Abigail's Apothecary is a puzzle game that tasks you with providing potions for customers. You will need to create the potions they desire from a limited pool of vials and ingredients.

  1. Deliver the right POTION to the CUSTOMER. (Click & Drag)
  2. Mix one VIAL with one INGREDIENT in the CAULDRON.
  3. SCROLLS represent future orders.

Note: Pressing the PLAY button starts you on level 0, which has more resources. Beating a level takes you two levels in advance. This was clearly an oversight, so I would encourage you to start by pressing PLAY.

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  • Jupiter Hadley
    Lv. 13

    Very nice idea! I included it in my compilation video series of all of the GM48 games, if you’d like to take a look. :) https://youtu.be/UEdGTFt7opw

  • Fachewachewa
    Patron

    It's a really cool idea, but I think maybe you should have limited ingredient to either color or shape, the complete randomness is kinda disorienting.
    Apart from that, art and sound are pretty good :)

  • Problematicar
    Lv. 37

    Definitely not my kind of game so I won't criticize the gameplay, but i can say that both art and sounds were done really really well.

    Universe T
    Submitted

    Universe T

  • Veralos
    Lv. 38

    I understand the concept (certain vials/ingredients make certain colours/bottles and you have to figure it out through experimentation) but I really found it hard to wrap my head around what was going on. I think the main issue it that it's hard to remember all the combinations you've already done. It would be nice for the game to keep track of the potions you've made or vials/ingredients you've used in some way to alleviate this.

    The visual style is really nice and gives the game a nice magical sort of feel. The music and sound effects are also good and help to support the mood. The voices are okay but they can get a bit repetitive. Perhaps they would work better if there were more possible lines for each action? It could also help to accompany the lines when you do something wrong with an error noise to make it more clear that you messed up.

    • Scott Richards
      Lv. 21
      Scott Richards Developer of Abigail's Apothecary

      5yrs ago

      I really wish we had done something to give better indication. I had no clean solution at the time, but perhaps completed vials could have shown the ingredients when highlighted. It would have given pre-placed vials a lot more purpose as well.

      Good criticisms on the sound, we did have several lines per action, but it was really apparent that having them cycle instead of playing one of them randomly would be ideal. I think we could have done a lot to make things more clear in terms of audio/visual feedback. Thanks for the feedback!

  • Kwis
    Lv. 67

    When I figured what did what, I was screwed the next game where the rules were reversed (ingredients for shapes instead of colors). The problem, aside that the components have a limit, is that it's difficilt to remember what does what. For an actual game, it's fine, but for a jam game, I'm not sure I necessarily want to go through that effort xD

    Aside that the game was fun and the sounds were funny (Whoops, buttery fingers)

    EDIT to further my feedback:

    People always play at random at first because they don't know how the game works at first (only you do). So our first tries will never be scientific (unless the game really pushes you to). So I fiddled around first, then did the scientific approach. But I'm not fond of using my memory and really don't want to note it on a sheet of paper neither, like most players. So it felt a bit too effortful for me. Having an easy mode can ease this a lot, where each combination you tried is revealed to you. That helps people like me who's strength isn't memory.

    • Scott Richards
      Lv. 21
      Scott Richards Developer of Abigail's Apothecary

      5yrs ago

      It's interesting to watch different people approach the game. The first level has 5 of each ingredient and vial. I thought I was making it too easy, because 5x5=25 so the player can literally mix each vial with each ingredient to make every single resulting potion. In practice, when watching people play, they took a much less scientific approach than I had expected. You raise some valid concerns about the rules shifting in subsequent games, at least on the first level I should have made it static to help people learn how it works.

      Thanks for the feedback!

  • Panda-K
    Lv. 17

    I enjoyed solving the puzzles and understood what was going on right away, but maybe the first level could have each ingredient add an icon to the edge of the grid to help people who are struggling?

    It sounds like you are aware of the level skip glitch, but I had a good time going through out of order nonetheless.

    • Scott Richards
      Lv. 21
      Scott Richards Developer of Abigail's Apothecary

      5yrs ago

      I'm happy to hear this clicked with someone. The icon idea is an excellent idea for teaching. I thought the game was very straight forward, but in watching family and friends play the results varied greatly. Thanks for the feedback!

  • AceOfSpad3s
    Lv. 3

    Nice sounds and art, well done, the problem is the gameplay, interesting idea but it's a little bit hard to understand and this affects negativly fun.

    • Scott Richards
      Lv. 21
      Scott Richards Developer of Abigail's Apothecary

      5yrs ago

      I think you are right, I did a poor job of helping the player understand the puzzle. When designing the game it is easy to think things are intuitive, but in reality a lot of that is warped by the first hand understanding of the game. Thanks for the feedback!

  • Fin_Nolimit
    Lv. 6

    Sound effects were awesome!!!! Who ever did you voice over sounded very believable for the role of selling potions.

    Everything did seem very random. I tried to catch patterns but found none. Are the potions all randomly generated or is their an actual pattern?

    Nice work and concept!

    Trials
    Submitted

    Trials

    • Scott Richards
      Lv. 21
      Scott Richards Developer of Abigail's Apothecary

      5yrs ago

      Hey thanks, it's my wife's voice, she also did the art. She will be happy to hear that!

      SPOILERS As far as how potions are generated, yes there is a pattern. Completed potions have a shape and a color. There are 5 resulting colors and 5 potion shapes. The potion shapes or colors will always be contained within a single row or column. For example the pink potions will all be in a row or column together. Vials from the ingredients table relate to either color or potion shape. Same thing for ingredients, all of them relate to one of the qualitys. Try using one color vial against two different ingredients and you will see either the shape or the color is the same. This pattern is changed with every reset, but the principles remain the same. So mushrooms could produce pink one game and triangle potions the next. Which is why it can be difficult to discover how it works without being a bit scientific in the process.