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A jam submission

Alkimia ShadowingView game page

Replicate master's magnum opus by shadowing the master's shadow only. 1st person puzzle adventure.
Submitted by hoimankyuen — 8 hours, 55 minutes before the deadline
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Alkimia Shadowing's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Playability#15.0005.000
Cleverness#15.0005.000
Theme#15.0005.000
Artistic Style#3284.5004.500

Ranked from 2 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.

  • I absolutely loved this game, what a clever mechanic using the watch and light to see the different angles. Very nice implementation of the theme components. It's a shame there is no music or sound - even just ambient sounds, or the sounds of the potions etc would have been nice; music would just detract from it in my opinion. Really well done, I really enjoyed it.
  • Really clever use of light and shadow and telling a story through that medium. It was interesting and engaging. Well done!

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!
Shadowing - repeating the action of the alchemist, but you could only see the alchemist through the shadow it cast. Requires observations by the player to piece out what the actions are. Otherwise, it's just a walking simulator puzzle adventure game.

Extra Notes
WebGL lowers the shadow quality a bit, although entirely playable, the intended graphics was better then what was shown in WebGL.
The entirety of the game was made by a single person except for the alchemist model and the walking animation in 7 days. I am proud of myself.

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Comments

Viewing comments 26 to 7 of 26 · Next page · Last page
Submitted

I loved this game. The concept and execution are so, SO strong. The only thing remotably missing is sound, because in the other departments, it's super inventive.

The fact that throughout the game, I was observing the movements of my predecessor by his shadow made me feel like an alchemist because of the potions, but also like a detective as I attempted to make sense and keenly observed every detail of what he did.

I can't even begin to imagine how to do the playback feature either. It's genuinely such an awesome tool that works PERFECTLY. I used it as freely as I wanted to in order to figure out any action's of Master Umbra that I had doubts on.

Another cool detail was that the shadows projected from the objects that didn't belong to the memory had a hash texture to differentiate it. It's such a tiny detail, but it's also so important.

I don't know how you pulled all of this off in a week, but I'm impressed. This was one of my favorite entries of the jam. Phenomenal job!

Developer(+1)

Thank you very much! Glad you are enjoying it! I am quite happy that our intended experience was successfully delivered too.
We are planning to continue develop the game and hopeful get a full version out, albeit slowly. Just you wait!

Submitted

A very interesting idea. I personally wanted to do something with shadows like this, but had no idea how to make it work, so it's cool to see how others tackled this idea!

Developer(+1)

Thank you! Hope you enjoyed the game! It's extremely simple really (at least for me unity guys), what I've done here is just a custom shader with shadow casting but no rendering. I've heard from somewhere that it's even possible to do without custom shaders too!

Submitted

This is such a cool idea and you implemented it very well in such a short period of time!
The idea of a projector that records/plays back the shadows of something over time is very novel, and it fits with the theme very well!

I think some light music/ambiance to further the intrigue could go a long way, but I feel you probably already know that and were under time constraints.

I'd like to see this idea expanded on further and released as a full game!

Developer

Thank you! Glad that you enjoyed the game!

I am having a bunch of different ideas for the game to go forward, and hopefully I can release a full game with that!

Submitted

Amazing concept, well made, but I did have a lot of graphic errors (probably webgl like you said combined with Mac). It ruined the experience a lot, but I love the core gameplay mechanic! Add some sound please though, why was it like a silent film xd 

With a bit of polish this could be a really fun one! 

Developer

It is really a shame that mac is showing such artifacts, it just not good to look at. Wish I know this earlier (but not sure what to do about it though). Hope you still enjoy the game despite this :( 
Silent films is a interesting idea, although not for this game as the tone doesn't match, but I could probably do one next time. Seems interesting enough. Let me take note of that :)

Submitted

Yea it's tough in game jams to test every platform in every way, don't worry about it

Submitted

Super cool mechanics and satisfying puzzles that deserve a full game! Awesome visuals too, sounds would add so much to the mood. Amazing job for just 7 days!

Developer

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed the game! I think I slept too less for delivering this in 7 days, but I'd say its worth it!

