Novice Alchemist
Novice Alchemist is an explorative playground game. The player is placed in front of a cauldron, a table with ingredients, and a test dummy. The point of the game is to discover every potion and test them on the dummy in an experimental and exploratory manner.
Project length: 2 weeks
Year: 2021
Team size: 8
Engine: Unity
My roles: Level design, VFX
Design Goals
Experimentation
The player should be encouraged to try out different combinations of ingredients to discover potions.
Element of surprise
The potion effects should be a mix between classic effects and more surprising and funny ones.
Visual communication
The player should know what to do without having to read a tutorial.
Experimentation
To make it easy to find the ingredients, they were placed in view where the game begins. They were placed on a table next to the cauldron. The test dummy is also visible in the starting view.
Next to the cauldron we also placed a potion stand where the different potions would appear when discovered. All discovered potions can be used again and again. There is also a reset potion available from the start that will reset the test dummy to its original form.
Element of surprise
There is mix of different potion effects. Some of them are simple, like having the test dummy explode or inflate. Some are made to surprise the player, like having the test dummy turn into a cheese.
Visual communication
To the right side of the ingredients is a blackboard that has a list of all potions that can be discovered. There is also an illustration that explains what the player should do.
Each potion requires two ingredients. Too communicate to the player that they have put the first ingredient in, the bubbles in the cauldron changes color.
