Alchemist

Alchemy in a game jam is about turning simple things into surprising outcomes through experimentation, transformation, and discovery.  The Alchemist is an isometric maze chase—collect keys, dodge bombs, and find the purple flowers.

You are a problem-solver who experiments to unlock new paths. Your goal is to find the purple flowers.   Flowers represent culmination and refinement and purple implies the final stage of transformation.

Movement 

(Arrow Keys  or  Q E Z C)

Pick up fire if you are standing on it 

( Space Bar )

Place the fire or the bomb that you are holding.

(  Space Bar )

Place the fire, bomb, or orb you are holding on an adjacent empty space.

( T U B M )

Select Objects for Use  

• Bomb (5) 
• Feather (6) 
• Fire (7) 
• Key (8)

Essentially, you are a character in a maze. Your goal is to complete the maze by reaching the purple flowers without being blown up by the bomb enemies that are pursuing you. In addition to the BOMB theme image, I've also used previous jam images of the Cat, Feather, Key, and Fire.

The Key obviously opens blocked pathways, Fire deters bombs from following the shortest path to reach you, and the Feather gives you a birds eye view of the playable area.  If enemy bombs follow the path and hit your placed bomb tile, they die and the bomb blocking the pathway becomes a useable tile to travel on.  These features alone should be enough for some interesting puzzle challenges.

The level editor simply allows you to put a variety of tile object types on the grid and gameplay commences based on that. You can toggle the level editor mode by pressing the back-tick key, then other keys (such as 1,2,3,4,#,$,-,=) are used to change the tiles that are at those locations.   While in level editor mode, use Control + S to save and Control + L to load.  Use Control + I at another time to export/import that data.  If you share that data with others, they will be able to import the level you create.

You use the Arrow Keys or Q E Z C to move (Isometric/diagonals). Additionally you use T U B M and the space bar during gameplay to place items you are holding. (There is a lot here, but feel free to give it a try).

No game engine, just HTML, JavaScript and HTML Canvas. 

RATING CATEGORIES:

• Gameplay
• Graphics
• Audio
• Theme

⭐ Bonus Categories

• ⭐ Most Marvelous Wizard - Best character design & animation of a character wearing a wizard hat.
  • Not wearing a hat, but uses previous alchemy asset (cat head)

• ⭐ Most Creative World - Unique and imaginative game world, environmental storytelling, background art, etc.
  • Puzzle Platformer that engages player with 'bomb, fire, feather, and key'.
  • Traverse maze, avoid bombs and use items to help you along the way.
  • Fire on the path deters enemy bombs from following their A* algorithm to find you.
  • Feather gives you birds eye view.
  • Bomb will block your path but destroy enemy bombs pursuing you.
  • Keys will open locked pathways.

• ⭐ Most Memorable Gameplay - Engaging, challenging, fun, or addicting game loop!!
  • Includes level editor.
  • Includes multiple levels that get harder and more challenging.

• 🍞 Kuro's Homemade Bread Award – Best game made from scratch without an engine!
  • No engine used, just HTML and JavaScript using HTML Canvas element.