Version 0.8.1 - GitHub updates are back!

Hello to anyone that might be following us here! We're terribly sorry for not updating our releases more often, as you might know we have released the game on Steam so our focus has been on writing our release notes there. Going forward we'll try to keep updating here on every version too.

These are some of the most important changes that happened since the last release (the full comprehensive list can be found here):

• Added new sound effects and made tweaks to existing ones
• Balance tweaks:
  • Nerfed Nimble Homunculus, Toxic Oozeling, Frwnph, Scorching Ignium
  • Buffed Executioner Okoth, Giant Everfrozen Craggium
  • Reduced damage of reagents on fire
  • Reduced reagent requirement for the following recipes: Lesser Smokescreen Tonic, Greater Smokescreen Tonic
  • Reduced mastery threshold for recipes that destroy reagents
  • Swapped memorization level 1 and 2 rewards and lowered level 1 threshold
• Several bug fixes:
  • Fixed saves being lost
  • Added missing translations and fixed a lot of typos
  • Fixed the invisible shield bug
  • Fixed boss battle event crash
  • Fixed random tool tips appearing out of nowhere
• Added more screen size options
• Made poison damage go through evasion and explained it better in its tool tip
• Added a button to skip tutorials
• Add particles to map nodes
• Add discord and steam buttons to main menu
• Added a system to visually overhaul the game during seasonal events

Version 0.7.0 - Early access release

This version encompasses all the features we wanted in order to release the game on early access. We'd be happy if those of you that can support us by buying the game in one of the stores below will do so, but even if you can't we're still thankful for your support!

Link to our game in stores:
Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1960330/Alchemia_Creatio_Ex_Nihilo/
Itch.io: https://space-paca.itch.io/alchemia-creatio-ex-nihilo
Humble Bundle: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/alchemia-creatio-ex-nihilo

Important changes

Fixes

• Fixed weakness not ticking down;
• (Hopefully) Fixed "invisible" reageant on bag glitch;

Improvements

• Several balance changes;
• Faster autocomplete animation;
• New memorization system separated into tiers;
• New animation for main menu;
• Added command line argument options;
• New options tab: Accessibility;
• Option to enlarge some UI texts;
• Confirmations for leaving a battle without taking rewards and starting a new game while having a saved one;
• Colorblind filters;
• "Turbo mode" that makes some animations faster;
• New cutscene for beating the game;

Full Changelog: v0.5.1-alpha...v0.7.0-beta

Version 0.5.1 - Balance and Bugfixing 🐛

This release consists mostly of fixes to bugs and problems we received feedback about now that the game's demo is out on steam. As always, for a comprehensive list of changes check the list of commits since the last release at the end of this post.

Important changes

Fixes

• Fixed issues when toggling a recipe's favorite state;
• Game no longer crashes when killing a splitter enemy or other enemies that spawn on death;
• Fixed some enemies not dying when they were supposed to;
• Fixed game crash when fighting a virulyn prickler;
• Fixed game crash when trying to transmute beetle reagents
• Fixed glithces when combining while holding reagents
• Fixed restrain status;

Improvements

• Several balance changes;
• Better miscombination analysis;
• New backgrounds for the resting place and gameover screen;
• SFX changes and volume tweaks;
• Better visual feedback for favorite buttons

Full Changelog: v0.5.0-alpha...v0.5.1-alpha

Version 0.5.0 - Steam Page + Demo Release 🕹

With this new release we have finally created a Steam page for Alchemia, check it out!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1960330/Alchemia_Creatio_Ex_Nihilo/
On our page you can also download the demo version of the game.

Alongside massive amount of polish we've been adding to the game (and a lots of improvements thanks to all of your feedback), we have now replaced the placeholder visual effects for the battle scenes with our own spectacular effects 🎇 Hope you enjoy all the effort we are putting in the game, and as always. any feedback is more than welcome 💜🧡

We're having issues exporting the game to Mac because we lack the equipment to compile our own export templates, but we'll try to deliver it soon! 🍎
Edit: Updated with osx build.

