Fey the Potion Maker (Unity, Microsoft Visual Studio, Aesprite, Krita) - Sophia Shepherd (18), Wimbledon
A fantasy-themed puzzle game where you draw magical connections between ingredients to brew potions in your abode among the clouds with a family-focused story interwoven.
The player solves puzzles by connecting ingredients to make potions. The few rules and limitations of the puzzles require the player to go about solving each one carefully. A ‘recipe’ list indicates how many and what ingredients there are. Ingredients need a certain number of connections. Players place ingredients in active tiles on the grid and draw bonds to satisfy the ingredients’ requirements. Bonds also have limitations about where they can be made.
The puzzles gradually increase in difficulty as the player becomes more skilled and accustomed to spotting where ingredients need to be placed to allow everything to be connected properly. In this build all the potions are available but the released game would have the next potion locked until the previous is complete. Some puzzles have only one solution, whilst others also have many different solutions (I am always delighted seeing new solutions to the puzzles I’ve created!).
The mental approach to each puzzle can be different; sometimes it is worth carefully planning each move, and other times just placing ingredients intuitively and figuring out as you go is the best approach. My intention is for the player to be immersed in the puzzle and think deeply so that completing a step is satisfying. The game’s puzzles alternate between simplistic layouts with fairly obvious solutions and those with more intimidating, complex layouts.
Other than refining art, coding and sound that are currently in the game, there were many features that I had planned. I want the world to feel bigger, where you can exit the potion house and enter the cloud village - interacting with NPCs, making friends and learn their stories too. I would have added to the current story as well, polishing the cutscene art whilst delivering more character arcs for Fey.
