Brief updates

It's been about a week since I started this blog, so it's time for more info/ updates/ screenshots.

Last time I blogged that I would be covering exploration and NPC conversations in a future post.

This is that post.

Alkahest's isometric world is divided into little floating chunks like this...

The Alchemist's home village, where his adventure begins.

As you progress through the world and learn new potion recipes, your ability to navigate the world improves. (Of course, it's that basic principle behind "metroidvania" style games.)

There are basic "gates" that keep certain areas unavailable. This is evident from the very first puzzle, where the bridge to the other side of town is missing, and you need to use the available ingredients to craft an ice bomb, freeze the river, and cross.

In the first area outside of your village, you come to a crossroads.
Notice in the bottom of this area, a unique mix of floral and fungal ingredients for the plucking.

In the previous post I mentioned the Reinforcement Potion and the Ether Potion... There's the Ironbell and Mandrake we need to make those..

Let's try taking them and going north to Capriel's Tunnel.

There are bad guys in our way! But also lots of rubble between us and them. Rubble is the base environmental object for a number of stone-based transformations.

Like these golems and boulders we've used to separate the alchemist from these enemy soldiers. After all, the alchemist's fashionable vestments wouldn't hold up well to those weapons.

If the golem doesn't take care of them, the alchemist can throw some Ice Bombs and viles of Alkahest at the enemies to finish them off.

Now the path to Capriel's Tunnel is free!

 Sick of looking at grass and trees yet? A new type of environment awaits within...

In the world of Alkahest, tunnels like these connect disparate environments. At the other end of this tunnel, you may find yourself in a Tundra, or a Desert, or perhaps a rich Oasis.

Okay, spoiler alert, it's a Tundra.

On to conversations:

Here's a screenshot from a small, un-released project I made for fun a while back. It's an 8-bit adventure game. "Adventure" in the classical sense, where it's primarily a story and text-based game.

Note the branching dialogue options.

I've ported that system nearly identically into Alkahest.

Obviously, as a one-man team, I can't match the depth and scope of Planescape: Torment or Mass Effect, but those and similar games were big inspirations for the branching dialogue trees. This feature of Alkahest gave me a chance to put my creative writing degree to work.

Stay tuned for some screenshots of branching dialogue in the next post.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for following Alkahest!