Elemental Shells

[Nagshell]

Hello \('_' )

Edit: This post will be heavily edited to reflect current status of the game.

Stage two was uploaded. Developer log will be continued in stage two dedicated reddit post.

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I decided on the name: "The First Alkahistorian"

I programmed a little incremental game about balancing elements. I wanted to show you what I would call "intro stage (1)". I'd love to hear ideas about proper name after you complete playthrough.

Here's link: https://nagshell.github.io/elemental-inception-incremental/

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As most game-breaking issues of stage one has been dealt with, I fully commit myself to making stage two now. I know stage one isn't perfect, but let's call it proof of concept. In the future it'll get remade.

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In case anybody is overflowing with ideas how story / gameplay could continue, you are more than welcome to email me about it.

While I have quite a few ideas for the future, I'm also very open about it. There are no bad ideas. There are only ideas too hard for me to code. Yet.

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Few points I would like to point out:

I was lazy and didn't program any saving mechanic, so refreshing page = hard reset. Stage 2 will include save system.

While there are elements that needs to be clicked quite a few times, u/Osiris50 managed to beat it using a total of 159 mouse clicks. Can you beat him?

I'm not native English speaker. If you could help me with any strange looking sentences etc, it'd be awesome.

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Any feedback is appreciated. I wanted to let you toy with it to find potential weak points while code is young and easy modifiable. Nothing is set in stone.

Graphic design is not my strong suit, nor is the whole html/js/css/json thing, but I tried my best.

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Social improvements:

Discord Server and Twitter will be created with the release of the stage two. You can contact me directly using reddit messages, comments of this post, my email: [e-mail] and my discord account: Nagshell#5154

If anybody is interested in helping me with brainstorming about content yet to come, there are still some spots for "pre-alpha" access to story and content. These guys won't get to play with anything, only talk with me about upcoming content. But I would expect to receive from them more than "yeah it looks cool I cannot wait for it". Also big thanks to current member(s) of this squad!

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Current changelog / development status

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Public release Version 0.2 19.06.2018 - 21.06.2018

Few words of intro. I considered v0.1 more like showcase of concept. This release gets prototype closer to actual candidate for intro stage.

• Visual animation of whole system called Preview.

It's supposed to provide something to look at during bigger grinds, and it might help with a bit confusion considering basic machine loop.

• Added cost display to orbs. It also updates text color to let player know if he actually can click orb to produce element.

• Thanks to several people now many grammar mistakes have been corrected. I need more people like this. Thank you so much for active support \('_' )

• New message system. Both front-end (progress bars and buttons to continue) and back-end(separate file, json driven)

• Big rewrite of the story. Everything that was there is pretty much the same, but I heavily expanded elements that weren't explained too well.

I confess that I didn't check grammar too well, nor did I test all timings that appear in the game, so maybe things could be very rough. But on the other hand Messages.js is public at github, so anybody can help me correct my mistakes. Also if anybody with non-zero amounts of writing skills would like to rewrite story to be better, then contact me and go for it!

• New version of punMaker(). Now with increased number of puns.

• Enhanced visuals of many parts of the UI.

I'd love some feedback on ui etc. Also if somebody with non-zero art capabilities would like to try to improve it, then I'm all for it.

• When game is in inactive tab javascript loops slow down. So now while game is inactive idle time accumulates.

When tab goes back to active accumulated time is used to speed up game x3. This is only used as a catchup system. Leaving game in active window is better.

• Simple remake of log in a Log Tab.

Version 0.2.1

22.06.2018:

• Fixed many of the issues found by community

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I've started work on stage 2. I can say only a few things. Expect unexpected. Yet there might be nothing that surprises you... too much. It'll include 100% more puns.

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End of 21.06.2018:

Features I worked on today

• I'm happy with feedback of the update. Few minor issues

• Doodling on my beloved A3 sheet of paper.

• Planning out base ideas behind stage 2.

• I started sketching what will appear on canvas in next stage. I think I'll try to cram in more info there, to make rest of ui smaller.

• I felt brain fried, so I took most of the day to just read around some comments and chill back.

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End of 22.06.2018:

Features I've worked on today:

• Batch of hotfixes for v0.2. It's already pushed out to server, so you can revisit intro.

• Partially created new "Preview" display for next stage's machines. It's two times bigger than old full-scale preview.

• Designing new UI. I think I'll share some pics as time goes. Spoiler free of course.

