Floralchemists by Sarah

[raw]
made by Sarah for Ludum Dare 58 (JAM)

Welcome to Potions 101!

Buy ingredients and bottles and combine them (drag on top of each other) to make Potions!
Unlock new ingredients with MP, and get new MP buy discovering new Potions!

I can confirm, all potions and ingredients are UNLOCKABLE!

Potions

  • Some ingredients combine with other ingredients
  • some ingredients combine with bottles to make base potions
  • Some potions can be combined with other potions to make more powerful potions!

Screenshot_Small1.png

Can you fill the Collection Cache in?

There are a lot of [?] Hidden items to DISCOVER and unlock!

This game was inspired by Little Alchemy! I really wanted to make something small since I've been feeling sick for many weeks. I struggled a bit to get things finished over the weekend but I think I pulled it together pretty well!

Screenshot_Small0.png

What did I do that was new?

I've always wanted to record myself to make SFX to put in game, HOWEVER I always ran out of time and finally this time I was able to get some SFX in!
The merchant eats everything you sell, and the resulting sound is ME haha.

I also wanted to draw all the art, sprites AND UI myself and I did! It was a fun challenge, and I did it all in paint.net and use a pixelate filter. I wanted to spend as little time on art as possible, so I did a single first pass for each sprite and then did touch ups on the few things that needed it. Overall I'm really happy with how it turned out.

Screenshot<em>2.png
Screenshot</em>1.png

Game Design and Code: Me!
Art: Me!
Audio:
Incompetech [BG Music]
SFX [from another game of mine]
Merchant SFX [Me] [omnomnomnom]

Screenshot_Small2.png

Thanks for playing!

Ratings

Overall 397th 3.5⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Fun 390th 3.325⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 328th 3.35⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Theme 242th 3.9⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 303th 3.85⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Humor 147th 3.658⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Mood 177th 3.9⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Given 13🗳️ 17🗨️

Feedback

Dianavi
Oct 07th · 11:01 UTC
I really like it, it’s a great concept! It’s super addictive. If you develop the game a bit further, maybe you could add a bit more polish.
gamebuilder
Oct 09th · 01:31 UTC
A remarkable game. I haven't played Little Alchemy before, or anything like it, but I was able to make some discoveries. The most valuable, I think, was the Level 2 Attack Potion.

The discoveries I made were mostly trial-and-error, however. It would be good to have more clues about what should be combined with what. For example, what roles do moonlight and star dust play? I couldn't figure those out. Also, it would be nice to have access to all the ingredients and bottles without having to use a scroll bar, though I know this is easier said than done. Overall, it's quite an achievement for one person. I hope you're feeling better.
GuardianMAD
Oct 09th · 01:34 UTC
this concept can keep me going non stop, im already getting all the level 2 potion and ill keep going into i get everything!! Really really love the mechanic of combining, collecting and trying to get all the potion. Only feedback from me its that its a bit hard to remeber the recipes i already used so i keep trying again to get an old one thinking its the right recipe.
Adam Gallina
Oct 09th · 01:37 UTC
Really nice aesthetics! All the sprites looked great, and were very cohesive. Gameplay-wise the merging was a little daunting, with a lot of ingredients requiring you to by them, it made it a little harder to warrant purchasing them to experiment. I did realize the merchant would buy the free ingredients for $1, which helped. The other issue I ran into was not being able to find any combinations besides the initial ingredients/potion shape, some hints would've been nice to try and figure out what would combine. Overall it was still fun, and the animations added a really good level of polish, and felt nice to discover new potions, nice job!
debugman18
Oct 09th · 01:41 UTC
Really cute concept, it's fun finding the different combinations.
seel
Oct 09th · 01:55 UTC
I'm a sucker for these types of games, I can get so easily lost in the endless merging of ingredients trying to figure things out. I do agree with @adam-gallina, some hints would've been nice as I got stuck for a bit after I accomplished the basic elements. Though my enjoyment of these types of games helped prevent me from being dissuaded and I eventually figured it out! Well done! :smile:
Steven Garberg
Oct 09th · 02:01 UTC
Such a cute game! It really does remind me of the various alchemy games I've played throughout the years. Great execution!
b0guslaw
Oct 09th · 04:20 UTC
Very nice idea, and well executed art style. While this isn't necessarily my favourite genre, I still had a lot of fun playing, which goes to show good execution can come a long way.
YibiRabbit007
Oct 09th · 05:25 UTC
A bit strange! I can provide midnight, the sun, and the stars endlessly.
I unlocked many icons this way, and then tried to combine them.
Well done!
🎤 Sarah
Oct 09th · 18:02 UTC
Thanks for trying it everyone!

