I really like these types of games and everything is great once you get over the old school graphics of the flash era

This game gave me a very 90s feel, I love it!

I really loved that you put in the volume slider, it always annoys me when games have really loud sounds that you can't adjust so kudos to you!

Some parts of the game were unintuitive - it took me a while to figure out how to get sodium to feed the alien. Perhaps something could be put in visually to help the player know which things are supposed to be mixed together where.

Also, since the game goes on forever, it would be nice to have a score at the end to know how well I did. For games like these with no clear ending, it's always a good idea to let the player know how well they did otherwise it feels quite repetitive for nothing.

Overall, I thought it was well made and the art style was a nice throwback for me. Great work :)

Great job, I got totally owned on my first play through. But was able to last a bit on second go after I figured it out. I agree with quichi about adding score. But it is great as is! It reminded me of the type of games I would find online during computer class in highschool.

Nice retro graphics :smile:

Congratulations on the entry :thumbsup_tone1:
:purple_heart: :dart: :frog:

Interesting idea. I liked the graphics, however I did not fully understand the gameplay. For example having some components which I could not interact with immediately. Otherwise nice entry!

Oh wow! At the beginning I had no idea what those things were (the small little tanks where different items are) and I wasn't understanding what the scale was and why wasn't I being able to interact with it but then a bit of trial and error was more than enough to figure it out, and I kinda enjoyed that "aha" moment.

So on second try, I did pretty good :smirk:

Added a more comprehensive instructional image, since there's a lot to take in when you're first dropped into the game! (thanks for the feedback @quichi and @sndr)
It explains what the dispensers look like and how to feed resources to the alien. Hopefully it's helpful =)
And thanks to everyone who's played and left feedback.

Dude, nice game,but its a bit hard to understand and first

I really liked your game :)
I think after reading the instrucions it is not that hard to understand. The only thing that may be a little bit tricky are the mixing recipes, since the color codings are not completely obvious. I also think that the game is balanced pretty on point. It leaves enough room in the first level to explore and find the dispensers, but keeps you busy on later stages.
Unfortunately the mixer kept bugging out which did not let me finish the fifth level. On my first playthrough it gave me fire after inserting only iron. However after that it would not accept anything at all. On My second playthrough the same kept happening, but I always inserted sulfur, before taking out the fire. Though, at one point I forgot that and took the only-iron-fire. I somehow managed to make the mixer work again, but at that point I had lost so much time that I could not keep up with the demand on mixed materials. Nonetheless, I like how you need to plan a bit ahead on the last stages :)
All in all great work :)

@stmatn Thanks for the detailed feedback! Working with the mixer is definitely tricky, and if I had more time, I would have liked to add a way to remove components from it (when testing myself I kept putting the wrong things in and being forced to mix them for a recipe I didn't need ;)).

As far as your bug with the iron, that was probably just visual. There's an issue on both the mixer and the burner where once you create fire, the particles for it turn back on even when other recipes are inserted. Sorry about that! One of those small, nagging issues I just didn't get to in time. Glad you enjoyed the game overall though, and once again, thank you for the detailed feedback!

Interesting idea. I like the added complexity of the mixing even if it didnt click while I was playing it.
Having a visual indication of what each tub is would have also assisted in understanding faster. I like the LD submission page information but a list of resources by icon would have helped a lot.

Nice idea

@mickm The original idea was to have custom art for each resource dispenser (a pile of slugs for the meat, a platter of sulfur, etc), but I ran out of time in the end and had to settle for just changing the color of the initial placeholder art I'd added at the beginning of the game. So it goes with game jams XD
Thanks for playing, and for the feedback!

@jason-woerner Fully understand! :) Risk with colours is people with colour perception issues - even a different backing texture might help. I like the concept though, might have another go to delve in to the mixing a bit!