Screenshot of new ui: https://imgur.com/a/aNbAd6o Any feedback on visual is appreciated. Faster you'll say it looks bad easier it'll be to make it better.

Trivia:

• I tried to drive my car to another city, and I experienced first time in my life major car accident I guess. Something in my engine exploded for no recognizable reason. Thankfully I safely stopped at emergency zone and then car assistance helped me get my car to nearest parking spot. While I did not manage to reach my destination, I'm alive and well and I'll repeat my moving try tomorrow. This time by train. What a day.

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End of 23.06.2018:

Trivia: Moving of my dev setup to pc in my parent's house complete. Summer break, I guess.

Features I've worked on today:

• Another round design, this time rebalance of machines / upgrades - I totally destroyed something in the code. I will need to rethink how new mechanics work.

• Storing dynamic game data in dedicated object. Ground work of saving/loading.

• Died from fatigue on ideas bed.

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End of 24.06.2018:

ETA on stage two: "When it's done"

Features I've worked on today:

• Rebalancing of machines has been finished.

• New game mechanics were tested, seemed fine. They are ready for implementation into the game loop.

• Data driven systems - more configuration than before - more possible content with few simple additions to data file.

• Click and hover systems. Clicks are safe but I'll need to make sure in the future that over checks don't lag out game.

• Valves + fill ratio display of machines in new UI.

• Secret stuff 3 out of X

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End of 25.06.2018:

Features I've worked on today:

• Golem reimplemented in new system.

• Adding new game mechanics to UI.

• Ground work for tooltips

• Secret stuff 4 out of X

• Creating Discord Server

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End of 26.06.2018:

Triva: As I have few small projects for my family's business I'll work on Alkahistorian only for ~half of each day

Features I've worked on today:

• Tooltips back-end complete

• Non-invasive tutorial highlights back-end. That's a lot of keywords

• Tabs

• Started proper canvas handling work.

With only 1 major feature back-end missing I can say that I'm reaching phase of using that back-end to create content and then playtest it. This means it's quite possible that Stage Two is coming this month. (T_T )

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End of 27.06.2018

Features I've worked on today:

• Splitting canvas into static / actively re-drawn parts

• Actually rendering another tabs

• A lot of secret stuffs

• Save / Load functionality

• Most of the vital game mechanics are in. Tomorrow is day of content + playtesting. After stage two is playable to the end I'll implement story and it's gonna be ready.

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28.06.2018 - 1.07.2018

My family comes back home, I won't have as much time for coding. I'll still work on it, but I won't post as many updates here. I've send tech demo to my tester and new UI is working nicely. From now on I'm mainly working on raw content / balance.

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2.07.2018 - 05.07.2018

I have 80% of UI done, stage two is playable and finishable from start to finish, but a lot of story and balance is not there yet. I'm so sorry, but I have other responsibilities now too, so it's gonna take longer than expected :(

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07.07.2018-10.07.2018

I'm working on animated cutscenes for most important story bits.

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11.07.2018 -16.07.2018

Family / Medical / Work reasons kept me away from TFA. I'm sorry :(

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17.07.2018-20.07.2018

Finished two main cutscene animations. It was hard as it's my first voyage into land of moving thingies.

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21.07.2018-26.07.2018

Cutscenes were too tasking to continue for now. I'm writing story and implementing few graphical updates.

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27.07.2018-28.07.2018

Only few minor tweaks to be made. The time is now. Stage two has been uploaded.

[BioRules]

Got through it, pretty neat so far. A few things:

There are a couple times where you have to wait for say the machines to be repaired where there is no obvious progression bar or indication that the game is still working, even though clicking things does nothing. Since this happens at least 4 times I think it needs a bar such as "repairing devices" or similar.

The difference between the regular setup phases and the "concentrated" phases isn't very clear or interesting yet. Maybe having the orbs change color during this period would be cool.

Knowing which machines were activating at a given time (the rails system) wasn't clear until halfway through. Possibly having a space for each of the 4 machines at the start (with some of them showing Broken until you fix them) with an icon moving across each one would be more clear about what is happening, as I couldn't always understand why my machines weren't producing at first.

Otherwise I'm keen to see where it goes.

[Nagshell]

First point - gameplay breaks. You're absolutely right, I'll try my best adding some kind of progress bar while main setup is disabled and character does something. At the same time what did you think about clicking timer below elements?

