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The Novice's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Cleverness | #755 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Playability | #804 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Artistic Style | #970 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Theme | #1330 | 2.000 | 2.000 |
Ranked from 1 rating. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Judge feedback
Judge feedback is anonymous.
- "Ouch, don't touch me" made me laugh out loud. The art and sounds fit the game very well and weren't overpowering. The alchemy part felt a little light, but staving off shadows with candles was a good mechanic.
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!
The game is a puzzle solver point-clicker, the player is an apprentice in the art of Alchemy that has to start his journey in search of true knowledge inside The Alchemy Tower.
Guided by his Master, the player have to follow his lessons and solve puzzle to progress.
The player will be immersed in darkness with the sole light of candles he can finds around the tower, you can cast a new light using "SPACE" if you have a candle in your possession.
If your candles turn off and you haven't found any new candles to lit up, you lose.
Some object are interactable, just be curious and click a lot... some quest item can be rotated by pressing "R".
As in many games "ESC" is for pause.
"LEFT SHIFT" to skip dialogue lines (may contain hints on what to do).
Light colors can be set in the Option menu in game, be aware !
Extra Notes
This is my first GameJam, and my second overall game, I joined as Solo Dev to see what I can do, I learned a lot during this and had a lot of fun, enjoy !
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Comments
Very well designed game! Everything is polished and fits together.
The only critic I have to agree the previous comments, it is really hard and gets even harder after the first time your candles run out because of the lack of spare candles.
But i like the idea of hiding the color changer in the settings, this is in it self another puzzle, to find out how to change the color. But with the already hard time limit of the candles it doesnt really work out. Burned through like 3 candles to try different colors and couldnt find everything in this room.
A charming point and click adventure!
Overall, a polished submission that you can be proud of!
Thank you very much !
The art is so lovely and charming and there's so dang much of it! I dunno how you had the time but it looks so polished and cool! The game feels fully fleshed out and professional, lots of little secrets and attention to detail in the environments. It's a great game (though a little difficult lol)
Thank you !
This is my first ever GameJam and hearing that makes me happy!
Wow that's impressive. It's my first one, too, we're twins ^_^
An absolutely beautifully crafted game full of style and voice acting!
I just wish I didn't have such a hard time playing it. Accidentally lighting multiple candles then watching them all burn out as I frantically try to solve puzzles was a nightmare. Then having to play in incognito mode to reset the progress to get the candles back was a pain. I know it's a jam game and these things happen so it wasn't a huge deal.
I swear those candles burn out faster than 60 seconds but I even timed and and for sure they do I guess when you're under stress trying to figure out what to do 60 seconds suddenly feels like such a short time!
I have to admit the puzzles were kinda difficult. (Spoilers to anyone who hasn't played the game yet!). The first puzzle being "Sir Newton" requires outside knowledge from the game to know that 1. He was knighted as a Sir and 2. His surname is Newton. I know this is fairly common knowledge and I was able to solve it but others might not have such a easy time with it. I also think the numbers on the books gives it an extra level of confusion that maybe wasn't needed.
I got as far as the garden/greenhouse. I understood that I had to change the colour of my light but having it hidden way in the settings menu seems like a really bad choice in my opinion. The only reason I knew that option was there was because I opened the settings the first time I played the game and saw it and thought "ooh that's a nice accessibility feature" until I realised it was a game mechanic.
I could not pass the garden. I changed my light to every possible colour I could and clicked everywhere I could to try and find the ingredients. I found 2 sets of them in the pots and on the vine stalks that appear but I could not find the last one and eventually when all my candles burned out I just gave up because I couldn't be bothered starting again.
The mechanics are fantastic I just wish they were easier to access and understand and the stress of having to juggle my burning out supply of candles didn't really help.
Anyways the art and style is fantastic it's all very well drawn and reads extremely well the choice of simple black and white makes it very easy to understand what I'm looking at (as long as there's light) and the little collectables were cute.