Submitted

Great concept, great presentation, great execution. Just simply overall great. This could absolutely become a full game! It would be useful to have a reset function, I missed the very first step once and waiting for the full rewind wasn't that quick hehe.

Developer

Thank you! Glad you enjoy the game! Yeh the reset function is much needed it feels like. Need to add that in. Thanks for the comment though!

Submitted

Overall a solid concept that was pretty well executed! The one frustrating bit for me was that shadows occasionally would seemingly appear out of place, such as in the final puzzle where the blinds seemed to cast their shadow across the entire room. I could imagine that the Master liked his privacy while he worked and moved his furniture around before he ascended, but it felt strange in the moment and forced me to spend quite a bit of time repositioning the light.

Besides that and audio being sorely missed, it was a solid experience that seemed to accomplish what it wanted to do. Great job!

Developer

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it!

Yes the shadows were intentionally put out of place as to make the guesswork and the puzzle harder, especially during the last puzzle where the player was intended to move the light a lot in order to get the solution. But I guess I should have conveyed that information a bit better, and to ease that confusion. Sorry for that!

The missing sound was the biggest regret I could ever had. I just want to find a corner and hide there now.

Submitted(+1)

Chin up! What you made works well in the time you had, and we just gotta take the lessons from it as far as priorities go and push forward to next time! I couldn’t get much in the way of sound effects in our game either, but so long as the rest of it shines, I think it’s all worth it.

Submitted

Really cool use of the theme! Kind of reminds me of Cyberpunk 2077's braindance. Good job!

Developer(+1)

Thank you! Hope you enjoyed it!
Brain dance was way cooler though :)

Submitted

Really really clever mechanics and theme interpretation, wow, such a cool and unique game! Fun to play, not easy, different from the others, I could see this launching as a game.

Developer

Thank you! Hope you enjoyed it!

Submitted

Really clever mechanics and even more clever puzzles ! Reminds me of Return of the Obra Dinn with how you're looking at moments from the past to solve puzzles. It really immerses you into solving each puzzle with rewinding the shadows and moving the light around. Like others have said, i really wished there was sound in the game as it would've really enhanced the experience (not that it isn't great already). I think music and sfx that sound mysterious and whimsical would fit the game, though i don't have any example in mind right now.

One issue i had was with the display scaling. My screen is too small to cover the entire viewport in the game page and the fullscreen button doesn't scale the display to my screen's size. This can be resolved by using the fullscreen button from Unity instead of Itch since Itch's fullscreen button doesn't rescale Unity games for some reason.

Developer(+1)

Thank you! And yes, Return of the Obra Dinn is one of the games that gave me the inspiration, it is such a masterpiece that one could only dream of achieving anything even close to that! The display scaling is probably me just being careless, somehow outputting a 1600*900 build and thought that would work. Should have tested the build before I finally called it done. My bad.

Glad you enjoyed it!

Submitted

The shadow mechanic was super cool here. This is a really interesting puzzle game that had me sitting for a bit lol. The puzzles are interesting in that each puzzle isn't the same. 


One issue I had was that the mouse would snap randomly to a position. Making had to look around at times. I would definitely love to see some music complement the visuals in this game!


Really cool game!

Developer

Thank out! Glad you enjoyed it.

The mouse issue seems to be affecting a bunch of people, so probably need some love there. I hope that didn't ruin your experience.

Developer

Thank out! Glad you enjoyed it.

The mouse issue seems to be affecting a bunch of people, so probably need some love there. I hope that didn't ruin your experience.

Submitted

This mechanic is very clever and just begging to be part of a full release game. The game looks and feels great, and I'm surprised to see it only took 7 days! Not sure if a glitch but I didn't hear any sound. The game was still impressive without it though!

Developer

Thank you! Glad you like it! The sound is missing as I don't have enough time to do it, and I am still regretting that :(

Submitted

It's a jam, sacrifices must be made, lol. Don't worry too much about it, it's still great!

Submitted

I really enjoyed the puzzle concept with the adjustable light + shadows. great work for only having 7 days!