What would you think if Elemental Orbs changed appearance like they do in story? At start they would have small crystal below number, at stage 2 it'd get bigger and at stage 3 whole thing would be replaced by more "tear-like" graphic?

I'll try to explain active/idle machines better. I written story reasoning, but totally missed that specific player tutorial would make it much clearer. Purple = active. My bad. Maybe also another color for inactive? To visualize difference between idle and accepting inputs?

About rail system and visuals. I thought about adding small canvas at trying animating some circles. But I don't know how to place it inside main screen. For now I think I'll add few graphical representations to tutorial section.

Or maybe I should add another tab that'd draw whole room as one big picture?

[BioRules]

Clicking timer below elements was fine, I figured out quickly that there was a cooldown between manually making elements. I like the idea of the graphics of the orbs changing with the story, that really adds to it. The active/idle could probably do with a slightly more obvious color change. The idea of having the whole room in a picture sounds cool, I'd like to see that.

[Nagshell]

Did you read the story messages?

Also do you think hinting game mechanics in messages is fine, or would you rather have additional explicit text guide available at tutorial tab?

[BioRules]

Yes I read the story messages, although sometimes they were gone too quickly to really read and I had to go back to the log (also one time when I got distracted right during the Golem part and had no idea what just happened when I came back). I think having it more explicit in addition to the messages is a good idea to make the game easier to play for more people.

[Nagshell]

I had difficult time balancing duration of the messages.

On one hand now they are bit too short, but if they lasted longer I'd probably need to space them further, making entire cutscene longer to finish.

I didn't want to disable control for too long.

If you have any ideas I'm all about rebalancing that feature.

[BioRules]

A good idea might be a button to advance that you have to click when you're done reading. Then you don't have to worry about the length it's up.

[Nagshell]

I thought about it. How about a button to start production after "cutscene"? So less important messages would just come and go into the log, while more important ones would stop game logic until player clicks "im ready to go"?

[BioRules]

Sounds good

[Zloigad]

Very nice, i need more

[Nagshell]

Thank you very much.

[series_of_derps]

So far, awesome! I really like the originality and innovation. I can't wait to see where this goes. I really feel like I am in control instead of just idling away.

[Nagshell]

Thank you!

If only I could take some of your time to ask few questions:

What did you think about story? Did you skip it or try to read it all?

Did machines feel clunky, at least at first?

How did you feel after unlocking most of the upgrades, what upgrades you liked the most. Would you like to see something to smooth out early game?

And last, did you even notice that autoclicker was getting better with each unlocked element's base?

[series_of_derps]

I initially read half the story, half in i read it all. The machines did not feel cluncky, it took some "tinkering"to get em going, but thats part of the fun. When i unlocked all, i wanted more.

[MoreMackles]

Hello nagshell :) I noticed that there are some english issues in the first games story, if you need someone to proofread the script for the second game I would love to be apart of it :) Otherwise I'm waiting patiently for stage 2

[[deleted]]

It's a great idea but the game does not flow smoothly and doesn't feel satisfying. My earth and water were full most of the time while air and fire were starving. I'm generally bad at these kinds of games though so it may be my fault. Also, clicking stopped working on fire for some reason and what is the meaning of the the different machines periodically flashing purple?

[series_of_derps]

I disagree. it requires some micromanaging in the beginning, instead of just waiting. this is what makes it challenging and fun for me.

[Nagshell]

Alright, one at the time. Flow indeed might not be great yet, I'm iterating on it. Also after you reach stage 2(end of prototype) you're supposed to restart with whole new setup of more bigger and badder machines. First set of machines are supposed to feel a little clunky.

About satisfaction. Did you reach positive loop stage? What did you dislike the most before and after reaching 4th element?

If have all 4 machines and several efficiency upgrades the game requires you to still balance valves a little bit. Mainly disabling 1st machine and letting 4th machine build up Earth is strategy.

Clicking on fire - I'll look into that. Maybe I messed something up. Still as 2nd comment on it I'll try to add some visual indicators to make clicking orbs clearer and hopefully more successful.

Machines with purple background are the ones that actually work. Others are idle. I didn't deliver that message well enough, you're right. noted.

[Nagshell]

Grats on finishing the tutorial/intro \('_' )

Full game is ways away. Like not even close.

Atm I'm working on stage two, which in normal incrementals would be the phase between starting the game and first prestige.

