itch.io

- very nice art and music

- the dialog sometimes feels a bit fast and other times weird (shows up while the area is still loading)

- great movement mechanics with the grapple, dash and holding onto ledges

- not sure what I need to do here:

- Okay, found the lantern. I was a bit confused that I could reach that top area in the picture. Maybe only have one exit if the other area doesn't have anything to do.

- After leaving the lantern room, the game just stopped working (black screen and waiting didn't help)

- Interesting concept

- Great introduction to the game mechanics, very easy to understand

- Level 4 seems to be a copy of level 2

- Push physics sometimes feel a bit wonky, especially level 7 felt very frustrating

- Not a big issue, but after a few levels I thought you just disabled the potions mechanic. Took a while to realize that small white dots next to potions indicate how many I can throw.

- I really liked level 8, probably because it didn't involve much pushing :)

- Sound option does not lower sound volume and "Fullscreen On" does not go into Fullscreen mode

- Nice title screen

- Would be great to support mouse clicks in the menu

- Switching to shield is very cumbersome: maybe add a second button (mouse right click?) for reaction-based abilities like that

- Interesting game mechanics and types of enemies, but for me (very subjective) too difficult. I gave up in the room where spears come from all sides.

On start, the game looks wrong, but going into Fullscreen mode fixed that:

Also, can confirm: web version is very laggy :)

Not sure why, but kicking the "ball" almost always made it disappear and then the game zoomed out and showed game over. Are some walls intentionally teleporting it away from you?

Congratulations on publishing a working prototype!

Oh and your game image is broken:

The game window only showed a black screen for a long time. I was almost giving up, but then finally saw a yellow "Loading..." and then the game started. Looks like it is silently loading the game for some reason. Gathering different materials from the areas you walk in and then crafting them into tools sounds pretty interesting.

Congratulations on publishing a working prototype!

- limiting the visible area this much is pretty unique

- the initial text was gone a bit too quickly for me: maybe make it only continue after pressing a button, so that slow readers like me can take all the time

- using default settings and medium difficulty, I had no issues with getting through a level, but nothing happened when I reached 0 enemies left and after hitting ESC the game just froze (music still kept playing)

- I like the music, sounds a lot like old Castlevania songs

- gameplay was a bit mixed:

    - dash and double-jump really helped a lot in progressing through the level

    - once or twice, I had to just jump and dash forward like a leap of faith because I didn't see any new platform

    - potions felt too abundant: after a while, I was just constantly on full visibility and almost full health

Thank you for the comment and suggestion!

No worries, the framerate is fine if I don't record a video. I'm running an old laptop with integrated graphics though, so if performance plays a part in this weird behavior, it's probably not a common issue and not worth your time. Thanks for your response!

- cool title screen and great background music!

- I didn't like not being able to build stuff during eclipse because I spent the whole bright time on scavenging resources and then couldn't build more towers during eclipse

- dragging items from inventory does not work: I just have to click an item, then move the mouse to where I want it and click again

- the base area was laggy for me, but I am on an old laptop with integrated graphics, so that's probably not a common issue

- some SFX when hitting enemies might be nice, sometimes it was hard to tell if I was hitting anything

Edit: oh, and I got stuck in a wall after stepping on a teleporter

- interesting concept to brew potions at specific spots and then drink the potions to get protection against the light or increase walking speed

- the game felt a bit too difficult at first

Congratulations on publishing a working prototype!

I really liked your notes on what you did how and why. Always interesting to see developer notes.

At first, I thought the notebook would show me how to make spells. Then it took a bit for me to figure out the alchemy menu.

Trying to craft new spells and discovering new ingredients is a really fun game mechanic.

When I met the rocky shield enemy, I first thought you have to find a specific spell to overcome the shield because there was no visual effect of doing damage to it.

The boss fight would probably be a bit too difficult if death was not disabled because I got stuck multiple times between the four shadowy enemies in the middle.

A Fullscreen mode would be nice. FYI, itch.io has an option to show a Fullscreen button, but you might need to adjust some export settings for scaling.

Congratulations on publishing your fourth game!

The transition from first to second layer was a bit difficult to see. I didn't know where Shade was at the start of the second layer. For second to third it was way easier to locate Shade.

Congratulations on publishing a working prototype and your first game!

- great options menu ;)

- I don't feel like the graphics are bad, looks pretty good for "art was completely ignored"

- interesting mechanic, just a little wonky: the other half of the player just disappeared and blinked in again on this platform, already blinking as if it hit something... I hope this gif shows what I mean

- great design decision on the checkpoint reset instead of restarting the whole level when you fail near the end

Congratulations on publishing your first game in Godot!

