Hazel Valley Alchemy Co. - Devlog Day 1

Hi everyone! My name's Nell, and this is the first in-progress shot of Hazel Valley Alchemy Co., an alchemy puzzle game and my first attempt at GameMaker. I participated in this jam for the first time in summer 2016, but at the time I wasn't on anything at all for my ADHD and my project fizzled in the planning stage. I've got a late start this time thanks to MAGfest, but I've also got a working regiment of meds and plenty of time to take advantage! I look forward to sharing my work and making new friends <3

Like I mentioned, this is my first ever attempt at using GameMaker. I've got the professional edition of 1.4 from the recent humble bundle, but i've never even tooled around in it until now, so just getting my bearings was today's objective. I watched a whole bunch of tutorials (these ones, by Shaun Spaulding) and followed along to figure out the details of any tools that didn't quite make sense. Then I set out to make a little game environment of my own, the results of which you see above.

Everything in this room is a placeholder, of course, but all the code I managed tonight is solid enough that im proud of it. The playerdog moves according to a grid (which i learned how to do from this different tutorial) and can not pass through the walls I built around the room. That arrow under the dog represents its facing (since i didn't wanna make new sprites for each direction yet) and it updates just how it should based on whichever direction you last moved. I'm using the red crystal to figure out how interacting with other objects is gonna work; while the playerdog is standing on top of the crystal it lights up green, and you can press space to take it (which, right now, just means it disappears).

Tomorrow I want to figure out menus and inventories so the player can actually pick up that crystal, then if I have time before my meds wear off I'll start the basic ingredient processing mechanics. My first goal is a mechanics prototype, where you can pick up two things and combine them into a new thing. At this rate of progress, I think that will be here in two days or so. See you tomorrow!

Hazel Valley Alchemy Co. - Devlog Day 3

I stayed up for way, way too long and finished the prototype I mentioned! I don't know why I'm the kind of person who has more willpower to write code than to walk four feet and go to bed, but w/e. Download it here. I'll do a proper devlog after I fall the Fuck asleep.

Hazel Valley Alchemy Co - Devlog Day 5

Whoof, ok. I got a cold that had me stopped on progress in the game but im back on track now!! This log will be talking about what's new in the prototype version, and maybe I'll do another one tonight that talks about what I got done today. So anyway, here's that prototype! It's a lot more compared to the first screenshot, with full-fledged handling objects for ingredients, the brew you're working on, and progress through the process as a whole. I also implemented a framework for making ingredients with any combination of elements I want, and code that makes sure everything added to the potion in progress works with the rules by which the combining system is governed. What those rules are is something you'll have to figure out for yourself, but you can see one example of it right now if you try to combine a fire and a water crystal. This version is kind of kludged together, but I've already modified things to cleanly create another working lab instance wherever I choose. On the whole, things are going great! And I've got an idea for an alpha puzzle already. Can't wait to show that off soon :3