@dianavi I am realllly debating doing a post jam version to fully flesh out ALL the combination ideas I had. I unfortunately had to cut a lot out because I just ran out of physical time to put them into the code haha

@gamebuilder I would have loved to access everything without a scroll bar but there are just so many things haha. And I ran out of time to add more toggle options (I had it started though). For the combos, every item has a 'Stat' that shows when you hold it or unlock it and that is mostly how you're supposed to figure it out.

The star/sun/moon items were my test items and I was going to take them out but then I decided to leave them in so that the player could sell them to make $1 or just combine them for free/fun etc. Basically they're just for making money if you run out. I had plans for them to be used to make some high level 'Space Potions' but I simply ran out of time haha!

@guardianmad I agree, it is hard to remember the recipes. I had hoped to add the recipe info into the Collection Cache window, when you clicked on an item it would show. But I didn't have enough time sadly.

@adam-gallina I struggled on the decision of whether to have ingredients available, unlockable by MP or just hidden until further progress etc. But because it was 'free' to get [$] and [MP], I figured that the cost of experimenting mostly came down to time and clicks (: I also really wanted the merchant to give more hints!! I meant to add more hints to the list of messages but it completely slipped my mind until after the jam ended.

@debugman18 @steven-garberg @b0guslaw Thanks for playing! I'm glad it landed (:

@seel Great job figuring it out! I also really love games like this so I forgot how tedious it can truly be sometimes to find new combos haha and since I know all the recipes without looking, it becomes hard to tell how hard it is for everyone else (:

@yibirabbit007 That is intentional! You can make as much money as you want, it's just limited by how many times you want to click and sell (:

Thanks for the feedback everyone, it's great to read! Now that I'm feeling a bit less sick I was able to go back and verify that it IS indeed possible to 100% the game. I noticed a few small issues with the potion colours and the progress bar on the book, but otherwise it seems to work! <3
LeReveur
Oct 21st · 20:56 UTC
I unlocked everything! Well, except if there's hidden ones of course - I'm not sure because of the progress bar on the book, but there still no interrogation mark in the book. Good job!
DGo
Oct 23rd · 02:39 UTC
Ooo this kind of game is addicting, it was a lot of fun, and I appreciate all the polish you've put in like the Help screen. Great job!
UMC049
Oct 23rd · 05:36 UTC
A very cool and cute game! Brewing potions to sell and then buying and unlocking more materials—this gameplay loop is quite complete. However, the game's economic system is relatively friendly, and it's easy to end up with more money than you know what to do with. I think it might be a good idea if MP could be purchased with money, or if some magical collectibles and magical pets could be added for decoration.
Sharky3188
Oct 23rd · 07:05 UTC
Cute little game, very nice getting the potion combinations going. I did sometimes feel a little lost after having a few elements on screen and nothing felt like it was clicking. I wasn't sure where i was going wrong. Overall i probably just needed to experiment a bit more.
Ciphereo
Oct 23rd · 11:15 UTC
Lovely game, the graphics are very cute, and the potion combinations are very interesting.
atmospherium
Oct 23rd · 15:16 UTC
This is about as on-target for theme as I've seen this jam. Nice, clear gameplay with excellent vibes for this type of game. Things felt intuitive enough to be able to jump in and experiment without needing much direction. I didn't get the whole log-book filled out, but I was able to find some interesting combinations along the way.