Lock and load, partner - this ain’t your grandma’s puzzle game. Get ready to throw down with a whole mess of enemies using tactical combos, explosive elemental attacks, and enough strategic firepower to make General Patton proud. This game’s a non-stop, freedom-fueled brawl through a dungeon dripping with danger and opportunity.
The Alchemist's Handbook is my fourth go at a game jam - and just like a good ol’ American road trip, it’s all about the journey and the horsepower. This all went down in Hanover at the SAE Institute, but the spirit of innovation we brought? 100% made in the USA (well, spiritually). My ride-or-die dev buddy Theia joined me again, and we teamed up with a few all-stars from previous jams:
Hai Lam returned with her artistic sharpshooting skills, Luke brought the Unity expertise like a tech-special-ops soldier, and we had another artist, Koa’Rynn, helping blast out visuals faster than a bald eagle diving for prey. Jonas was supposed to join us with his all-American music chops, but sadly, he injured his hand in a tragic twist of fate - like a true hero, he stayed on the roster even though we went in silent. That’s loyalty. That’s grit.
We pulled together one heck of a game - and sure, it’s tough as a steak cooked rare over a campfire, but that’s what makes it great. You gotta earn that dragon fight, cowboy.
Idea
This jam’s theme was "Curiosity", but instead of the obvious cat references, we took a page from the American explorer playbook and made it about discovery. Like Lewis and Clark storming into the frontier, our alchemist dives deeper and deeper into uncharted territory, driven by a thirst for knowledge - and the courage to face whatever monsters might be lurking down yonder.
It’s a dungeon-crawling, card-slinging RPG where you fight wave after wave of enemies using combo attacks - tactical enough to satisfy a West Point graduate, and wild enough to make a rodeo clown sweat.
We hit the theme of curiosity through:
- Good ol’ trial-and-error to figure out enemies' weaknesses
- Mixing attacks like a backyard barbecue buffet - all sorts of spicy combos
- And a narrative full of bold ambition - this ain’t just some nerd with a book, it’s a freedom-loving fighter chasing truth at the edge of the known world
Combat
I’ll be honest - I’m proud of this sucker. Combat is lean, mean, and gets the job done like a double-barreled solution to a single-barrel problem. You only face one enemy at a time because complexity is the enemy of freedom, and we didn’t need extra fluff.
You’ll be going toe-to-toe with:
Goblin ➜ Skeleton ➜ Elemental Mage ➜ The Big Bad Dragon
Every one of ‘em tougher than a two-dollar steak. You’ve got to beat each to reach the next. If you see that dragon, you’ve earned it like a true warrior.
Elemental Attacks
This game packs six types of damage into its arsenal - that’s right, SIX, just like a fully loaded revolver:
- Slash
- Stab
- Bash
- Fire
- Ice
- Volt (that’s lightning, baby)
Inspired by games like Persona and Etrian Odyssey, but infused with the rugged American spirit of choice. You start off with three random cards (kinda like drawing your starting hand in poker), and after every fight, you pick another - like choosing your weapon before a good ol’ Texas standoff.
You can:
- Collect all types to be the Swiss Army knife of freedom
- Or double down and upgrade one type until it hits like a tactical nuke
And we don’t just fire one bullet - combos let you chain attacks. Freeze ‘em, then smash ‘em? You bet your stars and stripes that does extra damage. Every combo feels like a choreographed explosion at a Fourth of July firework show.
We even threw in status effects like burn, freeze, and paralyze - real shock-and-awe stuff. Might be a bit buggy, but hey, even American muscle cars stall once in a while.
Accessibility
Here’s the thing: America doesn’t leave anyone behind. We believe in access for all, whether you’re playing on a laptop, a phone, or a smart fridge.
- My first game was Windows-only with controller support. Great for hardcore gamers, but a hassle worse than TSA security.
- The next two games were web-based - smart, efficient, and Mac-friendly (but keyboard-only).
- This time, we went full-on mouse-click controls so even folks on mobile can jump into the action - no install, no downloads, just pure, unfiltered, liberty-packed gameplay.
Lessons Learned
This jam was an education. Like basic training, but for devs.
We learned how to layer sweet, sweet attack animations over our turn-based system - shoutout to DOTween, which is basically the duct tape of Unity. I focused on UI animations while Luke tackled the big guns: elemental attacks flying across the battlefield like missiles of justice.
But things weren’t always smooth. Fireballs missed, objects glitched, animations froze harder than a Montana winter. When Unity buckled under pressure, we had to dive under the hood and fix it like mechanics at a NASCAR pit stop. Sometimes, the animations soft-locked the whole dang thing. That’s game jam life - hold on tight and keep coding till the wheels fall off.
Lesson learned: next time, I’m building a system with fail-safes tougher than a Fort Knox vault. Timers, animation finishers, backups - no more soft-locks on my watch.
Also, we didn’t have time to fine-tune the difficulty. So yeah, it’s harder than a boot camp obstacle course - sorry, Hai Lam, your dragon might not get as much screen time as it deserves. Next jam, we’ll frontload the fun so everyone gets a shot at the final boss, like the true American dream.
Final Thoughts
We didn’t hit the “curiosity” theme as hard as we could have, but man, did we make a game that kicks tail.
The combat system? Sharp as a Bowie knife. The animations? Smooth as Tennessee whiskey. This might be my last jam for a while, but I’m damn proud of what we built.
So grab your mouse, load up the game, and unleash freedom on this dungeon one glorious click at a time.
God bless indie devs, and God bless your playthrough!