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WebCough109 days ago(+1)

I finished the demo on hard.

Most of my time and runs were spent on trying to figure out if there could be a better key bindings.

Taking fingers off movement keys to change chemicals is not ideal. I have a mouse with extra buttons, which made the game easier.

I gotta say the game doesn’t really force me to switch chemicals mid-combat. I don’t think my Magicka Wizard Wars exp really translates to Alchemical. There are many status effects and chemical combos that don’t feel that useful, but that might be because the game does not have that many enemies, and you just have them ready for later.

Pretty much all enemies are weak against corrosive damage (given they are robots), and given fire also mixes with that, I need to go with freezing. Two corrosive and two freezing killed fire watcher enemies in one shots, and fire mines in two shots. Electrical watchers and other mines needed 3 and 2 shots. I could switch to different chemicals with fire against them, but honestly given the tricky control scheme, I found it easier to just shoot multiple times instead.

I tried melee only runs, but timing on dodging exploding enemies was too tricky for me.

I think a good practice is clearing exploding fire barrels before entering combat rooms. Leaving them is way too risky just to get environmental kills. If that is not how you want players to play, then I guess you could spawn barrels together with enemies.

I think the game would be better if the camera was more farther away. I would like to be able to see more enemies on screen. Many rooms felt too small for all the action and barrels.

As for improving controls, I have already mentioned on the inner council stream how a modifier key for different chemical row could lower the number of necessary keys. I also think it would be a good idea to limit chemicals to 3 slots rather than 5 (not counting combos), that is one of the changes that Wizard Wars made to the original Magicka to make the game more fast-paced and I think it worked very well.

I experienced some fps drops the first few times when using chemicals/destroying barrels. I imagine it is caused by you instantiating things before you pool them. I think it would be beneficial to pre-instantiate some more used game objects into your pools at dungeon generation.

Bug Report:


I think I found a bug, or at least I think it is not how it should work:

>Make Steam with Water and Fire

>Add Plasma

>Cancel them out with Freeze

>Add Plasma for testing

you are back with 1 Plasma Chemical that still costs water and fire and freeze, because cancelling steam with freeze does not clear them properly.

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rodbotic109 days ago (2 edits)
I finished the demo on hard.

I'm damn proud, good job.

There are many status effects and chemical combos that don’t feel that useful, but that might be because the game does not have that many enemies, and you just have them ready for later.

That is precisely the case, the only enemies in the game right now are trash mobs that are only meant to test the player's ability to figure out and exploit basic weaknesses. It doesn't help that they're all from the same faction and thus have basically the same weaknesses, meaning a lot of the available combos just have no purpose right now. Future enemies should be more varied and complex, hopefully warranting the use of more varied chemplay.  

I could switch to different chemicals with fire against them, but honestly given the tricky control scheme, I found it easier to just shoot multiple times instead.

Indeed, you can easily roll with the same mixture to kill everything in the build you played. I've since rebalanced the enemies, making weaknesses and resistances more extreme to force players to switch mixtures. Most notably, I made the poison Mines resistant to corrosive and the big Watchers resistant to fire.

I also think it would be a good idea to limit chemicals to 3 slots rather than 5 (not counting combos), that is one of the changes that Wizard Wars made to the original Magicka to make the game more fast-paced and I think it worked very well.

I've received this suggestion from multiple playtesters, maybe it's about time I give it a whirl. I'm a bit against it due to it limiting the amount of combinations you can make, but now that I think about it, I could make it so you can expand your tank size with an item/upgrade during a run. I'll give it some more thought.  

I experienced some fps drops the first few times when using chemicals/destroying barrels. I imagine it is caused by you instantiating things before you pool them. I think it would be beneficial to pre-instantiate some more used game objects into your pools at dungeon generation.

I'm not doing any pooling right now, I should probably get on that soon.

I think I found a bug, or at least I think it is not how it should work

That is a bug, thankfully I don't have to fix it. A playtester pointed out how destructive/circular reactions are pointless and only serve to mess you up when you fat-finger the wrong key, and I agreed. I've since made it so chemicals that cancel out cannot be mixed together at all, e.g., the hotbar will flash red and error if you try to add a plasma to a water, and removed all circular reactions. I may rework this again. 