Pretty impressive level of gameplay for a game jam, that's an great effort. Only major criticisms would be the lack of music and that the gameplay feels like it might be a little fast too soon.
I quite like the art, and the concept is cool - definitely not something that I would have thought of. I enjoyed what I assume was a little nod to our current pandemic situation as well. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I like the gameplay, though as other people have mentioned the graphics could use a bit of touching up. Great job finishing a game, and congrats on your first Ludum Dare!

Resource management is well done. The crafting is pretty clever, I could imagine a version with a full matrix of different elements. Excellent Job!

good gaame, nice work
i love haw the alien see in each fase relly good

Nice idea! Remined me of Overcooked lol Nice game, maybe the camera could be a bit further apart from the character and a bit of delay. Well done! :D

@camilo-quintero Thanks for the feedback! I did toy with different distances when first creating it, but I decided against a more distant camera just to keep everything large enough to read. I'd certainly like to improve on that game, and I think adding a camera zoom feature (maybe with mouse wheel) is a great idea.

Cool game! It felt kind of punishing that you had to go to the recycling bin if you picked up the wrong thing. Just throw it on the ground dude, humanity is at stake! I also kind of had trouble keeping the materials straight. Maybe some more color coding would help?

coool

The name of the game is really nice ehe :)

The concept is neat, and it's a good use of the theme, but I really had a hard time remembering what was what - I can think of two things which would have really improved this for me: first, it would help to build in time for the player to learn the associations, perhaps via a smaller training level with fewer things going on. Second, having something really concrete that links the words to the machines would be so helpful - something like a little symbol displayed both as a need and at the dispenser. This was especially a problem when the mixer came into play - I didn't realize salt wasn't dispensed at first, then I didn't know how to make it and had to quickly look at the description, and then I put the wrong ingredients in and lost which felt somewhat unfair. I think there's a good idea here, and there were definitely some nice elements of polish (like the words that tell you why an action failed), but I think more needs to be done to assist the player.

This was a great game! The instructions and artwork was well done. Really enjoyed the constant action. Felt like there was no time to rest. Reminds me a little of Overcooked. The only downside was if you lost you have to redo the previous levels. I got to the last level a couple times, but could not get over the final hurdle.
It looks like this was your fist LD, but you entry really gives off the vibe of a much more experienced participant. Really great job!

@meelo All really great points, and things I'd like to address if I spend more time on this. I especially did not like forcing people to remember which dispenser was what; those were supposed to be placeholder art, but the mechanics ended up taking longer than expected and I am not a great artist, so I ran out of time without creating more intuitive dispensers. C'est la vie. I'll try to scope more lightly for the next one... or improve my art skills/speed ;) Thank you for the detailed feedback, I appreciate it!

@aplite Oh man - adding in a way to save your level or just pick a level from the start menu was on my initial feature list, but I ran down the clock just trying to get everything finished and working in time that I never managed to add them =( Will definitely have to add something like that in for a future version. Glad you enjoyed playing, and thank you for the compliments and the feedback!

I actually really like the concept, sort of a potion shop type of a deal. I think the lab was a little too big, and it was really confusing to keep track of what barrel contained what when most of it was off-screen (especially at first!). A ramping system where only relevant barrels exist at the beginning would have been nice, and a smaller lab. There's a lot going on, lots of instructions, and a "hidden tutorial" in this way would have helped a ton! I think the character avatar could have been nixed altogether and replaced by a mouse drag-and-drop system just to simplify things a bit further as well.

But those are just my thoughts as I was playing. Like I said, I like the concept, especially the idea of mixing different things to get a final product that the alien needs. That was super cool. Nice work!

it took me a few deaths to figure out the key combinations and once i quite enjoyed making up work flows to keep things mixing while feeding. if this was to be expanded with more combinations and more ingredients then i would really want a way to drop and store items rather than trashing them as this would make testing combinations a bit more methodical. a really well implemented game, and AAAAAAAAAA to you to!

