The Basis of All Creations by alaah

Can you summon the beast?
Controls
- Mouse
- Keyboard (for numeric fields)
Acknowledgements
The motif is adapted from the chorus of Summoning 101.
Software: Godot, Blender, Aseprite, PixelOver, GIMP, REAPER.
The itch.io page provides a gradual walkthrough only in case you're stuck.
Ratings
| Overall | 72th | 3.857⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 161th | 3.452⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 53th | 3.952⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 21th | 4.357⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 15th | 4.4⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 31th | 4.025⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 174th | 2.833⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 2th | 4.548⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 14🗳️ | 25🗨️ |

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeDfSOmftCQ
The posterized graphics is a nice look, and fit the moody theme of the game.

Not as good as bagelseeker though 🙄
That said, *ugggggh* at the recipe requirements. I figured out a few basics like the Slime, Cubosaurus, Mist, and Spider, but why oh why does the game demand so many Wolf Fangs when they're so hard to come by? I'm lucky to squeeze out two or three with an investment of *hundreds* of ml of Arterial Blood into a Cubosaurus, and the endgame requires *well over a hundred?* Screw that! ^_^;
Is there something I'm missing? The return on Void Essence to Wolf Fangs seems better, but the only way I can figure out to get Void Essence is summoning Slimes, and those require Silver Hair which is in limited supply.
Side note: gripes aside, I will still take your straightforward "put numbers in, get numbers out" approach to summoning to the kinds of confusing, unexplained logic puzzles I've seen put forward as "summoning mechanics" in other entries this Ludum Dare. The only thing I really take issue with is the fact that hotspots are not highlighted - I had to click around randomly a bit to find the mixing bowl, and I didn't find the scissors at all until I broke down and read the walkthrough.
I had to use hints for some of the recipes and I still don't understand the one for the ghost.
I also accidentally spoiled myself some of the creature names from the debug traces.
Now I wonder what happens when you use a whole human at the end...
The strong filter made the otherwise limited 3D very characterful. Likewise, the muted and sparse sense of the music, and the stiff presentation. All these things came together to create 5* mood.
I enjoyed allowing creatures to live and seeing them (all on top of one another, admittedly) abide under the window. A good small feature.
Technical issues: The music cut out after a while (half an hour?) and I couldn't exit fullscreen. Running the .exe on Windows 10.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2131744728