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MOTAS (Magnum Opus: The Alchemist's Shadow)'s itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Theme | #233 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Cleverness | #269 | 4.333 | 4.333 |
| Artistic Style | #386 | 4.333 | 4.333 |
| Playability | #713 | 3.667 | 3.667 |
Ranked from 3 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Judge feedback
Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.
- the skill curve is high but once you get the rhythm of this its fun, and the theme is done well, art is simplistic but good, overall this would be a mobile game i would play on the bus
- This game was really fun. Some of the UI elements really need to change though. I didn't understand how the combat worked at first. But after some trial and error, I figured it out. Sometimes I felt like the potion crafting was glitched, but couldn't be for certain. Moreover, the blue poison damage should be a lighter green to stand out. I didn't understand what that was there for. See this one through to the end.
- The music being different for each battle was a nice touch. I also found the artistic approach to your game to be done quite well. While this is the case, I also found it quite challenging grasping how the card system fully operated. There were a few times that I was able to craft something, but for the most part during my time playing, I struggled to comprehend what I was doing. I wouldn't say that what you put together here was done poorly, I just found it a bit hard to make sense of the way to do things. Again, not to say the game needs to hold the player's hand, but I do wish it didn't feel like a lot of things to take in all at once to comprehend the way the cards operate (if that makes sense). Overall, I do also believe you did a decent job incorporating the themes; it felt creative because you used a card system that does different things when you try stuff out--I at least understood that concept. All the same, do keep up the hard work.
Did you include your Game Design Document as a Google Drive link?
Yes
Seriously... did you include your Game Design Document?
Yes
Is your game set to Public so we can see it?
Yes
Tell us about your game!
Build your deck progressively from prima material into tinctures (and stones TBA) to win battles and solve puzzles as you travel through your master’s dungeons and tower. You are a Master alchemists assistant, a homunculus crafted from the bones of a small rodent and shadow alchemy. However, something has gone terribly wrong, and the tower has fallen into disarray. Set things aright with guidance from another homoculus trapped in a flask, battling other homoculi, rival alchemists, and gain esoteric knowledge of your craft through sigils along the way.
Extra Notes
the bird is hard 😈
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Comments
We seem to have resolved the error- had an or statement for resolving poison, separated into 2 diff statements, fixed
Will push this after the Jam
Same problem....
thanks for playing!
your enemy must have obtained a philosophers stone:P I'm trying to pin down this error, do you know if you used a potion or sigil with death/ the damage effect on the last turn? I'm trying to figure out what exact conditions trigger the error stateHopefully we can upload a fix after voting ends Wednesday
Unfortunately I can't really tell what the condition was... Also, the game was not 100% clear without a tutorial, but maybe (from what I can tell from my other interactions with other game devs, usually, it may be a problem in script with a specific timing). Maybe you put in a script a specific "cooldown" timer every time a player uses a card, but when the player is using the cards too fast, it may crash the timer... I am not sure how your script work and I am no expert, so unfortunately it is on you to figure it out. :P
But the game is working over-all so I really liked it.
Cool game, nice art, theming, music and atmosphere, managed to beat the game by just constantly throwing everything into the pot, feels like the mechanics could use some work but has extremely good potential with the mixing mechanic, an interesting take on the slay the spire mechanics
Thanks for playing! Yep, we're considering this an alpha/pre alpha. More materia colors, more sigils, and better enemy ai will be coming!
Wow the pixel art and character design for this game is off the charts amazing. The mixing system is super interesting too.
Although I got super confused at first because even after reading the instructions in the game and on the game page I still couldn't figure out what the hell I was supposed to do. I just did random mixtures until I realised there was a sigil specifically for bottling the potion to use it and you had to combine the elements first THEN bottle it to use.
I really like the combination system but I don't get why bottling it has to be integrated like that, I feel like it should just be separate and take from a limited number of bottles per round or something. Having it as a sigil SUPER confused me.
Regardless once I figured it out the game became super easy haha. Just pump everything into death as much as possible and heal as much as you can if you need to. Chuck some poison on there round 1 if you can too to make it a little easier. I'd be very keen to see where this went given more complex battles and combinations.
As I said at the top the pixel art is fantastic I love everything from the menus / UI / characters / environments. It's all fantastic and the character designs are so cool!
The music is pretty intense too, when the "HEEEEEEYAAAAAAAH" kicked in I was like "okay okay I see where we're going with these vibes" very cool stuff.
I'd be keen to revisit the game in the future if you plan to do any updates after the jam. The system and art are really cool but once you figure out how the crafting works it kinda loses all strategy and you can just dumb-brain attack/heal as needed.
Still I had a ton of fun with the game and managed to beat all the fights no problem. Give me more!
Thanks so much for playing! We have big plans eventually there will be 4 colors of prima materia to match the 4 stages of alchemy, we have 20+ sigils with proposed effects and names identified we need to code into the game. Stones will be permanent potions, and enemy ai right now is extremely basic. A tutorial is also going to be necessary! We plan on participating in the improve my game jam, and will probably push a large update for that. The bottling feedback is also on our to do list, I was hoping eventual bottle could be an effect of potions or stones (like an extra buy in the game dominion) but we need to move it to the apparatus for now so the game is more intuitive.
Extra extra notes: the bird in its current state appears to be impossible to kill if poisoned.
Art and Musik are awesome! The brewing system is cool and if you continue with the game, you could add some more depth to it, but i see you already planned it with more prima materials and some kind of stones ;)
Unfortunatly I had some bug on the final bird boss where he had no HP left but the fight didn't end. I still could brew health potions but the black prima cards where labeled "placeholder". When dragging the placeholder over the brewing station nothing happened and the cards didnt disappear.
You sir are a legend. To battle an unbeatable foe takes courage, to stare down not one but 2 game crippling bugs and with unflinching resolve still play multiple hands against a foe, I must tip my hat. Lesser men would have walked away before uncovering the second bug. I gave up on the same battle without encountering the same dark fate -our game will be better for your sacrifice.
You are chief amongst play testers, and I thank you.
A battle is brewing...
Overall, an intriguing alchemy card battler with a cool aesthetic.
really nice visuals and sound, i can see how it could get very strategic, i had a lot of trouble getting to grips with the combat, i think the bug with unfinished potions between turns breaking extract was confusing me a lot.
Thanks for playing!
Gem of a game, has so much soul. Gorgeous art style, fun gameplay and wonderful birds. Well done!
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it!
The art and music for the game is incredible! I don't know how you mustered the efforts for all of this in only two weeks.
The gameplay was cool, and leaves me wanting even more. Being able to keep tinctures between turns and combine them together for other effects and strategies would be great!
Also, I think I found a slight bug when leaving unfinished potions in the cauldron between turns. The Extract button becomes disabled. I can fix it by adding more ingredients and then hitting remove, but I thought I'd let you know.
Cheers!
Thanks for playing! Still squashing a few bugs-we appreciate you letting us know about any problems you encounter.