Al the Chemist

Action Platformer

Al the Chemist

Collect all the potions to unlock doors. Use wall-jump to your advantage. Find the Elixir of life.

Controls

Works with keyboard and gamepad:

Left + Right: move, Space / B: jump/wall-jump, Left Shift / X: hit, Left Ctrl / A: shoot
R -restart
Q -quit

Link to Gameplay video!











Voting results

Overall
10th
56%
4.800
Graphics
11th
63%
4.900
Audio
9th
50%
3.400
Gameplay
5th
25%
5.900
Originality
11th
63%
4.300
Theme
13th
75%
3.400

This game entered in the Team competition (16 entries).

Comments (13)

Tylak
 • 7 years ago • 

Nice job. Wall jumping is the key to victory in this game! It took me about 20 minutes to figure out how to beat it (and I kinda cheated). GG ;)

HonestDan
 • 7 years ago • 

The wall jump is great, i didn't read the instructions so took a while to figure it out. Despite relatively basic graphics, they are well executed and the animations are nice. A menu system would be great to make sure silly people like me who try and use wasd to move don't accidentally quit with their chubby fingers!! Great effort.

DancingClownGames
  • 7 years ago • 

Thanks for the feedback guys! We are probably gonna make a post-jam edition of the game with menu system and some bug fixes and new levels.

HuvaaKoodia
 • 7 years ago • 

Infinite wall jumps! What a great idea: gathering speed, soaring in the air, defying all laws of physics; loads of fun for the whole family!

You can sequence break by jumping over the blue door to fetch the green key (yes I cheated too!)

Very challenging otherwise.

The design reminds me of a few good old titles such as Jetpack and Pharaos Tomb, thus I can deal with the crude graphics and audio. They evoke that retro feeling, but I will have to dock points for the lack of style.

Originality and theme also take hits. Alchemy does not really show up at all. It is a dude rampaging in a tomb trying to steal treasure; wielding ordinary weapons; dispacting snails and weird cultists. Not exactly A material.

So ah, it is challenging, i.e. fun, but everything else is somewhat off the mark.

O 5, G 5, A 3, G 10, O 5, T 1

DancingClownGames
  • 7 years ago • 

Thanks for the feedback, HuvaaKoodia!

Haoron
 • 7 years ago • 

Hi. You made a game in 2 days. Congratulations. But now to the point : 1) Why do i get increasing acceleration when jump on the walls? Is it a feature or a bug? 2) Level design has some good side and a bad side. I can shoot the 1st enemy in the left through a tiny hole. It made me feel smart. But the first enemy on the right shoots through walls( bug). It`s not obvious how to get to the last point, i felt boring. Less square corners. The level feels squarish? 3) Why do i have to kill an enemy by spamming the attack for 10 times? In what universe does it consider fun? Ok, why do hoodguys kill me oneshot if i come close to them? What do i need my healthpoints for?

Thats all my shitty critique

DancingClownGames
  • 7 years ago • 

Hi Haoron, thanks for the feedback! But why do you assume that everything is a bug? :D

1) It is a feature. How else you could get to the upper areas of the level? It's actually the main gimmick of the game. Chaining wall-jumps is key to victory in this game.

2) It's not a bug. Those pink magic attacks go thru walls and so does the blue bottles. Think of hammer bros and their attacks in Mario games.

3) This is the system we have chosen. Stay away from those magic attacks. Snails don't kill you right away.

mampee
 • 7 years ago • 

The gameplay was difficult to figure out at first. But after playing 4-5 times, you get to know things slowly.
The animations are nice and the player movement is smooth. I really like the idea of using walls for help.
Without understanding the main gameplay idea, it's difficult to play it.
Level desing was good and well arranged. Just one thing, my alternate keys don't work. The ones, you have listed above in the controls. This might be the case with my pc only or the mapping hasn't been done.
But besides these ones and twos, the game is fun and has room for post-jam improvisations. Keep Working on it!!

DancingClownGames
  • 7 years ago • 

Hi!
Thanks for your feedback =)
The alternate keys are meant for the xbox360/one controllers, so you can play with either one.
We are planning to do a post jam version.
You might be right that we should introduce the controls to the players more clearly.

automatonvx
 • 7 years ago • 

Pretty fun, the chaining wall jumps thing is interesting but feels a bit weird, sort of feels like its a bug even though its intentional, if it just looked different visually so it seemed more normal that would solve it, maybe if the character was using some kind of tool or was a creature that this would seem more normal for.
Didn't make it to the end, didn't get to any checkpoint so after a while having to repeat the same bits when you die gets too annoying. Obviously some music and some background instead of the black would be nice.
Overall good job.

IDidGame
 • 7 years ago • 

Man thats hard, but pretty satisfying to pull of a gravity defying jump and then quickly kill an enemy.
I just wish you would have gone for a couple smaller levels with increasing difficulty since getting killed and doing the whole thing over is pretty frustrating.

DancingClownGames
  • 7 years ago • 

Thanks for the feedback, guys! New levels are coming soon!

Jupiter_Hadley
 • 6 years ago • 

Interesting game! I included it in my compilation video series of all of the games entered in the Alakajam #1, if you’d like to take a look. :) https://youtu.be/QBXJYhpSjpA

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Links

Al the Chemist(.zip)

Author

DancingClownGames

Details