Developer

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it!
It's a shame that I heard of the jam at around day 5-6, but I am quite proud of what I've achieved here.

Submitted

Great implementation of the themes. Really well done honestly. I am very impressed with the concept and how you executed it. It was nice solving these shadow based puzzles. Some sound would have been great to have included but I know how it goes. Thanks for sharing!

Developer

Thank you! Hope you enjoyed it! Yeh sound was a major criticism I've been given a lot, and it totally my fault so I'll take it. Should be the first thing to do after the jam ends ;)

I like the prototype however there was some hitches and stuttering when getting close to objects it gives a description for and the screen size is a little bit too large for itch.io page on a 1920x1080 monitor.

Developer(+1)

Thank you for playing! Hope you liked the game. Thanks for the report of the stuttering, I'll see what I can do about that :)

Submitted

Really well executed! I really enjoy that there is this narrative/cinematic element to the game that's actually a core game mechanic. I could see this sort of thing being part of a larger game, using it to investigate, or learn secrets, etc. I wonder what going forward or backward through time would be like with a time-slider? Would that feel like cheating if someone could speed through everything really fast to just the part they need?  Anyhow, awesome game over all. Great work for 7 days. You've got a follow from me!

Developer

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it! Time-slider sounds like something I may investigate into. Not sure how will it work with the game, but I can already imagine some cool puzzles with alternative pocket watches. Hmm...

Submitted

Wow this was really creative and it really tested my memory! I imagine the phantom shadow effect could have possibly been easy to pull off, so great work. Very nice ending as well. Thematically spot on.

Developer

Thank you! The phantom shadow thing is simply another model that doesn't renders directly but casts shadow. Once you figure that out it's not that difficult at all to reproduce. But it's quite magical the first time I've seen it.

Glad you enjoyed the game!

Submitted

Super cool mechanic well implemented!  Messing with the timer, the object positions and the lights was a lot to handle but I really enjoyed solving the puzzles.  Fantastic job!

Developer(+1)

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it.

Submitted

Wow, such a cool mechanic and really well implemented! The 3D modelling is great and the mechanic works really well - great interpretation of the theme and a really unique way of using shadows!

If I could wish for one minor change it would be a way to skip the stopwatch back to the beginning instantly - of course I could try to figure out the puzzles partially in reverse, but that's too much for my brain to bother with unfortunately! So a way to just play from the beginning would be great instead of waiting for the rewind. But I love how it shows how much longer is left on the timer (took me a moment to notice that so perhaps it could be bigger or coloured a little differently?) and that you can speed up and slow it down - many people wouldn't have taken the time to implement that as part of the mechanic, but it really helps with the player experience!

I also think a splash of colour here and there (more than what's already there) would be useful - I kept losing the potion bottles so if they had some colour it might've been easier to keep track, though maybe that would've made the puzzle more confusing... not sure!

Developer

Thank you! I hope you enjoyed your time with the game.

Playback from the start is surely a good idea, haven't thought of that! It would be quick and easy to implement too, probably do it first when I get back to the editor. Fun fact, the reason I implemented the speeding-up thing is that I felt extremely annoyed watching that 5 minute animation for the 50th time, and just couldn't bear it any more XD. I guess play testing really gets me somewhere.

Adding more colour would also be nice, but would need to think a bit more about it so that I don't rob that moment of getting some colour at the end of the puzzle. But surely some way to make the potions stand out would be nice.

Thanks for the comment! Good stuff to think about!

Submitted(+1)

I genuinely cannot believe something this awesome and complicated was made in just 7 days. Absolutely blown away.

Just gonna get the bad outta the way. It needs sound, any sound any music just anything would have been nice because playing it in total silence felt weird and as if it robbed the game greatly.

Even if the lack of sound was a drawback the mechanics, the shadow replay / reverse system the style the goal to follow the shadow through the recordings... It was all so beautifully done and executed that I would not be surprised to see a full fledged game of this style in the future. You really made something awesome here and my biggest complaint is that I don't have more to play.

Viewing comments 26 to 7 of 26 · Next page · Last page