This blog post is a companion piece to my Slime Alchemist video review located here:
It’s not needed but I recommend watching the video before continuing reading.
A few of the main points I hit in the review
I came into Slime Alchemist expecting to dislike it and feel like I wasted my time. From initial impressions, it looks like a rough/hastily thrown together game. The art style is a little rough, the cards and UI design are big and clunky, at first glance, all the monsters and things going on in combat seems to blend together, and there's little to no noticeable variety at first glance with the world map tiles.
But after a couple hours of play my general opinion had changed, but my I still had no intentions to continue playing it after.
Like I mentioned in the YouTube review, I really like its approach to combat and card crafting. Most roguelike games have you defeat monsters and then pick from some random choices of cards after. They also have you climb up a Christmas tree chart taking different paths in order to reach the top. But not Slime Alchemist here you travel around an overworld following a red arrow that points towards your nearest boss and battle enemy slimes so you can use what they drop to craft new cards. I can also add to that and say its approach to enemies is fun. All the hat’s are fairly distinct in appearance once you get used to the art style of the game. So once you understand their abilities, it's easy to pick out what enemies can do what and how they will react to things on the field.
The most important improvement this game needs is a UI overhaul. It’s size and appearance don't fit well on desktop. It feels like it was designed mobile. It's big and awkward on desktop monitors. Thinking about it now, I should have checked if there were any UI scaling options. I don't remember if there were.
After the UI the next thing the game could use is some variety in tiles and battle maps. On the overworld most of the tiles look the same. It would have been nice to have even 3 different variations of battlemaps in each biome. It would change things up a bit and make for a more enjoyable long term experience.
What surprised me the most was it feels like a fairly well balanced game. But I also don’t know if it just feels that way because of how easy it is to heal between encounters. I don’t know if near the end of the game health tiles are less frequent, but for the first while you can easily find them.
It’s been a few days since I’ve written and posted the review and I still feel the same way about it then as I do now. I don’t see myself picking the game back up. While it brings some exciting and new elements to the roguelike genre, it doesn't reward you for any sort of investment. I'd much rather spend my time on a roguelike such as Roguebook with its modifiers you can apply to runs to help unlock new modifiers or Slay the Spire with its different classes and relics that you can unlock the more you play. Without progression and unlockables in Slime Alchemist, there’s no point to play more of it. I’d even go as far as to say it almost feels like the $12.99 Canadian is a bit too expensive for what it offers. Although it is half the price of Roguebook and almost a third of the price of slay the spire. If the developer was to add some sort of progression to the game that affected new runs more and more over time I would be open to picking it back up again. But other then that, I don't think it would matter if any of the other points changed or improved.
Have you had a chance to play 'Slime Alchemist' or any of the games mentioned like 'Roguebook' and 'Slay the Spire'? What are your thoughts on the progression systems and overall gameplay?
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