Idea for a game

An "Alchemist Rhythm Game".

Part of the game is going out into the world and collecting new ingredients. You can use your arsenal of potions to access new areas and unlock new caches of resources. Could work similar to the top-down Zelda games but also be "open world" so you can explore at any pace and order you want.

But here's where it gets interesting, your brewing station works like a DJ turntable. The brewing minigame portion works as a rhythm game and you have to time your actions to the beat. Each new ingredient works as a unique sample that adds to and changes this beat. Every new tool that you acquire for your brewing station expands your rhythm techniques as well, maybe even changing subgenre of music. Perform better, get better potions. It'd also be cool to see rhythm incorporated in minor ways throughout exploration as well.

If this already exists, I want to know!

Calling it a "rhythm game" would be inaccurately generous, but that's more or less the core gameplay loop of Fantasy Life. All of that game's crafting involves minigames based around timed button presses.

Also, it's not alchemy, but Weapon Shop de Omasse is a blacksmithing rhythm game. That doesn't have the facet of exploring to collect ingredients, though. It's also a digital-only 3DS exclusive, so finding out about it now doesn't help anyone.

Yeah, I know there's alchemy games like that, but seem to be more inspired by Cooking Mama? I'd just love to see it stylistically done from the perspective of music production.

Salrite posted...

An "Alchemist Rhythm Game".

Part of the game is going out into the world and collecting new ingredients. You can use your arsenal of potions to access new areas and unlock new caches of resources. Could work similar to the top-down Zelda games but also be "open world" so you can explore at any pace and order you want.

But here's where it gets interesting, your brewing station works like a DJ turntable. The brewing minigame portion works as a rhythm game and you have to time your actions to the beat. Each new ingredient works as a unique sample that adds to and changes this beat. Every new tool that you acquire for your brewing station expands your rhythm techniques as well, maybe even changing subgenre of music. Perform better, get better potions. It'd also be cool to see rhythm incorporated in minor ways throughout exploration as well.

If this already exists, I want to know!

Physicist cooking game where the probability of creating chain reaction to burn upper stratosphere is never zero pororin.

This has almost nothing to do with your game idea, but have you heard of battle chef brigade?

It's a beat em up of sorts where you hunt monsters and make meals from what you gathered.

The meal making is a puzzle game. It's such a cool game.

green_dragon posted...

This has almost nothing to do with your game idea, but have you heard of battle chef brigade?

It's a beat em up of sorts where you hunt monsters and make meals from what you gathered.

The meal making is a puzzle game. It's such a cool game.

Isn't that just the concept of Dungeon Meshi?

I've never heard of dungeon meshi until now, but i guess so?

make it a roguelike and Ill buy it

NephalimTechno posted...

make it a roguelike and Ill buy it

As described, a roguelike wouldn't fit, but it could pretty easily be adapted into a gameplay loop like Recettear or Moonlighter, in that you alternate between dungeon diving to collect materials and a crafting/commerce phase where you put them to use to acquire upgrades. That would ultimately just be treating alchemy as a different flavour of gear crafting, though, as opposed to building the game around the concept more uniquely.

We all want our indie games to be massive open world, but before you attempt that, I recommend taking the isolated main feature of the game and get that done first. Then think about open world things.

It's a ton of work, especially if you are learning at the same time.

It's not a rhythm game, but Potion Craft on steam is sorta similar? your ingredients determine how far in any direction you can go on the large crafting map, and where you end up is what you make. how much you process an ingredient determines how much of its potential you draw out, and whatever nodes you pass along the way determine what sub-effects the potion will have

very good game

Yellow posted...

We all want our indie games to be massive open world, but before you attempt that, I recommend taking the isolated main feature of the game and get that done first. Then think about open world things.

It's a ton of work, especially if you are learning at the same time.

True, but "Open World" is a pretty broad term that can mean a lot of things, especially these days when it's such a common aspect of so many games. Technically you could consider Zelda 1 an "open world" game because you can explore in any direction granted you have the right equipment to get there. As opposed to Mario where you're just going right towards the end of a level.

In my head when I was thinking of the idea, I was more thinking of Link's Awakening anyways. But leave it fully open so that you aren't necessarily gated from major areas until "endgame" and you can technically collect the right ingredients and tools and brew the right potion to reach them at any time. Although, maybe a bit of gating for minor stuff would be good too to give you a sense of progression. Much like a Metroidvania.

Really, the music production aspect is what I'm most focused on. Of course music is something that's very subjective, but utilizing music theory, there can be some things that could be quantifiable and grading a track based on certain principles could be possible. And might make for a good teaching tool for this as well.

Salrite posted...

True, but "Open World" is a pretty broad term that can mean a lot of things, especially these days when it's such a common aspect of so many games. Technically you could consider Zelda 1 an "open world" game because you can explore in any direction granted you have the right equipment to get there. As opposed to Mario where you're just going right towards the end of a level.

That's not really a controversial take - Zelda 1 basically is a prototypical "Open World" game.

You can go anywhere right from the start (no "broken bridges" or locked doors), but you do have "beef gates" that discourage you from going certain places. You can still do many dungeons out of order (so it's not a full "Metroidvania" where you need to collect specific items to unlock the next dungeon), though there are certain ones where you need to use a specific item to unlock a path (the raft for one, the flute for another, the candle for the last one).

Zelda 2 is closer to a Metroidvania, because you basically need the Candle to get to anything beyond the starting area, a bunch of palaces require spells to enter or beat, the raft and the boots to cross water, and the flute to summon the last palace - so you're much more funneled into doing everything in order (though you can still sequence break a bit if you want).

Most open world games aren't " unrestricted " open worlds. There's almost always deliberate game design choices mean to subconsciously influence you into going specific ways or nudge you away from certain areas. Whether that's something like Skyrim having an NPC encourage you to go to Riverwood (and from there on to Whiterun), games where some areas have stronger enemies than others, or even games that are more like a linked series of separate open worlds (either with transitions like Baldur's Gate 3, or with broken bridges like the GTA 3 games).

Or even the way most modern massive world survival/crafting games seem to do it, where crafting is limited by resource availability, and resource availability is usually locked behind defeating certain bosses, so you wind up in an "upgrade gear/defeat boss/upgrade gear" loop.

Yes, which is why I immensely appreciated Breath of the Wild for how it truly gives you complete and total freedom after the "tutorial" section. It understands the concept of a true open world game, from the gameplay mechanics to the pacing to how the narrative is presented. You essentially know your goal and how the plot has played out in the past and will progress in the future from the start of the game and are presented with more context on this throughout your journey. And there are no real roadblocks or impassible segments. Any obstacle due to lack of experience or gear can be overcome with clever tactics or easily acquirable crafting materials. But at the same time, this doesn't render those upgrades obsolete as it just gives more options. All concepts that are entirely lost on the majority of games claiming to be "Open World".

adjl posted...

As described, a roguelike wouldn't fit, but it could pretty easily be adapted into a gameplay loop like Recettear or Moonlighter, in that you alternate between dungeon diving to collect materials and a crafting/commerce phase where you put them to use to acquire upgrades. That would ultimately just be treating alchemy as a different flavour of gear crafting, though, as opposed to building the game around the concept more uniquely.

no

do the work and make it a roguelite