The light and calm background music is really good, and loved the character!!

Thanks @mampee. Looking for advance my art skills for the future. ;)

Quite cryptic to me. Let me explain: the idea is very original and good.
Doing a kind of snake when you have to explore several place is for the least original.
However, having nothing to counter the attack make it hard if you don't take the correct path directly.
I found it hard to understand excatly how to improve my path. Maybe leaving a trail of previous path…
I don't have any good idea to improve it. Maybe make is faster or timed…
You delivered something and that already great :)

This is a charming entry for which I have mixed feelings. It is clearly made with passion and packed with ideas, but also quite clumsy in its gameplay. It's interesting though in how it manages to blend elements from a lot of genres, and in particular from the survival genre, while still being a mostly arcade game.

For me, the main things that don't work are the controls. Using snake-like movement is actually a great idea, but in practice it is frustrating because it makes it hard to avoid obstacles. I'm not exactly sure but it seems like the movement takes place on tiles, however the grid is never visible, which means we can hardly know when the character will actually turn. Because of that turning doesn't feel very responsibe. A bigger issue though is that the environments themselves don't align with those tiles: that means that in some places, I can easily get game overs because a path that seemed safe touched a little bit a tree or a rock.

The pace and difficulty progression could use some improvement as well. I think the game would be more exciting if the map was smaller, and if there was some difficulty progression, for instance in the formulas we made (eg. the first formula only requires 2 ingredients, but no water to avoid enemies for starters). I haven't managed to finish the game, but as a first bonus I expected a way to fight those enemies back, instead of just health.

What I found really clever though is the way you built an item picking & inventory system of top of the snake gameplay. I really liked entering places & exiting them with an item that starts following me :) I see a lot of potential in that, especially for puzzle-oriented stuff!

Otherwise the art is reasonably good (I especially like the fire animation), the music is nice and the minimap was a great little detail. The light humor was also welcome. In the end, technically it's great work, but it's difficult to enjoy a game when the controls themselves get in the way. With some refining there's definitely a solid gameplay to be found.

Thanks @wan great feedback and info for a future jam.

I found time management to be my biggest barrier to getting the game 'done'. I had big ideas… and had to cut corners along the way. Next time, I will start smaller, and build UP!

My goal was totally to mix some gameplay/genre's a little; just bit off more than I could chew.

@bombjack thx, very much seeing now that while I myself could see/feel the controls… it was a bit vague for anyone else to see/feel them. As @wan suggested, even tho I didn't want to us a 'grid', in this situaiton it probably would have been better for gameplayers.

Saw this played on gamesplusjames stream earlier.

I think the mechanic of dying when you clip with a fatal object can feel unnatural when you're game is in the perspective it's in. Because you should be walking behind trees etc, rather than bumping into them.

Really enjoy the snake-esque idea, adds extra dimension to the challenges - despite an idea we've seen on nokias many years ago!

Hi! We played your game with Danae on this twitch channel, and now the video is available on YouTube. Feel free to check it out :)

Danae plays: The Rise of Magnus Jr

I agree with what others have already said about the grid/controls. I do like the blend of genres though.

Also would like to add that I like most of the graphics, though the style is a bit inconsistent.

I like the music, but some of the sound effects are a bit harsh; try reducing the volume or applying a low-pass filter next time to make them less jarring.

+1 for control issues. It is super annoying to first gather multiple materials and then lose them all hitting an invisible wall! It should be obvious which tiles are passable and which are not, in other words use a tilesheet instead of these freeform assets.

The visuals are adequate while the music does get on my nerves. The minimap is too mini to be useful. The idea is original enough and even slightly thematic, although I don't really know as I never got to deliver all the materials to the alchemist…

The effort is there, but the outcome is not quite up to standard due to the movement issues and general lack of polish.

O 4, G 5, A 3, G 3, O 5, T 3

Really interesting game! I included it in my Alakajam #1 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. :) https://youtu.be/wEu1KZRTQq8