First Proof of Concept OMG!
Alchemy is cool i swear!
This devlog will introduce ChromAlchemy's raison d'être, art style, and core design choices and mechanics.
Thanks for reading!
Note. Percentages shown are the development progress relative to the Minimum Viable Product (MVP). This helps me track the progress and growing project's scope as it develops.
Trust me, I've tried many, MANY things to get here.
Introduction
ChromAlchemy is a 3D painterly game of exploration, adventure, crafting, and colors. Show the world that Alchemy is real magic!
If you've played The Elder Scrolls Oblivion/Skyrim, The Witcher, Minecraft, etc, you've also probably heard of the common complaints about the Alchemy system:
"About 140 of my 350 carry weight is potions and poisons. I keep everything just in case!"
-hyphonym on /gamefaqs.gamespot.com
"boring and tedious for little benefit"
-Vanavia on /reddit.com
"Easy to exploit"
-someone on /steam.com, probably
Regardless, I played Oblivion and mixed a potato, a stalk of funny grass, and flesh. Now I have a poison potion of 10 seconds of damage, 10 seconds of paralysis, and a magic shield, so your arguments are invalid. Alchemy is cool!
Anyway, this is a game design document that shows a projection of every reason of why i think no one has nailed the alchemy fantasy archetype. Feedback appreciated!
Main Loop (30%)
Explore, find ingredients, craft potions, unlock areas, repeat.
Exploration (50%)
| Mechanic | Reason: MVP Checklist |
| [100%] Dense Fog | The story unfolds on a floating island shrouded in dense clouds, which plays a role in the (to be implemented) narrative, tying everything together. |
| [50%] Fog-of-War. A fog that clears when the player gets close and stays open from then on | Works well on exploration games, especially those focused on mystery and adventure. 2. Potions will open deeply fogged areas otherwise inaccessible. |
| [10%] Unlockable Areas And Content | The game content for a demo: 1. Meadows: 2. Forest: Concept / Entities / Environment Models / Environment Effects / Terrain 3. Academy (from afar): Concept / Environment Models / Environment Effects / Terrain |
| [50%] Harvesting of Reagents | Most of the gameplay will revolve around finding and harvesting items to craft with. Should not feel like a chore. Visual flair helps, but most importantly, it will always be rewarding, with helpful and funny potions, discovery of effects, and color-crafting. 1. 2. |
| [50%] Combat | Optional progression track, but VERY important i'd say. Like adding guns to a sandbox factory game. The forbidden spice that will avoid making the game too passive. Simplified, you throw potions at monsters and harvest anything useful. Hopefully, you don't try to throw a strength + speed potion at an enemy. 1. 2. Receive effect / Apply effect |
Items And Crafting (10%)
| Mechanic | Reason: MVP Checklist |
|---|---|
| [0%] UI | Hot take. UI should be illegal, and developers should make use of any other alternative. Not only because I'm not good at programming UIs, but because it is just not a thing players enjoy (at least in this sort of games) 1. Options: Exit, Audio, graphics, key bindings, etc.. 2. Saved Games. 3. Hints / Tutorials / Notes. For accessibility 4. Collections of things found. This is great for incentivizing exploration |
| [30%] Items | Because duh.. 1. 2. Gamma of effects defined 3. Icons |
| [0%] Inventory | Inventories should be intuitive and self-organizing with minimum waste of time; that's what I tell myself every morning in the mirror. Inventories will be locked to only ingredients. To reinforce this, slots will be stored in crystal mini-terrariums, and their environment is a clue to what kind of plant and color is inside without looking, as well as its general amount if it's too packed with plants. Potions go in the belt around the waist. 1. Prototype 2. Store on crystal terrariums / close-up visualization 3. Self-reproduction |
| [30%] Drinking Potions And Hotbar | Now this is more controversial. For one, potions should be encouraged to be expended, but accidentally misusing them will be very annoying. To solve this problem, a (time-slowed) radial selector of potions to quickly grab from the belt, and hand-held ing is easier to warn not to be too reckless. Also, being able to action-cancel is a must. We'll see how this ends up first in practice. 2. Store on belt / Radial selection 3. Apply effects |
| [0%] Potioncraft | I've seen many weird ways to create potions. Me? I like to keep it thematic, an alchemical circle to mix reagents. Mixing any two ingredients might result in: 1. Effect Potion. Discover ingredient effects by experimenting; it also works as a mundane potion. 2. Mundane potion. No effects, but you can keep the color, which will play a role further ahead in development (deep-fog clearing, painting, watering plants, dying things, puzzles maybe?) |
| [0%] Accessibility | I'm gonna try to make it as accessible as possible. Mainly because this game should be very approachable for any non-gamer, it's more about the vibes. 1. Colorblindness is an obvious one 2. Alternative input devices / key binding 3. Subtitles / Voice-acting, if possible 4. Graphic tuning. For lower-end devices |
Interactive World And Support Mechanics (50%)
The game should feel alive!
| Mechanic | Reason: MVP Checklist |
| [100%] General Graphic Direction | Graphics are important, alright! I specifically started with this because it just plays a big role into the gameplay. Also, for a confidence boost, and to be able to show a nice thing 3 |
| [50%] Feedback On Every Interactive Thing | Can't go without the juice: 1. 2. 3. Drinking potions / |
| [0%] Dialogue | This will make the world less empty and drive the narrative. 1. Prototype 2. Talk to / Get talked to |
| [50%] Camera and Cinematics | This should stay at a minimum. Can't fit too many things: 1. 2. External camera control. For cinematic shots or crítical attention |
| [70%] Audio | Audio managers. Daisy-chained properties. Easy to debug and use. Already positioned spatial audio. Though web exports might have difficulty playing from many sources. Example: audio.play("music1", "music2").loop() 2. Global Audio Buses. |
| [70%] Movement Controllers | This is based on a CharacterController class extending into PlayerController, NPC, AI, etc.. So potion effects can be applied to every character 3. NPCController. Moves with AI inputs |
| [50%] Tools | Self-made or third-party tools to make things work: 1. GodotLandscaper. Self-made. needs maintenance |
| [100%] Scene Management | I'd rather start with an auto-loaded game or just start straight with a new game to avoid menus and UI altogether: |
| [10%] Emotes | What easier way to increase immersion than emoting? (especially if I'm not making the animations myself) Emotes are counted as states in the state machine: 1. Radial menu for emotes 2. Idle / |
| [0%] Save/Load | Players might want to save/load constantly in case they've misspent potions. So it's better to make a TES-like quick save/load 1. Editor-time placeholders loading. Like destructible things already in-game 2. Gameplay-time world loading. Like stuff that players place into the world 3. Gameplay-time resources stored in user data. 4. Diffs of game state for quick save/load. Not too sure how to go about this one :P |
Concussion
Let's see how off-track you go
So.. thanks for reading. This had to be written, or else.
Important, don't skip. Don't be fooled by my accountant-level document or my cool graphics, or my middle-shelf shader skills, or my awkward sense of humor. This is a result of many trials and errors. So you know, the first log I have from this game is from 2023, rebuilt the entire game TRICE, dropped development too many times. Currently, I've been in active development since June of this year, rebuilding the concepts from scratch and building the world for the first time. Guys I'm serious this time!
Not saying all of this to brag or anything, but to say "hey, this looks cool and all, but I'm not nearly as good at this as you"
I don't know. Ok bye!
Look at where we are now..
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