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[oahda]

Another good video with cool insights!

[Alain]

Another good video with cool insights!

Thanks, glad you liked it although it might be a bit dry

[Alain]

BATTLEJUICE ALCHEMIST DEVLOG:

Exploration and Maps (again)

Hey everyone!

I recently brought together a few systems that have been in the game for quite a while. I taught the world map algorithm to tell the procedural level generation system how to do its job better. This came with some changes to the maps themselves and hopefully makes exploration more interesting. If you want to find out more, you can watch a short devlog video here:

click GIF to watch on YouTube ↑ (2:51 min)

Please note that this is a preview and that all these changes are not yet on the public branch of the Steam playtest, which is still running. If you want to join, all you have to do is to click the "Request Access" button on the Steam store page.

Have a nice day and thank you for reading and watching!

Alain

[JobLeonard]

Nice

(the local fog of war is using placeholder graphics, right? The very visible square tiles of the fog break immersion a bit)

[vdapps]

Very nice! I see already, the OCD part of me uncovering all fog of war in every individual map as well as on global map.

Do you have some broad estimations for "howlongtobeat" BattleJuice Alchemist? Like rushed, average and completionist times?

[Ramos]

Congratulations !

Already saw the video since I am a sub on your channel


And congratulations x 2 because of your other recent achievement 

[Alain]

Very nice! I see already, the OCD part of me uncovering all fog of war in every individual map as well as on global map.

Do you have some broad estimations for "howlongtobeat" BattleJuice Alchemist? Like rushed, average and completionist times?

At the moment the fog of war on the local maps returns when you quit the game, so maybe BattleJuice Alchemist will not trigger your OCD too hard

As for the estimation of how long it will take to beat the game: The current estimation for a first playthrough of all three Acts is 20 hours. But you can spend a lot more if you want to reach maximum level or just farm for better gear.  A speedrun of the final game would be 90 minutes I guess. But as we all know, dedicated people can do incredible things, so maybe it will be a lot less. All the numbers are rough estimates, because all the future story content has yet to be implemented.

Congratulations !

Already saw the video since I am a sub on your channel


And congratulations x 2 because of your other recent achievement 

Thank you, there are in deed some bigger changes coming soon. I'll talk about that here in future posts

Nice

(the local fog of war is using placeholder graphics, right? The very visible square tiles of the fog break immersion a bit)

Thanks for pointing out that it does not look polished to you. I thought it was fine that the tiles were visible, but if it looks cheap, I will figure something out to improve the look. At the moment, the fog of war is just a more transparent version of the tiles. Do you feel like it looks cheap in both the world map and the local map? Maybe the others can give their input as well, I would appreciate that!

World map:


Local map:

[JobLeonard]

I never intended to say it looks cheap, sorry if I came across that way! Just that it breaks immersion

I think what causes that is mainly the clean square edges, which stylistically clashes with the rough hand-drawn look of the map. If the transition from between visible tiles and tiles covered in fog-of-war was a bit less sharp (so like a feathered edge in photoshop or GIMP, I guess), that would already help a lot. Maybe making the edge a bit ragged would help too (so not a clean line, but more like the edge of torn paper).

[Alain]

I never intended to say it looks cheap, sorry if I came across that way! Just that it breaks immersion

Don't worry, your input is very constructive and it was me who put the word "cheap" into your mouth

I think what causes that is mainly the clean square edges, which stylistically clashes with the rough hand-drawn look of the map. If the transition from between visible tiles and tiles covered in fog-of-war was a bit less sharp (so like a feathered edge in photoshop or GIMP, I guess), that would already help a lot. Maybe making the edge a bit ragged would help too (so not a clean line, but more like the edge of torn paper).

I will definitely work on that and the way you suggest it would be a quick and easy fix.

[oldblood]

As always your videos are super entertaining and well done. You pack in a lot of information in a short time frame. I second JobLeonard's suggestion of feathering the edges of the fog of war to help with the current lines which are a bit harsh and do stand out.

