So In between making "real" apps to support myself I've been working on a new title called "The Alchemist" (somewhat a working title). Anyways the game is basically a tycoon type game where instead of selling lemonade or whatever you are the potion brewer for the town. This is somewhat a spinoff of my other Adventure To Fate games and is set in the same universe. The project is still in pretty early stages but I have the concept mapped out and the general framework of the game completed (it uses quite a bit of the ATF codebase). Anyways I wanted to start up a little development blog since the project seems far enough at this point and how much I value getting input from the users here since it really helps shape my games. Here is the initial gist of the game: You will be taking over the family business as potion brewer/shop keeper for a small town. While you wont be the hero your job is an important one! Instead of being the hero you will be providing potions for the heros that visit your town. Your responsibilities will be great: You will be doing things like gathering (to get the materials to brew with). You will be brewing (making potions for your shop). You will be selling (deciding which potions to sell in your shop). You will be researching (things like reading the paper, visiting the tavern, going to fortune tellers?) (research will tell you what potions might be in demand and whatnot). Buying/Selling materials to optimize profits. Anyways this is just a little gist of how the game will work lots of other cool things to come. Here is a little screenshot to give you an idea of the game setup. (note i have hardly worked on design at all so things could look completely different).
Hey guys sorry about the slight delay this is meant to be a daily dev log but I spent the last few days rewriting some of the inventory framework so there wasn't much interesting to share. Anyways along with the rewrite I've been working on game flow and I think I've landed on how the game will go. First off you'll start by gathering. You'll have multiple choices on where to gather potion materials each day and as you level and move on to different locations your gathering choices will expand. Gathering will be the prime way you collect materials to brew and then create potions with. An example of a gathering location might be the enchanted forest. As you gather and find materials the list of discoverable materials in that location will fill it self out. You'll have common rare and ultra rare type materials that you can find. Another thing about gathering locations will be risk. Some are not safe meaning you could be robbed and lose gold but those type of areas might have the best and most abundant materials. Hopefully this gives some insight on how I'll be designing this aspect of the game. No screens atm of this but will post them soon.
Ok once again sorry about the delay but ive gone back and reworked quite a few things so while ive been working on the project progress really hadnt gone anywhere since the last few days. On to the good news/development! So I have landed on how the actual core potion selling of the game will go (or atleast a good framework). After you have gathered your materials and brewed your potions youll have a set time you need to open the store at. Once the store is open you will have actual customers that come in and buy the potions you have stocked. Each of these customers will be based on real adventurers meaning you might get a knight who walks in or a mage or a ranger type deal. The demand for these potions will be based on what they are likely to use meaning that knight that walked in dont have much need for a mana potion but might pay more for a healing potion. this is a pretty general example but hopefully you guys get the idea. Im shooting to have tons of npc types and maybe even monster npcs that buy your potions depending on your shop location. The above all sounds great but theres not much strategy to it. Thats where research will come in as well as advertising and knowing your shop location. Research will allow you to perform certain actions to gather information about whats going on in the town. Maybe you read in the paper that there is a quest to slay the fire dragon. In that case it would be best to stock your shop full of fire potions for example. Anyways hopefully this gives you guys an idea of where I am going with the game. Sorry I dont have much more design stuff done im really just working on the game design and framework programming atm but things should move along a bit quicker now that I have most of that settled. Feel free to ask any questions or make any suggestions.
Ok back to regular daily posting hopefully. /fingerscrossed Anyways today I worked a bit more on the selling system as well as a few design things. So I added the pricing system which allows you to adjust how much you want to charge for a potion in your shop. Potions have a set price but if you think the demand is there you can raise the price to see fit or lower it to push old inventory. Purchases from the customers themselves will depend on of course how much money they have but also things like store reputation and the actual customers "need" for that type of potion. Things like advertising campaigns, Store location, Reputation and Store decorations will all influence the demand for these potions and how much customers are willing to pay. I feel this adds a bit more strategy and challenge to the game. On top of that I just did some basic Store redesigns from the old game. The below picture is where you would be purchasing Extra materials not where you are actually selling your potions. While the completed version might look nothing like this here is a small look at the shop with some design I'm testing now.
Potion upgrades! Today I spent most of the day working on the potion upgrade and research system. Upgrading / Leveling them up gives them better stats like yield, base sell price, lowers energy/time cost to create them. Example: Level 1 healing potion recipe: Yield 2-4, base sell price 10, time cost 1 hour, energy cost 10 Level 5 healing potion recipe: Yield 4-8, base sell price 15, time cost .5 hour, energy cost 5 You can levelup/upgrade 2 ways currently. You will naturally level them up by brewing potions for your shop but you can also level them up and find new recipes by investing time in experimenting. The experimenting process will be an optional activity you can perform after the sales day is over. There are a few different ones like research and marketing. I will touch on those a bit more indepth when i work on the systems. Again the design isn't really there yet but hopefully this paints a little picture for you guys.
Hey guys just a little progress update. Over the weekend I worked a bit more on the customer algorithm. Quite a few factors will go into which customers visit your store (again the customer really decides what potions are bought and for how much so they are an important aspect of the game). To give you a little idea of how these customers are selected it will be dependent on where your store is located, store popularity, the customers that happen to be in town during that time and any advertising you might be doing. So yea I am testing a few different combos of the above to get everything balanced but once I get this quite a bit of the framework should be complete and I can get started on more ingame content and some design stuff as well.
