Idle Alchemist
Idle Alchemist is a potion crafting game with idle game progression mechanics. An endless stream of potion-thirsty customers with various ailments enters your store. As you earn gold, you may purchase upgrades, pets, and craft 33 different potions. You create potions through randomly generated ingredient recipes and determine their possible stats through the game's simple crafting system. As you unlock more powerful recipes, crafted potions become ingredients, and their stats affect the outcome. The result is a crafting system with a healthy balance of randomness and determinism.
Solo Dev
Progression
Crafting
Unity Engine
Project Length: 4 Months
Role: Sole Developer
Type: Personal
Contributions:
- Programmed all of the game's features using C#
- Designed and balanced the progression, crafting, and economy
- Conducted weekly playtests with a focus on new player experience.
- Maintained a consistent work schedule to meet strict personal deadline​
​​Project Design Goals:
- Create a game with interesting gameplay arcs lasting over 100 hours
- Demonstrate skill in designing progression systems, and crafting systems within a narrative framework
- Succeed in developing a game within a genre I have little interest in.
Detailed Info
Crafting System
Philosophy:
- "Best" is different for each player.​
- The more powerful the potion, the less Idle the potion
- Bad potions exist
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Desired Outcomes:
- Players experiment with different settings at different stages of a playthrough
- Players are occasionally dissatisfied with crafting results, and they try again
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Crafting Example
Major Design Decision: Volatility Mechanic
Volatility represents the chance a potion will stop functioning when it sells. It requires a click from the player before it is up and running again. Volatility increases with potion power, which is controlled by players during creation.
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- Allows players to decide how Idle their gameplay experience is
- Provides meaningful decision making during crafting
- Adds a vector of potential dissatisfaction with crafting results
Code Sample </>
Potions as Ingredients
Major Design Decision: Potion Mixing
At higher levels players may use potions as ingredients in their creations. The healing value (green number) is additive so that the end product is always more powerful. The cooldown (white number) and volatility (red number) are averaged, however. This makes potions with "bad rolls" taint finished products.
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- Some potions are better than others within the crafting system
- Players craft potions specifically to be ingredients
- Mixing is immersive within the narrative framework
Progression
Philosophy:
- Linear gains with exponential costs (Generally)
- Visible aspirational content
- The best upgrade changes depending on a player's progression
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Desired Outcomes:
- Each play session is rewarded with an increasingly large period of idling
- Upgrades feel rewarding and gratifying
Crafting Tree
Major Design Decision: Domain Levels / Limited XP Upgrades
Idle Alchemist's primary time gate are three different Domain Levels. In order to progress to higher tiers, they must first get all three domains to a level threshold. The first threshold is level 5. The last is Level 500. There is a single, extravagantly expensive upgrade which increases XP gain.
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- Requires players to Idle in order to progress
- Enables short, medium, and long term goal setting
Aspirational Content
Major Design Decision: Pets
Pets in this game are functionally similar to the other upgrades in the game. However, generally speaking they have more qualitative effects and are much more expensive.
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- Hints the game's progression arc to players early on
- Testing proved paying 1 Billion gold for a unicorn is more digestible than an invisible upgrade
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"I will pay any amount of money for that unicorn!"
-Play tester