Owlchemist
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About
Owlchemist was made for the 2024 Pirate Software Game Jam. It's a 2D precision platformer about an alchemist who was kicked out of his tower; your goal is to take it back!
Credits
null_ham (Ben Holland) - Programming & Design (Twitter)
ajtheapple (Aden Holton) - Artwork & Design (Twitter)
synth mints (Snowy) - Music & SFX (SoundCloud)
Download
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Development log
- Post Jam BuildAug 17, 2024
- Full Jam BuildJul 31, 2024
Comments
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2006 TOYOTA COROLLA
wait.. SHADOW WIZARD MONEY GANG? HERE!? NOW?!?!?!
Owl: "i should install an elevator"
Never knew I wanted to be an Owel Chemist. This game is full of awesome surprises. What a treat to play. Excellent intro. Love that you can change key binds! Good sound effect and music. The tutorial in the first level is really well done. The art is pretty good, and the game design is brilliant. Overall, a great experience. Keep making games!
They really got the Shadow Wizard Money Gang in this lmao
THE MUSIC IS SO GOOD HOLY SHIT IT SOUNDS LIKE DR MUSICCC HOLY PEAK
so talented
The controls are responsive and snappy and the gameplay is nicely fast paced. I also appreciate the pun for a title! Good work!
"Press Z to cycle potions." nope, Z throws, V cycles.
cool but the movement was a bit wered on the keys
Pretty good for a jam game! Neat showcase of different ideas. The Super Meat Boy levels of platforming bull detract a lot from the game I think.
very fun concept and I love the platforming and art
Nice. Only thing is I think on controller the button is wrong for opening doors. It says X but its actually Y you have to click. I am using an XBOX controller so I guess I also mean the top face button.
Great job ! I really like the pixel art
lovely work !
Love it!
The story is funny but the owlchemist is way too bulky that he can just take damage without dodging and still get to the next checkpoint. Maybe that's because it is his tower after all.
(Also X being jump and Z being attack confuses my muscle memory.)
Overall funny game where you can destroy anything,
Owlchemist is very stronk/10
Owlchemist being comically overpowered (both story and gameplay) is so funny
Controls are a bit uhh NO but the game is prety fine.
the instruction to press "V" to cycle through potions is displayed as "Z"
Cool game tho
i had to check the settings to know that, cool.
+1 had to rollface my keyboard to find the right key
We love casting spells. :)
:)
This game was NOT sponsored by:
The shadow goverment.Such a brilliant game. The movement can be as fast or slow as you want it. The abilities you have are fantastically integrated so you can do many things with such few controls. The music is magnificent. And that story is just straight gold :D
I think the challenges need to be rearranged. The middle part with all the instadeath followed by shooters you can mostly tank makes the difficulty curve look more like a bell.
This is INCREDIBLY polished, wow. Music, sound effects, the mechanics are solid and the game is SPEEDY. Really really good.
Really cool music and art. I absolutely love the inspiring and upbeat tune of the intro and the first few levels. I bet there is more music later that's just as amazing. I didn't finish it myself because the puzzles are a bit too hard for personally (haven't even finished Hollow Knight lmao).
I watched Fixel001's speedrun for the story and I hope the Owlchemist can defeat the bank--I mean the shadow money gang now that he freed his tower!
Wonderful game !
I tried speed running this game (with potion boost mechanic) and it was amazingly well done. You can see it here
Now for some feedback:
Pros:
1) The unintended mechanic that saved the game
Potion boosting in the tutorial tells you to throw the potion upwards and jump as it lands. This mechanic however is inconsistent and hard to time right, making some of your jumps higher and some lower. HOWEVER THERE IS ANOTHER WAY TO DO IT !!! Intentional or not, you can throw you potion downwards and have max boost every time !!!
What's more you may ask ? What if i tell you you can skip a whole section of a room in under a second ? Yes, yes you can with diagonal boost ! Simply walk and throw your potion down at the same time and you will be launched diagonally. This mechanic alone made the game WAY more fun and utilizes the most unique part of the game (potion boost).
Still want more you say ? Well, adding on top of the diagonal boost, how about a horizontal boost ? Simply cancel you upward momentum after a diagonal boost and you will be launched horizontally .