What's Changed

• New VFX for battle effects
• Greatly Improved performance on map screen
• Polished UI all around the game
• A ton of visual tweaks and a few bugfixes

Full Changelog: v0.4.0-alpha...v0.5.0-alpha

Version 0.4.0 - Graphics overhaul ✨

We've been working "secretly" since our last release to bring you a lot of graphical improvements, most importantly the new wonderful animations done by our artist Licínio, and it's finally here! This will bring more character to each enemy and make tougher battles seem even more memorable. This brings us closer to what we envision a finished 1.0 version of the game would be, so bear with us as we reach the final steps of our journey!

What's Changed

• Spine animations for all enemies
• New reward screen
• Added screenshake to several gameplay aspects
• A lot of UI improvements and tweaks
• New SFXs and BGMs all around the game
• Improved map screen, including better exploration aestethic
• Improved events with unique images
• Improved shop and reagent smith with new and "voiced" dialogues
• A ton of bugfixes and a few balance tweaks

Full Changelog: v0.3.2-alpha...v0.4.0-alpha

Version 0.3.2 - 💫 Publisher Ready 💫

Follow up patch considering latest feedback, we now reached a point we are confident in start reaching out for publishers and anyone that wants to financially help our project! Thank you all so much that helped us until here, and we hope you stick around a while longer with us <3

Summarized changelog:

• Game is now completely translated!
  • This includes translation for all enemies and a few other UI elements we missed. If you find anything not translated, please let us know!
• A few bugfixes regarding visual glitches with tooltips
• Better transitions and improvements on several screens
• A Master Volume slider in the settings
• Improvements on UX, such as speeding up some texts when clicking (useful in events or endgame stats for instance)

Complete changelog:

• Translated "Choose Target" label
• Added Master Volume slider
• Tweak on resume button and miscombination text
• Fixed recipe book opened when finishing a battle
• Fixed bag visuals on tooltips + translated "empty" text
• Fixed tooltips bleeding from post mortem endscreen
• Blocking "apply button" on progression screen when animation is active
• Visual improvements on treasure screen
• Add transition when battle ends
• Fixed cascading tooltips and keywords in any language
• Status tooltips shows value on them dynamically!
• Clicking on animated texts on dialogues speeds them up!
• Some internal refactoring of enemies names
• Improvements on icon for exports
• Better visuals when the players kills itself on endscreen
• Translated all enemies names!
• Improvements on miscombination reagents animation

Version 0.3.1 - 🐞Bugs and Typos🆎

A small patch addressing recent feedback from our playtesters. Thank you so much for all the help so far!

Complete changelog:

• Added option to remove map fog to improve perfomance for some specs
• Game autosaves more often
• Fixed mastering memorized recipes
• Fixed favorite button appearing on mastery message
• Fixed recipe book button appearing on map screen before completing the tutorial (fixing a certain softlock in the game)
• Fixed compendium not appearing on main menu after unlocking it
• Fixed tooltip sizes
• Fixed brazilian portuguese text spilling out of text box in the shop
• Fixed mortal&pestle artifact not healing with preserved beetles
• Translated all enemies intents
• Added new images for event artifacts
• Improved "destroy reagent" text on shop
• Disabled paused during events to avoid saving/loading problems
• Better crop on map tutorial
• Fixed a few typos on both english and brazilian portuguese

Version 0.3.0 - Muita coisa 🇧🇷

This is the biggest release we have ever worked on, a result of 6 months of hard work on the game, and finally we are approaching the final release of Alchemia: Creatio Ex Nihilo.

This new release contains pretty much all content and mechanics we planned for the initial release of the game, and it has a huge list of new features and updates, so it's a crucial point to get the game played as much as possible by our playtesters and get feedback to push the game into those final polishes and bugfixes, so we can focus on the final shipping. Please, help us out in these final moments, and help us make Alchemia a better game!

Summary of changes:

• Saving runs!
  • The game now saves your progress so you can Save & Quit and resume playing another time
• Progression system!
  • You can now unlock content while playing the game, including new recipes, artifacts and map encounters
• Localization!
  • Our game is now 95% translated into brazilian-portuguese, and everything setted up to add more languages in the future
• Compendium system!
  • Stores all recipes you've discovered during runs, and your individual progression for each recipe
  • Memorization system, where if you use the same recipe multiple times in multiple runs, you'll eventually "learn" it
  • Must be unlocked with the progression system ;)
• New events!
  • More than 10 new events that can appear through the game
• Overhaul balance and new content!
  • Including new recipes, artifacts, reagents and balances on encounters
  • Refactor of autocompleting and favoriting recipes, combined with the progression system
• New art on several places!
  • Including map screen, shop screen, artifacts and much more
• MANY Bugfixes!
  • Every bug found by our playtestes, and including some we found ourselves, has been fixed!
  • (But since we added so much more to the game since last release, let us know if you found anything buggy)

and much much more. A bigger and almost complete changelog is below!