@fizzget Oooh, so I take it that means you beat it? Thanks for playing all the way through :D After doing so many of these playthroughs myself, I know it's rare to spend that much time on any one game, so I'm glad you enjoyed it enough to get through all that. I tested that it was beatable, but it could definitely use some balance tweaks. I'd love to add more crafting recipes, as well as some level variability. I'm tempted to revisit this idea, but with better underlying code and some more simplistic pixel art, since my stuff, as noted above, looks like it came out a 90s high school computer class ;)

Thanks again for the feedback, I appreciate it!

I enjoyed the gameplay, as well as the nice graphics and instructions. This game offers a lot of fun with good mood! Really nice job! :)

To be honest I cannot understand what should I do. Maybe some environment elements should be added to give the player clues? As far as I see there is crafting gameplay element but the short timer prevents me enjoying it. Maybe instead usual timer it worth to give the player unlimited time and punish him when he uses "wrong" recipes? Anyway I like an atmosphere and controls. Keep going! :thumbsup_tone1:

Nice work. I had a hard time remembering where was what, and what could be mixed together. Also, I never managed to get salt :(

This is a great first entry, well done!

A lot of what I would have said has already been covered by others, but a few things that I didn't see anywhere else... I think some sort of "Press Space to Interact" prompt the first time you walk within interacting distance of one of the ingredients would really help. I don't think a full tutorial is necessary, since figuring out what to do is part of the fun.

Also, I kept wondering what was going on with the bin -- is it supposed to sparkle?

@pennycook Oh man... so that sparkle in the bin is a leftover particle system I forgot to remove from the player, and the bin happens to have a particle mask on it, so you can only see those particles when near the bin. So... yeah, that interaction is not supposed to be happening, but there you have it :D The bin actually glows green inside in the Unity editor version (hence the particle mask), but for some reason that never worked properly in the exported versions; I'll have to debug that later. Good catch, btw - those particles are pretty subtle ;)

I finally got around to playing your game and I was totally amazed. I love these kinds of mechanics.

If you added the mechanic of swapping items (If you hold raw meet on the cooker while it has already cooked meat on it, it starts cooking and gives you the cooked meat)
Added a few more recipes to the mixer/some more cookable items
Or added a new device to the cooker and mixer

This would be a cool fun game to play in a no internet situation.
Definitely keeping on my PC!

@crumblybread Oh, swapping items would have been good! The things you miss when you rush production... ;) I'll definitely add that in when I iterate on this. Thanks for the suggestion and the feedback!

This was an interesting game concept, Aliens and chemistry. It was a little hard at first to understand what wouldn't hurt the Alien since the boxes weren't labeled, but once I got the hang of what was each it went by much better. Great Job.

Cool game, I liked it! Keep it up! :D

A fun game with interesting gameplay! The aesthetics of the game also looked great.

Pretty fun and not too difficult. Well done!

I think the mixer was a bit buggy. I was able to make salt and fire at first, but then after a few levels it looked empty but wouldn't let me put anything on it. Other than that, it was pretty fun. The graphics were nice and concept was cool. Nice job! :D

Lots to understand, you're very much dropped right into it. A bit of preparation time at the start wouldn't have hurt.

Wow, very fun. It was a little slow getting started, but very enjoyable and reasonably challenging once the complexity increased. The controls were surprisingly smooth for a game made in such short time and the graphics weren't amazing, but definitely suited the proposes well. My only real complain is that the entire game restarts when you die, I would have liked to see the end, but when I couldn't figure out how to make fire in time, it wasn't worth it to replay all the levels. Also the aspect ratio was a little weird, so I couldn't see the whole game in full-screen. Really impressive work though, definitely worth taking the game further.

Somebody wrote it already: 90s feeling. I got this as well. I cant remember though which game popped up in my head. A nice, funny game you made there! Well done!

I love that aliens don't die, they expire! Actually kind of addicting. Salt killed me, I though I made Natrium cloride, but I guess I failed since I couldn't give it to the alien. Names on the different dispensers would've been nice! Good work!

Good Job. :thumbsup: