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Alcatmist's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Playability | #1 | 5.000 | 5.000 |
| Cleverness | #1 | 5.000 | 5.000 |
| Theme | #233 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Artistic Style | #970 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
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.
- This game was a great play. I really enjoyed the wide variety of mechanics you implemented as well as the interpretation of the theme. The puzzle elements of the game were very well designed and presented a perfect amount of challenge. I believe some work could be done in helping the UI be more clear and some more in game directions of how to play would be ideal. I would personally prefer if the art was more pixel consistent across the different elements and if there was some more expansion and challenge in the alchemical ingredients portion. I'd also recommend asking a friend or someone from the community to check through your dialogue for grammar since there were a few mistakes. Really enjoyed playing this overall - 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!
Alcatmist is a clue-seeking puzzle game to concoct potions to heal the emotional illness of people who come to the protagonist’s store.
Extra Notes
We made it in duo with Saerina
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Comments
A very cute and fun potion mixing game with a seriously cool and complex puzzle game hidden within it.
I was randomly drawn in by the smug cat art on the thumbnail and had to play the game and I'm super happy I did. Ignoring the rather rough/low quality UI elements of the game there is a really solid game foundation here that I had a ton of fun exploring.
Normally I can't stomach puzzle games but the "inner mind" shadow puzzles were really cool and well designed. Even a dumb*** like me can just figure it out with enough attempts and trial and error. But despite my lack of braincells I can tell the puzzles are well designed and the mechanics have a lot of depth to them and are used in really interesting ways as the complexity games more and more tough as you go through the game.
The potion mixing was really basic, just put in the right number of colours and success! But it was the accomplishment of finishing the puzzles that made the potion mixing part feel worth it cos you know you had to work for that answer.
The character art is fantastic and I really loved seeing the cat's various facial expressions and the seriously diverse customer sprites. They were all super cute.
The music is good, fit the game well I thought and didn't become annoying. Some SFX would have been nice for summoning shadows/them dying/you dying/switch flipping/etc but honestly it wasn't a huge deal and didn't really stop me from enjoying the game.
Overall a seriously fun experience that I wasn't expecting. With more polish, more patients and more puzzle mechanics I could see this being a really fun game if it was developed further.
Well done! Love a nice puzzle game! The cat puzzles are hard but fun, really require thinking. They are also very well designed too! The last puzzle is just brilliant, hard yes but it's so rewarding once you figured it out. Also the cat and other characters are cute, giving much character to the game. Nice job!
And here come the nitpicks. I don't really like the potion puzzles, feels like they are a bit disjoint with the cat puzzles at the moment. Would need much more connections between them besides the story to justify that. It also take me quite a while to understand that red is reset and green is OK, which I guess needs some more UI work.
But overall, this is a very solid puzzle game! I enjoy it quite a lot. Well done!
Very well done. The puzzles were challenging but not overly hard. Only gripe is lack of context clues. It took me too long to figure out the alchemy system, and i didn't notice the movement counter for a while. No buttons highlight, or give any indication of what's clickable vs what's not. Overall solid entry.
Great mix of puzzle game and alchemy system! Love the characters too
I also see a lot of potentials for a good story line.
Keep it up!
Nicely done! I'm a sucker for cat games.
+ The core mechanic of clone jutsu is well-implemented and you expand on it really well
+ Very likeable character art, and solid music
+ Puzzles are challenging without being unfair
- The alchemy UI is quite unfinished. You can also intentionally fail a recipe to skip character dialog, if you want.
- The movement limit on your clones could be communicated better. It took me a while to figure out exactly what the paw prints represented, and that they only drained if the clone changed squares.
- The art in the clone gameplay section is noticeably rougher than the character portraits, and it's unclear why.