- interesting concept

- the graphics look great

- closing scrolls should have their x top right instead of top left (more common)

- it took me a few tries to understand what to do, but that's part of what makes this an interesting game

- no idea what the right scroll means

- I was stuck after doing what the left scroll says until I just swung the sword around and found the third ingredient, that felt a bit random

- easy to understand controls

- the game looks fantastic

- I would like to have some better feedback on ability usage: When I hit an enemy, sometimes it does nothing, so I am not sure where I need to be for a hit to actually work, same goes for the vacuuming

- very cool idea to suck in enemies like Kirby and then mixing them for unique attacks

- after defeating the big mushroom, travelling further to the right just drops me out of the world boundaries

- funny game title

- the itch.io page looks cool

- the whole game looks incredibly polished

- gameplay feels like a combination of Magicka and Vampire Survivors, lots of fun

- easy to get into, even without reading the game description

- sadly the whole play time was very laggy, but I am on an old laptop with integrated graphics, so that's probably not a common issue

- itch.io page styling immediately makes it look unique

- Had to grab my microscope for this one, hehe

- Great QoL with the sound slider options, but they could do with some samples playing during adjustment so that I can tell what's too loud or quiet

- The uh... loading screen? was gone too quickly, I could only see "this was made" and then it was gone

- The "pressed a button" sound is a bit startling

- All of this text is very difficult to read (I'm on Fullscreen 1920x1080)

- The last entry in the merge book is cut off (I scrolled down all the way)

- Merge book scrolling via mouse wheel is very slow. Scrolling by grabbing the scrollbar is fine, but the bar is a bit difficult to see.

- I could not figure out how merging works: I looked up a combo in the merge book, had all the cards, but clicking on merge did nothing. "Activating" (clicking) only the three cards for the combo and then clicking merge also did nothing. Having those three cards in the middle row, clicking merge, nothing. Same goes for the top row.

- The amount of info in the merge book feels a bit overwhelming

Disclaimer: These are just my opinions, so a lot of it is very subjective.

Thank you for the response and great to hear that you are already working on these updates.

I was running Fullscreen on a 1920x1080 display. These were the fonts that were (just a bit!) difficult to read for me:

For the fourth, it's the squished together brackets part, not the "Collect" :)

- very easy to get into thanks to the controls info top left

- the lag after some enemies have spawned is making the game very difficult to play

- not sure how this fits the theme of shadow and alchemy

Congratulations on publishing a working prototype after your team had to leave!

- amazing title screen and overall graphics

- what a unique theme... burn workers at a stake...

- I placed some houses, a woodcutter and stonecutter. For a while, both woodcutter and stonecutter collected resources, but then the stonecutters stopped and even after placing another stonecutter and switching workforce over, no stones were gathered. I restarted the game, placed only one other house and both work places again. This time only stone was gathered. (Edit: I didn't read your notes about darkness, that helped!)

- kinda weird that a darkness-generating pillar doesn't make its own tile dark

- not sure how to get this building to work... I probably should've just placed it in a darker area from the start

Disclaimer: These are just my opinions, so a lot of it is very subjective.

- the left and right fences don't seem to block movement

- the sudden loud sound upon opening the gate was nasty

Well done on publishing a playable prototype!

- great concept

- nice background music

- undo one step instead of hard resetting the level was such a good QoL choice!

- not sure if this is intentional: after attacking, if I wait a few turns, the player still shows the attack pose, same goes for enemy attacks after undo

- when the game wasn't focused, the music started stuttering badly

- every level felt unique

- I liked that even after several levels there still were some new parts of the game mechanics to figure out

- Fullscreen mode would be nice

Disclaimer: These are just my opinions, so a lot of it is very subjective.

The game does start for me, but I have no idea what I am supposed to do... I tried to build some things, but nothing connected. The other screen shows a tower defense area, but I could only build walls and small question mark circles that did nothing. Based on the description, I am probably supposed to build some ammo creation machine in this screen, but no idea how. The music was nice!

- the title screen was kinda weird for me: maybe it would look better in Fullscreen mode (itch.io settings have an option for that)

- sometimes the ground graphics didn't continue all the way down (maybe you tested in a smaller window)

- I liked the different music bits for the different areas

Well done on submitting a playable prototype and thanks for the randomizer page hint!

- pretty unique concept

- I only managed to talk to the guy after reading your GDD: maybe add some in-game hints about controls

- the lurkers didn't do anything to me when bumping into them

- very nice lighting system

Disclaimer: These are just my opinions, so a lot of it is very subjective.

- very cool title screen

- extremely wonky mouse controls due to high sensitivity: maybe add an option to adjust that

- unique take on the theme

- the camera sometimes clipped through the walls, showing other areas

- sometimes it was difficult to see where I could turn to shadow form or not. The text indicator helped, but actual shadows would've been more immersive. (Edit: sorry, didn't see the hint about WebGL)

- the low-poly graphics look great, especially the bottles and bumpy rocks on floor and walls help to make the areas look visually uh... diverse (not just flat surfaces)

Disclaimer: These are just my opinions, so a lot of it is very subjective.