[Alain]

As always your videos are super entertaining and well done. You pack in a lot of information in a short time frame. I second JobLeonard's suggestion of feathering the edges of the fog of war to help with the current lines which are a bit harsh and do stand out.

Thank you, I'm glad you liked the video! Today I feathered the edges and it looks way better already. It doesn't stop to amaze me how I as a developer often cannot see the wood for the trees.

[JobLeonard]

Have you ever heard of the concept of the "missing stair"?

The missing stair is a metaphor for a person within a social group who many people know is untrustworthy or otherwise has to be "managed", but who the group chooses to work around, by trying to quietly warn others of their behaviour, rather than deal with them and their behaviour openly. The "missing stair" in the metaphor refers to a dangerous structural fault, such as a missing step in a staircase; a fault that people may become used to and quietly accepting of, is not openly signposted or fixed, and that newcomers to a social group are warned about discreetly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_stair

At the risk of co-opting an expression for a really important social issue for something comparatively trivial, I think programmers and designers have a lot of "missing stairs" when it comes to structural issues in programming, gameplay design, etc, except there it's more of a subconscious thing where we don't even realize we work around something (and then there's Vim, which doesn't have any steps, is actually a lubricated flagpole, and people brag about sitting on top of it).

I think little issues like this are examples of that.

[Alain]

Have you ever heard of the concept of the "missing stair"?

The missing stair is a metaphor for a person within a social group who many people know is untrustworthy or otherwise has to be "managed", but who the group chooses to work around, by trying to quietly warn others of their behaviour, rather than deal with them and their behaviour openly. The "missing stair" in the metaphor refers to a dangerous structural fault, such as a missing step in a staircase; a fault that people may become used to and quietly accepting of, is not openly signposted or fixed, and that newcomers to a social group are warned about discreetly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_stair

At the risk of co-opting an expression for a really important social issue for something comparatively trivial, I think programmers and designers have a lot of "missing stairs" when it comes to structural issues in programming, gameplay design, etc, except there it's more of a subconscious thing where we don't even realize we work around something (and then there's Vim, which doesn't have any steps, is actually a lubricated flagpole, and people brag about sitting on top of it).

I think little issues like this are examples of that.

I hadn't heard about the missing stair. It captures exactly what happens to me (and most likely many of us) on a very regular basis. I feel like my game has more missing steps than existing ones

Your metaphor of the lubricated flagpole made my day btw :D

[Igor Sandman]

Hey Alain,
I just discovered your devlog. Great game!
I dig the look of the maps. They remind me of old school paper rpg.
I'm going to keep an eye on you log.
Keep dropping the good stuff!

[Alain]

Hey Alain,
I just discovered your devlog. Great game!
I dig the look of the maps. They remind me of old school paper rpg.
I'm going to keep an eye on you log.
Keep dropping the good stuff!

Thanks Igor, glad you like the look of the game. I am a big pen & paper RPG nerd, so your comparison of the map to that makes me happy

[Ramos]

Having both local map and world map tells me you are aiming for a solid amount of depth to your game. Also, I like your map design, you can adjust the amount of content in a very constructive way with it.

[Alain]

Having both local map and world map tells me you are aiming for a solid amount of depth to your game. Also, I like your map design, you can adjust the amount of content in a very constructive way with it.

That is exactly what I was planning: There are 25 world map tiles for each of the three acts. But only 3 of these 25 tiles will have story locations at first. After release, I can easily add more locations with quests, they will just replace procedural areas of wilderness.

[Alain]

Hey everybody!

In December we had some of the most productive weeks since I started working on BattleJuice Alchemist. Alchemical Works grew from me as a solo dev into a small team. They are the best people I could wish for and I am thankful and proud to have them by my side. But there are challenges ahead of us. They are not minor ones, but I am looking forward to charge them head on. I think I will be able to talk about this in a less vague way in the future.

I wish you all happy holidays and hope you all get some good rest and recover from your own challenges of the past year. Thank you for reading this devlog and supporting me making the game.

[JobLeonard]

"Come gather around the fire children, and let me tell you a story"

Congrats on growing a small team and looking forward to the future updates!

[Ramos]