The audio design is fantastic, the music and SFX are great and the voice acting was a really nice and well done surprise. I was genuinely surprised when I heard it because I think it's the first game in the gamejam I've come across where someone has gone to that effort. Great job.
Overall I enjoyed the game but a number of frustrations and issues stopped me from finishing it. I would like to return to the game if these are solved in the future as it was a great game that just wore down my patience. Please keep working on it :)
The artwork and atmosphere are lovely. It's difficult to solve the puzzles on the first try. I felt like I was having to die a few times just to get to the solution. I did have to go into incognito mode to progress.
Thank you for playing and for your feedback, I'll lower the difficulty a bit as soon as jam ends !
Very nice submission! Also a great implementation of the theme. The art is done very nicely and the puzzles are clever. I'm also quite impressed that you took the time to make the save load system work inside the browser! I found 1 bug related to that actually:
When you die, you keep your collectibles. I noticed that the candles I collected are still gone in the new run. So that means I have to play with only my initial 2 candles.
I also found that the dialogue goes by a bit quick, which caused me to miss some of the text
You mentioned that English is not your first language, so I compiled a few things that I found:
..[yeah] that's a way..
..You [could've] just summoned..
..start from the [basics]..
..somewhere [at] the entrance..
..how many secrets and [collectible] items have you found..
Super nice from you to help me with the text !
Thank you very much for the feedback and I am really happy you liked it.
Welp, I couldn't progress from the second room, even after clicking everything. I don't play these sorts of games, so I can't really say too much. I noticed a few things that I want to point out, but that's all I have.
The artstyle, ambience, SFX and voice acting are all great, but I just can't progress, even with the help of the hints.
Sorry.
Thank you for playing and for your feedback.
My plan for the next update is to give some specific hints inside the game after some time passes, so even someone who don't usually play this kind of games can progress.
As a non English mother tongue I really appreciate every grammar correction, thank you a lot !
I really enjoy the look and feel of the game. However the click and drag wasn't working for me so unsure if its a bug or not but could not play because I could not click and drag.
really liked the concept and the eerie atmosphere really sells it! Also your accent in the voice over really sold it to me. (and the light colour picker was also a great inclusion :p
Thank you very much !
Liked the presentation, and the inclusion of voice acting is always a plus :)
For feedback i will say that the idea is cool, but having to solve puzzles against the clock is too anxiety inducing for me, especially when the punishment for failure is starting from the beginning (with even less resources than before).
But i don't usually play this type of game, so maybe my expectations/tolerance are different from the typical Point & Click audience.
Aside from that really solid entry for a first time jammer! impressive, sound is something a lot of us neglect during jams, and is super important in my opinion. keep it up!
Yes, the time may be a little low for this submission, I plan to give a 2 minute timer every candle, and let them respawn to make the game easier.
Thank you so much for playing and for your feedback !
This was an interesting game that's up my alley being point and click puzzler, however I could not for the love of me figure out how to get the key. Then once I died the game was a lot harder as I couldn't rely on the candles I had already found. I would love to play an updated version, so I hope you continue!
My plan for the next update is to let candles respawn at every run to not give the player too much pressure on time passing.
Thank you for playing and commenting !
Hey, I thought this game had a really cool concept, being under time pressure trying to find objects adds a level of depth to the point and click game I found really fun. I couldn’t get past the entrance pt 2 though, I don’t understand the hint you provided or how rotating the books is significant… maybe it’s a skill issue. I saw on another comment you stated you should give the candles a bit more time and reset them after losing, and I agree with both of those things, otherwise the game is too hard. The art style is really good, I love the visual style of the game, and your voice acting is really good. I think it has potential, well done :)
My plan for the next update is to give some specific hints inside the game after some time passes, also I will give the candle more timer and a respawn at every run.
The books should be rotated to fit the library, but for the next update I may put a new voiceline to be more specific. Thank you for the feedback !