Hey guys just wanted to post a little update I've again been working on reworking some backend database stuff as well as rewriting some core code. Here are a few things I finished up over the weekend as well. Rewrote the character entity to include all new stats for the potion game (had been still based off ATF series). Fixed the final reporting so it just combines potion types instead of listing them all separate Make an array of names so that when types of npcs come in their starting name is randomized. Example: Bob the Ranger. (I plan on naming some of these after testers as a type of reward down the road) As character buy from shop it will now show in the combat log (things like which customers come in what they buy ect.) added popularity and reputation which will again take part in how many customers come in and how much they are willing to pay for the most part. Anyways more updates to come!
Over of the last few days I started building the experimenting system. This system is an after hours (after your shop has closed) activity that allows you to improve potions and more importantly discover new potions. While its still in its beginning stages it works something like this: You have a certain amount of energy left over after running your shop and you can choose what to do with it(research, marking, experimenting, etc). When choosing experimenting you are basically taking a gamble to discover new potions or improve old ones. Each player level you have a set of potions you can create at that level. At level 1 you might have a pool of say 6 potions you can brew and at level 2 maybe 10 and so on. You'll only start with 2 potions you can brew you'll have to discover the rest mainly through this task. There are different potion rarities as well common rare and special (the later will usually bring in more gold but be harder to find). Anyways this system has been a lot of fun to create and hopefully should bring some good strategy to the game. Here is a little sneak peak again mostly using filler for design but hopefully this gives you a good idea.
Just a minor update here. I've been redesigning some of shop summmary screens which are like the above. When you upgrade or learn a new potion you'll see the above. After your shop day finishes you'll see something similar displaying what you sold how many customers money made etc. you'll see something like this for brewing and gathering as well. I will post some screens once I get it all polished and working correctly haha. I've had some people ask about beta as well. I'm still atleast a month out from first beta but I'm glad to have ta people test. Feel free to drop your email here in this post or pm me and I'll get you added to the list. I'll probably be picking active people from this forum first. I know things are a bit a way from a game that even makes sense at the moment but I love ideas and suggestions. If you guys followed my last games they were heavily shaped by the community here.
Last night I spent redoing a bit of the core gameplay since it was a little bit confusing and not so straight forward. before you had 5 sections: buying (buy ingredients) ,brewing (brew potions) ,shop selling (sell potions), Gathering (gather ingredients), research (figure out market trends, find new potions to brew etc). In my head it was great but after play testing it was a bit confusing so I combinded all these into 3 sections. Youll basically have a pre hours shop open section, Shop open and selling section and after hours section. Here is a little break down of what you will do in each of these now. Brewing/Pre Hours: youll be able to brew 20 energy / 2 hours worth of potions (not really sure how to limit this and have it make sense to the player atm). I dont want players to be able to just sit there and nonstop brew potions so giving them a choice of what they want to spend those 2 hours and/or 20 energy brewing seems fitting. (there will be a buying tab inside the brewing section but I am somewhat on the fence about moving that atm) Selling/Shop Hours: Here you will equip potions from your inventory into your sale slots which customers will buy this isnt changing. Research/After hours: Here with your leftover energy you will choose 1 task to take part in depending on how much left over energy you have youll be able to put more into the task more energy means more outcome i guess. Gathering - Youll have different gathering locations you can unlock. they will have different ingredients some will have more risk and reward etc. Research - Youll have different research types this will tell you whats going on in the town and how to stock your store basically. For example you might choose to spend your time listening to tavern gossip to find out theres going to be a mages conference in town (you better stock up on magic potions!) Experimenting - This is how you will discover new potions for the most part and upgrade/levelup existing potions. Youll have a choice of what type you want to do experimental or practice one will find more new potions the other will upgrade current. Marketing - You again will have a few options that will unlock as you level up or buy new locations but this is just as it seems youll do marketing to increase your popularity meaning more customers. I might also do types of targeted marketing so you can attract certain clientele. Anyways hopefully this give you a little breakdown and is a bit easier for players to grasp compared to having 5 tabs you gotta switch back and forth between which wasnt very straight forward at all. You can see there should be quite a bit of strategy still but it should be much more simple.
Spent today polishing up a few things and finalizing some systems. I am still on the fence about a few things but figured I would share a little progress I have made. In the First Screenshot you will see the brewing page (maybe to be renamed "Pre Hours"). Basically this is when you are brewing potions for your shop. I am a little on the fence if I want to keep an option to buy all the ingredients you need. Another option might be if each day the shop will have limited quantities of the ingredients you need to put a bit more tactic into it. I could also make gathering a mandatory action at the start of every day so you always have atleast a few ingredients? Right now you can buy everything you need to create your potions and switch back and forth between the brewing tab and selling tab. So thats one thing I am playing with. In the Second Screenshot you will see the selling/shop screen this is where you will sell your potions this is pretty much set gameplay wise (it will have better design and animation as well but the core is there). In the Third Screenshot you will see afterhours activities like I talked about in a previous post. lots of fun stuff in there odds are you will unlock it as you level or make gold maybe youll spend gold to unlock not super sure yet. I should also be adding a disenchant option which will give you back a few ingredients for unwanted potions. The day system is working so im just testing atm until i get a good feel of what needs tweaked for the best gameplay experience. Next im going to work on the research (city events that will determine what type of potions customers will be buying) and also marketing (will improve popularity and attract certain types of customers).
