Feedback

[Eonie]

Discovering the mechanics

I do like the core concept of the game, but there's a lot of but at different stages of the game. There was some confusing things, some were cool discoveries, like things drying or rotting, but i still don't know if there's a way to remember what plants will rots, which will dry, and for how long. I would like a kind of journal to note those kinds of things for me, if they are constants.

In the other hand, having to buy the mortar and the alambic to know what they are used for was not so cool. They are powerful tools, especially because they can prevent things from rotting, but paying 50 golds for an unknown tool that is not immediately useful is a hard gamble to take.

How time flow

The flow of the game is kind of off, i don't know if i can accept any quest or if i will have penality for accepting quest then not completing it, that left me taking quest only when i was sure to succeed, and because it can be really random to have the right amount of Burn without Poison taking the main spot, i started many days without any quest, just waiting for the first ones to appear.
I get that passing days are important, because apprentice are paid, and ingredients evolve. But i think quests should not be part of the same cycle. I would probably like it better if they all had a timer as soon as they become available, and i could just pin them to keep a better view. I would be less afraid to accept them, and i would not even be encouraged to wait the very last moment to accept quests.

Also, when a new location come up, suddenly all the quests are for this new location. This is kind of a bummer at the start because my precious ingredients, gathered with love in the last location, have all the time in the world to rot away. It become less of a problem with good preservation, but it's not really clear when i need to pay another apprentice and another location to be sure to have what it take, and when i can just go with the flow.
I would have liked to see less effect, and more overlap between locations, so i could hope to finish some of my last order in the new locations, or use my old ingredients to finish new one.

When the order start again to use all the location, the game become a little too much. Having to remember where i can find that speed or burn effect make me wish again i could have some kind of memo. It can also feel even more random, i have to find the right effect in the right quantity in multiple locations. It become harder to find the right ingredients, and to finish order. I did not really had gold problem, and i could pay 2 apprentices at the same times, but it took me longer and longer to find what i needed, trying more and more combination to find the right one.

On that note, i was somewhat confused by how numbers added in a stack. Took me a lot of times to understand that they were multiplicator, and i am still not sure to be sure of how they add up when i have a stack of more than 2.

Too much to handle

So, 7 days in, i have 3 locations i can use, 2 apprentices working most of the time, my mortar and my alambic working at all time, and my desk is SO cluttered.
That's the main issue i have with the game. For every coming order, i had to pause the game, look at every one of my [too much] ingredients to look if i could finish this order or not. No way i could sell things, i was already struggling to finish enough order to pay my apprentice(s) because the order were so hard to do ! In the last day, i could not even afford to pay a new forest when half of the order where asking me for a speed effect i no longer had.
But really, the randomness feel ok, the quantity of things i had to check on my screeen to understand if i could or not finish an order was not, especially with those order when you realise you have 1 defence too much and can't finish that terror/defence potion.
If there's more locations to find, more mechanics to play around, and more way to transform the ingredients, i fear the game will just become too much of a bore to play.
I really need, and would be okay to pay gold for, some kind of box and drawers to organise everything. Sure, moving the cards on the screen and seeing my stack bumped away by a new one that was just found is part of the fun, but it was just too much for me.

And a few more things :

Would have liked a better feedback on how much worth it is to add ingredients to better match the order.

It's cheaper to fire an apprentice and buy it back than to pay his salary, except if he have a pickaxe.

There is no way to see if an apprentice have a pickaxe or not.

I could extract an extract in the alambic for no effect.

I could crush an extract with the mortar to enhance its side effect, then extract it, crush it, and again, enhancing its stats each time.

[KAJOO Games]

Hello eonie,
Thank you very much for your feedback, your interest made us happy. We have read everything you said and we will think about what we can do.