I personally don't think that these two mechanic is intended to be included by the devs, but it completely turned the game upside down from a slow and boring platformer to a fast paced high skill celling speed running game and is in my opinion, the mechanic that saved the game.
2) Decent level design
Levels don't feel repetitive, despite diagonal / horizontal boosting (which i don't think was a intended mechanic), each room felt fun and unique.
3) Banger music
Despite repeatedly restarting the game and having to listen to the music over and over again, it does not get repetitive and i enjoyed every beat ! (My favourite is the ending / credits music, it just fits so well !)
Cons:
1) Enemies have pointless existence.
Enemies feel like they are there just to watch you zoom by, and are overall just pointless since you can just skip / ignore them. I would suggest removing them.
2) Poison potion
This ties to my first point, which is there is no reason to use this potion. Enemies don't drop loot or any rewards and most enemies are just alone, so there is no real appeal to using this potion in combat given its main strength is AOE damage.
3) X for jump on keyboard.
This is self explanatory and whoever decided that X is jump + unable to bind them to other keys
have a special place in hell just for themshould consider binding jump to spacebar4) A very annoying bug (invincible potion)
Sometimes when throwing a potion, it plays the animation but the potion is not thrown (invincible). Its really demotivating to have a good run ruined by something that is out of the player's control.
5) Lack of speed running tools
Where is my restart button >:(
Timer does not reset after a 2nd run, and it just starts off where the previous run left off.
6) Poorly coded potion boost
when you throw your potion upwards, it detects collision of the player and explosion and will always boost upwards even if the potion explodes above the player.
When throwing the potion horizontally, it detects collision of the player and explosion and will always boost towards the direction it was thrown at, even if the player is standing to the left of the explosion, it will boost the player to the right if the player throws the potion to the right.
Overall, although there are some bugs / changes desired here and there, this game is still amazing and got me hooked trying to get a good run. GG !!!
Thank you for the video! Now the parkour-challenged can also enjoy the story :P
For some reason the spikes teleport me very far away so it's hard to make progress
Beautiful work. From the art, to the music, to the playability (I developed some serious speedrun vibes in some parts, which I love in a platformer).
I also liked how some of the features sometimes worked in our advantage and sometimes not, like the springs and the potion of explosion.
Congratulations!
Good game. Very fun to yet yourself with the blast potion
Awesome game! You should all be very proud of what you accomplished here! Best of luck with your future projects!
Amazing game! I love the music, the art, mechanics, comedy, everything!
Great game, very fun! Super impressive to get this much done in such a short time, and the levels feel very thought out and crisp for only two weeks, not counting time to get the mechanics themselves working. Super good job.
Really nice game, Toyota Corrolla best character!
Magnificent, only thing that could be added is fullscreen
The music, art, and level design went OFF!! You guys did amazing!! It felt like I was playing a fully published game. The music felt very Undertale and the comedic aspects in this were unexpectedly wonderful. I can't believe I got Corolla'd.
Seriously looking forward to if you guys continue development on this. I had so much fun blasting up into space by holding down with my Explosion potions!
I like how you can just destroy everything you see with little cutie :3
ILOV TOYOTA COROLLA! THAS THE MOST RELIABLE VEHICLE!!!!! INSANE GAME BTW THE MUSIC IS SO CHARMING!!
REALLY GOOD!
Love the name (go puns!). The music is a bop and the sound effect on the title changing depending the direction was really slick. Taking damaged and getting set back felt really bad and the key binding was a little weird. The destructible environment was a nice touch, too.
The movement and feel of this game ARE AMAZING!!! really made me want to play more and more until the finish.
The potion throwing felt a bit off sometimes and caused me to throw it the wrong direction multiple times, but that did not make the game unplayable.
This game peaks with it's quick movement and the entire game revolves around quick thinking with tight movement, my only wish was that the boss fight also incorporated that same quick movement in some way rather than spamming potions to defeat the big bad. Maybe you'd have little combat segments and running segments where the boss is untargetable and throws a flurry of swords at you as you need to platform to dodge them all?
Still really liked this game and hope to see more of it!
Thanks Toyota