Extensive(ish) changelog:

• Fixed "entering shop" crash
• Added save and load system for runs, being able to exit even during battle to continue another time
• New continue button to continue events
• Backing up saves in case something goes wrong
• Improved camera movement on map screen
• Fixed bug when interacting with recipe book in the laboratory
• New events (about 12) created
• New reagent: Preserved Beetle
• Fixed bug with recipes dependecies
• Improved text on multiple target spells
• Permanent and Temporary Strength buffs no longer affects miscombinations
• Better transition texture
• Several new artifacts, including some exclusive for certain events
• Fixed muted volume to actual be muted
• Fixed artifact tooltip collisions
• Fixed tooltip for bags and reagents
• Added compendium, storing known recipes in-between runs
• Memorization system for creating recipes
  • Using the same recipe in runs will eventually "memorized" it, allowing it to be created automatically in future runs
• Finished naming enemies
• Overhaul on favorite and auto-completing recipes
• More consistent favorite system for recipes
• New endgame scene, showing stats, progression, and much more!
  • Stats saved on the run
  • Progression system, where the player earns points to spend on unlocking content
    • Content can be recipes, where you add more recipes to the recipe pool
    • Content can be artifacts, where you add more artifacts to the artifact pool
    • Content can be new locations on the run, such as the laboratory
    • Content can be new events, that can now appear during runs
    • Content can be other features, like the Compendium
  • Progression on the memorized recipe list
• Blocking pause on sensitive moments
• Forcing first battle on new players
• Different maps for different floors
• Adding timer for runs, useful for speedrunning, and can be toggle on the settings screen
• Added shiny animation to artifacts in some screens
• Better main menu displacement of buttons depending on game state
• Translation of the game!
  • Overhaul on all game text to accomodate translation csv import
  • Almost all text translated in the game, this includes:
    - All UI elements
    - Reagents
    - Recipes
    - Tutorial
    - Descriptions for everything
    - Events
• New art of artifacts
• Balanced a few recipes, including penetrating damage build
• Fixed dim light bug on battle
• Fixed player info tooltips
• Nerfed dodge enemies
• Fixed overruling on start-battle artifacts effects
• Fixed drain tooltip
• Fixed some typos
• Improved dialogue on smith and shop
• Shop screen now implemented with new art
• New revamped loot screen after winning a battle
• Darker loot screen
• Fix being able to master more than one recipe in rest
• Add backdrop to rest recipes

Version 0.2.1 - Quality of Life, Bugfixes and Rework on Floors 2/3

As the name suggested, this patch is focused on a lot of quality of life improvements and bugfixes after the feedback we got from the lastest BIG release.

We took a big step in that release, since now we have an increased number of testers that are helping us, which means the game is now being tested in more OS and different screens, which turns out our game wasn't fully optimized for. We hope this not-so-small patch has a big impact for our new playtesters!

Summary of changes:

• Revamped options screen!
  • Better resolution and screen options
    • Hopefully each player can find a settings configuration that works in their computer
  • Custom shortcuts
• Several quality of life improvements including, but not limited to:
  • Passing the turn with reagents in your grid will just remove them instead of passing the turn
  • New shortcuts for passing the turn and combining (contribution by @manuelpuyol, thanks!)
• A lot of changes in balance, including:
  • Tweaked attributes for ALL enemies in the second and final floor
  • Improved some higher grid recipes
  • Improved rest screen "study" option
  • New recipe: Hypernova (grid 4x4, deals 200 damage)
  • Tweaked some artifacts rarity and effects
  • Much more!
• A LOT of bugfixing, including:
  • UI fixes, such as Event screen or tutorial overlaps

Extensive(ish) changelog:

