Apothecary by huf0001
Apothecary. You have some patients and some herbs. Figure out what works for what symptom, and try not to kill anyone.
Books: click on them to open them, click a page to turn the page, and click outside the book to close it.
Patient files: click on one to open it, click herbs to prescribe them (you can add as many of each as you like), and click the file again to close it.
Click finished when you’re done prescribing herbs and see how you did. Then you can close that book and have another go with herb uses you discovered updated in the herb book.
Update 1: one of the team members noticed a rather large bug when playing it due to a missing folder of files in the build. Included that, recommitted it, and updated the links.
Update 2: swapped the GitLab and Google Drive links for itch.io links. Also provided description of how to play the game above.
| Windows | https://huf0001.itch.io/apothecary |
| Source code | https://huf0001.itch.io/apothecary-source-code |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/apothecary |
Ratings
| Overall | 967th | 2.762⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1003th | 2.333⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 398th | 3.286⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 934th | 2.643⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 858th | 2.714⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 849th | 1.947⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 561th | 3.262⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 24🗳️ | 19🗨️ |
Books: click on them to open them, click a page to turn the page, and click outside the book to close it.
Patient files: click on one to open it, click herbs to prescribe them (you can add as many of each as you like), and click the file again to close it.
Click finished when you're done prescribing herbs and see how you did. Then you can close that book and have another go with herb uses you discovered updated in the herb book.
Dr. Mario would be an excellent apothecary.
Making you find out through trial and error was what we were going for.
Overall: Had lots of fun playing it!
While I understand the idea of the game is about trial and error, purely having random guessing through trial and error alone doesn't make a game fun as it isn't very engaging. Most players wouldn't have background knowledge on herbs or what they do, so perhaps some text on the herbs, and hints would actually make it based on players' intuition and reading skills and actually be more rewarding/fun to match the herbs to the illnesses. This is just my opinion though!
I'm not sure if there was supposed to be a strategy to the treatment of the patients. I ultimately resorted to just selecting every herb and giving it to every patient just to unlock the all the "answers" in the treatment research book to avoid the trial and error as I figured that was the fastest and most efficient way as the only other way was with random guesses.
It might also be possible for the UI to be improved as it isn't very intuitive to navigate. At the start, I was looking for the close button at the start to close the book when it told me to, but eventually I think I could just click outside to close it.
I didn't really feel the use of the theme strongly but nevertheless good job on making the game and I hope that you continue to make more games in the future! :)