Hi, Welcome to the Dev log for the student game project ‘The Alchemist apprentice’. Unfortunately This small game was a 5 week project designed to teach basic RPG Design. I was heavily influenced by the pokemon and Zelda era of hand held games so I sought to try and emulate some of that childhood magic in my design. This screenshot is the small town that you wake up in, and by talking with the residents you find all about the hidden secrets of the town. The goal of this small game is to find all the ingredients that your master needs and survive you first day as his apprentice. Talking with the residents will help you find out what they need, in order to barter for their ingredients, or to help you out with your quest.
The Swordsman Woods
One of the first things that players will run into the guard blocking off the area to progress. He won’t let you near unless you have acquired the sword from the swordsman who lives deep in the woods. This section here is a small gauntlet that the player will need to run through in order to get to the swordsman. The enemies are pretty simple AI, they just want to chase the player so the player will just need to run away from them. The little brown cliffs will help the player run on the way down, these are designed to be one directional cliffs that can be jumped down, but not back up. Later on when the player grabs the sword, he will be forced to kill his way back to the main town.
The Alchemist’s Basement
The Alchemist’s Basement was a very fun puzzle to make. The idea is that you need to follow one distinct path noted by Red, Blue, or Green tiles from the start to the end in order to get to the final room. The idea was to keep the concept very simple for this projects time constraints, with the option of evolving it to a full blown labyrinth later down the line. The player can grab the items from each of the last rooms, and they will unlock certain dialogue options or items that people trade with you.
The Magic Woods
The player will again be blocked on their path to find ingredients and only by talking with the woodcutter will you learn that he hasn’t been able to keep all the purple trees in check. There are worms that are blocking him from doing his job so he is tasking you with removing the problem. If you kill all the worms he will rewards you with the technique to cut down the purple tree. When you finally get the technique to cut down the purple trees you can adventure to the magic woods. The purple tree roots have grown unruly and are blocking so you need to cut down the main tree so that the roots will retreat.
Toad Mountain
The Toad’s mountain is the final challenge of the game the player will enter into the mountain and will need to cut down the trees to progress, this level is haunted by undead skeletons that will infinitely revive themselves after the player manages to collapse them. Once the player manages to navigate through the level the player will need to defeat the mountain toad in order to obtain its eyeball for your master.