• Fixed tutorial shader bug
• Hovering and quick casting reagents during tutorial disabled
• Fixed the "unknown reagent" bug
• Properly highlighting the keyword "heals"
• Clicking on "pass the turn" with grid not empty won't pass the turn, and instead will clean the grid
  • Hopefully there will be less accidental passing of turns
• Improved poison tooltip to better indicate it's effect
• Balanced floor1 dodge enemy
  • Now it hits more, dodges less
• Fixed size issues on events, regarding overlapping buttons and text
  • Now with failsafe scroll bar
• Balanced hole event chances
  • No more easily getting 1200 coins
• Improved some fonts size for better readability
• Balanced all enemies in second and third floor
  • Mainly making them tankier and stronger, sometimes balancing a few actions
  • Trying to better match the difficulty curve on the first floor, making these floors more challenging and fun
• Divine Protection status now just stops damage after the final hit, not including the one that triggers it
• New Hypernova recipe that appears only on the final floor
• New shortcuts to pass the turn and combine recipes, all thanks to @manuelpuyol, our first collaborator!
• Tweaked tutorial screen dimensions
  • Improved shader to use internal screen size, so it should now be consistent in all monitors
• Rest screen now has a better UI overall
• Rest screen study option revamped, now you discover and master any recipe you choose
• Added checkboxes and other new UI classes for our theme
• Blocking pause on sensitive parts of the game to avoid bugs
• Map tutorial now waits adequately to start to avoid bugs
• Map Revealing artifact moved from uncommon rarity to rare
• Resized baby retaliate enemy
• Resized enemies healthbar
• HP text bigger
• Added tabs to options screen
• Added video options to set fullscreen, borderless and window size
• Added controls options so customize shortcuts

Version 0.2.0 - Alchemia: Creation Ex Nihilo & BIG Release

The BIG release, both in size, and in preparation for our submission to the Brazil's Independent Game Festival.

Summary of changes:

• Name of the game!! Finally we settled on a name, Alchemia: Creatio Ex Nihilo (Alchemy: Creation From Nothing)
• In-game improved Tutorial! Making the game more accessible for newcomers
• A LOT of improvements in accesibility and readability, including new fonts and UI rework
• Added audio controls on pause screen
• Added placeholder art for all statuses, artifacts and recipes
• Smoother and more polished transitions
• Add all elements missing from player info and recipe book, including artifacts and player's reagents
• Clicking on an incomplete recipe will show a hint to better guess the recipe, both during battle and laboratory!
• Improved all screens, including shop, reagent smith and event encounters, closer to the final desire state

Extensive(ish) changelog:

• Better map reveal animation
• Improved map background
• Updated map icons
• Added file manager infrastructure, saving players setting and profile information
• Replaced all game fonts with new ones, one for readability, and one for style
• Tweaked sizes and placement of labels all across the game
• Better highlight of reagents when hovering
• Added layers to the book to better fit recipe tags
• Added in-game tutorial!
  • Plays the first time you open a game, for each specific scene
  • Saving progress on tutorial
  • You can reset tutorial progress on options menu
• Improved several button's collision mask
• New dodge sfx
• Added feedback to recipe display buttons
• Added a gameover transition
• Added transition between all screens
• Added left part of recipe book when outside of battle
• New placeholder icons for all status + bg for status bar
• Clickable reagents now have tooltip
• Improved reagent smith screen with balloon text
• Balanced a few enemies on floor 2 and 3
• Added audio controls on pause menu, saving players choices
• Fixed enemies idle sfx not stopping after returning to menu
• Added disabled version of buttons
• Added pause button to main menu
• Tooltips now have better formatting and highlight for image
• Name of the game!! Alchemia: Creatio Ex Nihilo
• Title screen with game logo, although not final version
• Improved event screen with new buttons and better placeholder image
• Showing hints in with incomplete recipes, both in battle and laboratory
• Added player info to recipe book left page
• Added players reagents to recipe book left page
• Showing players' reagents on player info
• Added button to open recipe book on player info
• New placeholder images for all statuses
• New placeholder images for all recipe icons, appearing when you favorite them
• New placeholder images for all artifacts, uncolored for now
• Shop speech bubble improved
• Added speech bubble to reagent smith screen
• Resized final boss images
• Added splash scree
• Added game icon (although it doesn't seem to work consistently in all OS for now)
• Added animation to title screen
• Changed "deck" tag to "bag"
• Removed ugly effects and improved some with fadeout
• Improved visibility on floor label
• Fixed tooltips leaving screen
• Fixed map wobbly glitch