- the font is a bit difficult to read

- after each week, the game displays the initial "getting started" text again, not sure if that's intended

- I tried to use the rabbit for testing ingredients. When it died, I was expecting a new rabbit next week, but instead it just stayed dead. So now I just brew random potions and hope for the right customer requests...

- it's very easy to get enough gold per week for rent and upgrades

- some of the drop areas are a bit wonky, for example dropping potions on the counter could do with a larger "acceptable drop area"

- I liked the whole "don't anger customers or they will snitch on you" concept

Disclaimer: These are just my opinions, so a lot of it is very subjective.

I tried again and it does in fact auto-scroll, as long as I don't manually scroll up to check something that was written earlier. When I type something after that, it only scrolls a bit down and not all the way.

- very difficult, after two restarts, I finally managed to brew one potion and sell it...

- the movement is sluggish, like the player is skating on ice, this makes the whole game very difficult to enjoy

- the overall mechanics are easy to understand after reading the tutorial

- having different ghosts with different weaknesses makes combat interesting

- nice background music

Disclaimer: These are just my opinions, so a lot of it is very subjective.

- very unique game

- not sure how it fits the theme of "shadow" and "alchemy"

- the main menu was a bit overwhelming when I had no idea what this game was about: I just went with default settings and enjoyed that round quite a lot, maybe add a "quick match" option for new players that just uses default settings

Disclaimer: These are just my opinions, so a lot of it is very subjective.

- very enjoyable game mechanic

- easy to understand

- unique take on the theme

- music was too loud for me

- you can just go up into this spot and keep farming (unless you do not pay attention for a second and get hit by one of the bouncy ball fishies)

Disclaimer: These are just my opinions, so a lot of it is very subjective.

- very enjoyable game mechanic

- a bit difficult to get into: I only realized the temperature requirement after ruining the first potion

- having to juggle ingredient requesting/sorting and keeping temperature up was a bit stressful, but that's probably intended

- maybe remove the front from the ingredient box or design it in another way (perhaps a transparent jar), it hid some small ingredients almost completely

Disclaimer: These are just my opinions, so a lot of it is very subjective.

The game was not playable because it just showed a black screen in the game frame after signing up.

- the text area should auto-scroll so that I can see the latest messages without manually scrolling down

- some responses were written in non-English, no idea what they say

- I got a game over after 14 turns of trying to guess what to type and that felt pretty random: maybe somehow tell the player that they are on a timer

- After several game overs, I looked at the description and walkthrough and saw that my "get plant" was expected to be "take plant": most text adventures allow several different variations of an action so that people do not have to guess the right word for an action (or I should've just read your description first, hehe)

Disclaimer: These are just my opinions, so a lot of it is very subjective.

- Nice music on the title screen, but while taking the time to read "about" and "controls", it stopped: maybe make it loop

- some of the tiniest text was difficult to read

- after reading the optional about section, the wall of text after clicking on "start" felt a bit overwhelming: maybe feed it to the player in smaller chunks

- cute sound effects

- the auto aim for left-click attacks made combat very easy

- also, while left-click had auto-aim, right-click went in player facing direction: I would've expected it to go in mouse cursor direction

- not sure how right-click attacks work, the mist around the player took ages to appear, but then twice in quick succession... idk what triggers an "allergic reaction"

- the boss can be trapped behind a wall, making it a very simple fight

- the enemies moving away after they hit you was a nice mechanic to give a moment to catch yourself

- took a while to understand that potions make me faster for a short time

Disclaimer: These are just my opinions, so a lot of it is very subjective.

- Very intense music on the title screen

- In-game music too loud

- Game over music WAY too loud

- upgrades were kinda weird, some didn't activate anything: maybe add a sort of "lore" menu item that shows all discovered upgrades and their effect

- sometimes I couldn't pick up an upgrade while not having any in my inventory

- the spawn area was pretty easy to navigate, but outside of that not so much: maybe add walls to the intended arena area

- is there a win condition?

- very unique idea for the theme

- pretty intense for a "casual" target audience :)

Disclaimer: These are just my opinions, so a lot of it is very subjective.

Also, the game image doesn't show:

- GDD link is not accessible without requesting access

- not sure how this incorporates the themes "shadow" and "alchemy"

- the font is a bit hard to read

- movement speed in the first part is very slow: probably intentional, but it feels far too tedious, especially when compared to the faster speed in the second part

- player still plays movement animations during some "freeze in place" cutscenes

- washing dishes was difficult to see: maybe make them stand up instead so the shapes are circles instead of thin rectangles

- mob spots were also a bit difficult to see: maybe make the puddles a bit bigger or let them drop some droplets down outside the scene

- second part was a bit difficult, but not too bad because failure didn't restart the whole game

- I liked the story

Disclaimer: These are just my opinions, so a lot of it is very subjective.