shared I 100% agree with you on! As I plan a road map I will specifically make these points for steam release.
If I’m being honest. It really came down to time. I finished the jam and did kinda wish I had an extra day or two to develop parts of the game. I actually didn’t finish the item shop until the final day which made adding more depth to gameplay rough. It got to the point where I wanted to make sure everything worked at the very minimum and then do more. I was thinking of adding rodents or some form of obstacle while serving customers as to be make some extra stakes for the customers leaving. Because if this, I realized there is also literally no stakes to lose. The mechanics feel like fake threats right now. It was a great experience and your feedback has been super valuable!
I didn't expect lore from creepy bat men making threats.
Fun little game well done. I also screwed up a potion and then forgot I could drop things and I just stared at my customer with the wrong thing in my hand.
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.
You're definitely right about the repetitive part. Had extra features planned to diversify that sadly got cut due to time. Also, for pixel size that was my fault. Everything used the same pixel sizes when created I just messed up scaling from either making some things too small or laziness (For example with the dialogue ui). I plan to fix a lot of this stuff as I plan out a steam release. I am probably remaking the art almost completely where needed actually. Thanks for the feedback!
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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
Thank you so much for the feedback!
Starting off, you are genius with the cat idea. I was thinking similarly with the rats but then wasn't sure how to make that more engaging (and not so annoying to deal with long term). I want to flesh the shop out and make more items that give buffs/help the player (I thought of a backpack for starters that increases the inventory to 3 slots so you can grab flasks ahead of time for example).
The doorway in the bottom right was actually supposed to lead to the room of the cutscene after day 1! My original plan was to have the player wake up there at the beginning of the day and my original vision was having a cutscene later in the week where the player wakes up during the night and brews some potions in preparation for an attack or something. This got cut because of time of course so unfortunately it looks awkward. I do want to redesign the brewery possibly and make it better (maybe you can buy ingredients at a merchant or something?)
Rest of the issues came down to time sadly. I had more planned but then realized I wouldn't finish in time, so they are now added to the roadmap to Steam launch!
Also, customers aren't supposed to slide when they get impatient, but I may keep that if I think it's funny enough LOL.
Once again I appreciate the great ideas and kind words!
I'm glad you liked my suggestions and if you ever want to brainstorm I'd love to contribute! My favorite part of game dev is the idea phase and art! :P I also encountered time issues when it game to animations and improving on gameplay concepts but I think you have a great start. I like the backpack idea, especially early on. I think it also makes sense that an alchemist would be able to make some buffs for themselves.
I can imagine the customers throwing their arms up out of frustration and essentially T-posing their way out of the shop. 😂 Feel free to DM me on Discord at any time if you want a playtest or anything! <3
I might have to take you up on that offer haha! Also, I did also have an idea of making a keybind to consume a potion you created to help boost the player while brewing stuff for customers (such as support giving a speed boost). I also plan to make more than just 3 potions that can be brewed so I can rename and possibly make buffs they give for like say, 30 seconds?
I am thankful for your offer to help test things out though. I hope we can keep in touch! I plan to make a demo page and keep this as the legacy build so you can keep up with the Steam roadmap updates!
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.
Thanks for leaving some feedback!
I like these ideas to flesh out the scarcity aspect. I wasn't sure about adding scarcity to the flasks or water initially as I didn't want to make too many things/overwhelm the player with mechanics and make it a game on micromanaging. I will, however, see how these fit in with stuff and experiment!
I think multiple customers in the building could build on that (maybe I can use the other customers and make them request a flask or request some ingredients and they trade you an item for example?)
I think right now I just need to experiment and see what feels fun so I can make the game as quality as I know it can be. Plus I want to flesh out the cutscenes!
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.
Thanks for the feedback! A lot of stuff shared I 100% agree with you on! As I plan a road map I will specifically make these points for steam release.
If I’m being honest. It really came down to time. I finished the jam and did kinda wish I had an extra day or two to develop parts of the game. I actually didn’t finish the item shop until the final day which made adding more depth to gameplay rough. It got to the point where I wanted to make sure everything worked at the very minimum and then do more. I was thinking of adding rodents or some form of obstacle while serving customers as to be make some extra stakes for the customers leaving. Because if this, I realized there is also literally no stakes to lose. The mechanics feel like fake threats right now. It was a great experience and your feedback has been super valuable!
My computer crashed when I played this lol.
(doubt that's the game's fault tho)
I didn't expect lore from creepy bat men making threats.
Fun little game well done. I also screwed up a potion and then forgot I could drop things and I just stared at my customer with the wrong thing in my hand.
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.
You're definitely right about the repetitive part. Had extra features planned to diversify that sadly got cut due to time. Also, for pixel size that was my fault. Everything used the same pixel sizes when created I just messed up scaling from either making some things too small or laziness (For example with the dialogue ui). I plan to fix a lot of this stuff as I plan out a steam release. I am probably remaking the art almost completely where needed actually. Thanks for the feedback!
I saw the light :D. fun game