Thanks for playing and for the extensive feedback! Pleasantly surprised to see it given that it's been a while since the DD ended.

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WebCough109 days ago(+1)

I've since made it so chemicals that cancel out cannot be mixed together at all, e.g., the hotbar will flash red and error if you try to add a plasma to a water, and removed all circular reactions. I may rework this again.
There might be situations when the player wants to just remove one chemical without removing all of them, so they would use the "opposite" chemical.

I'm a bit against it due to it limiting the amount of combinations you can make

Ideally all combos should be made with one or two taps with your fingers in correct positions like

(this is even more important in your game compared to magicka, because the same fingers are used for movement)
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rodbotic109 days ago
There might be situations when the player wants to just remove one chemical without removing all of them, so they would use the "opposite" chemical.

Sure, but those are very rare situations compared to the amount of times you accidentally add an opposing chemical and mess up your attack. Not only that, I want to discourage players from holding onto one mixture for too long (mixture turtling if you will) and forcing them to rebuild their mixture to get rid of a chemical should help with that. Still, I'll think about it.

Ideally all combos should be made with one or two taps with your fingers in correct positions

Just to be sure, when I say "combinations" I mean permutations of individual chemicals (mixtures), not products from reactions. It's simply infeasible to have all unique mixtures in reach of such few inputs, attempting to achieve that would require heavy neutering of the mechanic. You don't need to create complex combos all the time, most mixtures for dealing damage take very few inputs (especially in the next build since you're able to fill your tank with a chemical by holding down its key). 

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WebCough109 days ago

If that's what you want to achieve, then maybe you could have chemicals not be limited by tank size, but clear chemicals after every use. I think hitting combinations after every shot o essentially reload could get hectic... in a fun way. If that's too extreme, then you could have some sort of stat that would keep current chemicals for x amount of shots/hits, and that number could be increased or decreased with some upgrades.

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WebCough99 days ago(+1)

I know it's been couple of weeks since DD, but I just got an idea.

imagine this set up:

wasd movement, shift for dash, LMB for attacking and RMB for Alchemy

like, I could move with wasd, but holding RMB would change QWEASD to chemical mixing.

Players would stop to mix, but they would always keep their fingers on same keys, and if they need to dodge then there is always dashing (maybe while holding RMB, players would always dash towards the cursor)

Let me know what you think

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rodbotic99 days ago

Interesting idea! Your suggested scheme would probably help with ergonomics and would be more familiar to players who come from Magicka. Being unable to move while mixing is a non-issue, you can't do it effectively with the current controls either. That being said, there is the drawback of relegating the secondary fire input to a less intuitive binding, which might make no difference in the DD57 build but could (and likely will) prove to be problematic in the future. 

What if I moved dash to space then used shift as the alchemy key? You'd hold shift, use QWEASD to mix your stuff, then let go of shift to return to normal controls. The alchemy key could also be a toggle, similar to the old mixing menu, but I fear this would muddy up the user experience by adding more buttons in the way of combat. It could result in some frustrating experiences where you forget to turn off the alchemy mode and try to fight an enemy, only for you to not move and for your mixture to get all messed up (picrel).

Additionally, the alchemy key could clear your mixture for you, removing the need for the "clear mixture" binding. This would free up the tab key for other stuff.

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WebCough98 days ago(+1)

What if I moved dash to space then used shift as the alchemy key? You'd hold shift, use QWEASD to mix your stuff, then let go of shift to return to normal controls.
I expect those keys to be rebindable, so anyone could swap them.

It could result in some frustrating experiences where you forget to turn off the alchemy mode and try to fight an enemy, only for you to not move
just make it a modifier key you need to hold to stay in alchemy instead of a toggle. I think having alchemy mixing work only when you hold the key would be easier not to accidentally leave it on.
when alchemy is turned off, you could still use Q and E key for things like weapon switching and clearing chemicals.

Basically I propose you to implement your controls as two states that change depending on if you hold down the space/shift.

for example:

None Mixing state (without holding Shift)

Q - use chemicals on yourself
E - clear chemicals
WASD - movement

SPACE - Dash with movement direction

Mixing State (While holding Shift)

QWEASD - all chemicals
SPACE - Dash towards the cursor

Both states

LMB - Primary Attack
RMB - Secondary Attack

Scroll Wheel - weapon switch

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