It's a really cool mechanic that the candles are also your life in the game. I just couldn't get past the first puzzle. Maybe it's my 3am brain not working, because I was really trying to get it!
I might come back to this later, because the art is beautiful and the story seems intriguing. Well done!
I'll give you a little hint if you're going to try again : don't watch the numbers. The solution in "portrayed" in front of you 😉
Anyways thank you for playing!
That's a pretty good hint, I finished the game! I think I had a bug happen with the salt, I kept looking for it in the 'right' way, and it wasn't there, but when I completely restarted and did that as the first ingrediënt, it was there. The collectibles were cool, but it's weird that you have to go to the main menu to see them. I thought I would get a message in that one room with how many I've found and how many I have to find.
I think one way to encourage 100%'ing would be to give a lantern after finding that room. Just get rid of the candles from then on and let the player find hints in peace :)
It was a really frustrating but also fun experience, the art, voice lines and music really made me want to come back this morning to finish it, so nice job.
I couldn't get past the books, they just spelled tersowinn or something. The timed puzzels are cool, but it's discouraging to keep burning candles trying to figure out the next clue.
I love the art style and mechanics though!
Thank you for playing a commenting !
To make the game less stressfull I'm going to give candles a 2 min timer, and let them respawn so anyone can be at ease using them.
Game looks great, the drawings are nice and with low light mood it looks even better.
It's interesting to have a "timed" point n click, don't think I ever saw that concept.
I couldn't figure out the "first" puzzle tho (with the numbered books) so I didn't get to see much
Thank you for the feedback, for the next update is to give some specific hints inside the game after some time passes, so even someone who don't usually play this kind of games can progress.
The game seems nice. The visual and voices are well suitable.
I couldn't progress much by myself for now. Each puzzles seem too hard to figure. The time available for the candle seems too short. And the hidden items are too good at being invisible to my eyes.
However, I can see there are good amount of afford put into this game. A game may takes 10 or 20 more feedbacks to adapt into an enjoyable game.
I appreciate your feedback, surely I gave the demo a too high difficulty, I'm going give some specific hints inside the game after some time passes in the next update. Thank you so much for playing !
I love a good point and click game, and this game scratch the itch for me. Thank you!
The hand drawn art works well, and the mechanic of colour is also quite smart. I also appreciate the effort you went into putting in those collectables. Sadly can't find them all. :(
The only critique I can think of is then given each candle only burn for 90 seconds, it was barely enough if not spawning new ones after reset is intentional. Probably need to increase the duration, or respawning them after each reset.
But anyway, this is a job well done and I can't wait to play the completed version of the game!
Thank you for the feedback, I think I'm going to both reset candles and give a longer timer, I didn't realize it was short because in my gametesting I already knew every spot.
Lovely game, liked the atmosphere and dialog. Didn't get very far before getting stuck but I'm sure I could figure it out if I wasn't so tired :D Will try finish it another day when I have more time!
Thank you for the kind words.
For now I updated game description page to include some hints for people who got stuck, but I plan to put them directly in game if needed.
Seems to be a well made game. Good work! I think this is a bug so I'll bring it to your attention. When I lost and clicked start again, the extra candles don't seem to spawn back. Not sure if I'm just missing something or they really are a "one-time-use" item. Great job on the art though. It's very detailed and as a nice aesthetic to it.
One time candle was intentional, there should be around 16 of them or close to that. but maybe I understimated the time needed to find everything because I already knew. I'll change the spawn of the candle and give them a longer timer after the gamejam. Thank you for the feedback !
Very Nice Mechanics and Ideas, the odd "Hey! Don't Touch Me!" and "I can't stay like this forever" were nice touches and made it feel very fun. And then I had the Oh snap. Can xxx xxx xxxx? Cool! moment (No spoilers, not sure if this was intentional). Very clever attention to detail
Thank you very much !!