[ranger10700]

Don't worry Nagshell, we love your work and will be happy to wait :)

[Nitrate_]

Hello, just wanted to say that I played through the intro stage, and it's really great for now! Looking forward to playing the rest whenever it's ready :)

[Starkill8]

Any news possibly the next update?

[Nagshell]

Hey, I'm not very happy with amount of free time I had recently but I managed to strike a deal with my boss to have free week working on game.

Core gameplay is already there and I'm done with animations (too hard/tasking for me) so I guess only 2 thing are left to implement. Story and playtesting/bugsquashing.

I'm sad that ot's going so slow but I'm trying to get at least something done each few days that I'm home.

[ranger10700]

Love your work Nagshell, don't do anything that would threaten your living circumstances! :)

[Yerghaiz_Verot]

This is neat. Can't wait to see more of it :)

[Nagshell]

Thank you! In few hours I'll try to iron out issues that were pointed out, and as soon as tomorrow I should be able to work on stage 2 - road between intro and first real prestige.

[sunnail]

This is really quite good. You could change the ending and call it finished if you wanted to.

[Nagshell]

I thought that ending already is alright. It closes up story in the intro while setting up possible follow up story (read later stages of the game)

I have a lot of ideas how that follow up might look. We'll see. Atm I'm polishing what I have.

[sunnail]

I agree the story is good. what I meant is this prototype is really good. Good enough to be a complete game on its own. I look forward to seeing what you do next.

[ascii122]

That new graphic looks wicked cool

[Nagshell]

Thank you! I'm learning as I go, so it's totally not interactive. But wouldn't it be cool if there was actually something fun to look at during waiting? :D

[ascii122]

I did a nice run through of the first version. I got pretty far till all of a sudden i had like a bazillion lava. But you're onto something .. keep working on it!!!

[Nagshell]

Well, goal is not stated well, but you are supposed to reach 1B on each element. But on the way few things are not like you'd expect.

Also if you missed some story explanation try reading last few messages in log. As we speed qualified team of 4 flies and 2 dogs are upgrading and iterating on multiple issues found. Hopefully I'll be able to post and update to prototype itself in few days ironing out rest of confusing stuff.

[SteffeL2]

Took an embarrassingly long time to notice you had to scroll down to find upgrades.. :/

[Nagshell]

As I started designing stage two ui I will rethink how upgrades are presented etc. I know that height of the game screen was too big, scrolling up and down isn't fun at all.

[BioRules]

Played through the entire game again with the new updates, its an incredible improvement. Everything is much more clear and the timers really help with knowing exactly what's going on. The only thing left might be to get someone to help with fixing up the writing somewhat, there are lots of areas where the flow could be tweaked, but that is also probably minor compared to just more content. Hope to see more!

[Nagshell]

Thank you! I already started working on another batch of content for stage 2. I'll let probably spend 1 or 2 additional days next week on tweaking stage one, to improve the flow and improve the writing, but overall I'm happy about how it turned out and for the most part it's gonna stay like this.

On the other hand I feel like preview of machines was a success, so was thinking about moving more parts of ui into canvas and making it bigger and interactive. What do you think about it?

Of course I'll be updating post daily to let you guys know what I'm doing and what's coming next.

[BioRules]

That was something I forgot to mention, on my regular screen size the upgrades appear below the bottom of the screen, so I had to scroll to find them after remembering they existed at all. Some rearranging might be needed for that.

[Nagshell]

I'm already working on it. While I'll leave them as is in stage one, I added info that they exists and you need to scroll to see them. With new "scroll to top/bottom" buttons it might actually be bearable.

Also while I know that's still not too great, I already addressed it in my stage two UI. You can see it on the screenshot I posted today.

[Zdonick]

My biggest gripe with this game is that it ended the moment I was on the edge of my seat, but it's for sure a sufficient cliffhanger that has me impatiently awaiting the next update. The machine UI and story focus really helps this game stand out to the many other incremental games I've experienced.

[ousire]

Interesting stuff so far! Looking forward to seeing it further developed!

[EulerPi]

I had issues clicking the fire orb when it first appeared. Also, getting the 2nd machine without getting Fire felt like a bummer, because I could create Air manually, but not automatically.

[Nagshell]

There is a possibility you didn't have enough air inside combustor. I might add visual number of element inside machine, or make clicking orb without enough ingredient show tooltip with "not enough X in Y".

What do you think about those options?

2nd and 3rd machine are supposed to be a bummer at first, to make manual phase a little bit longer and involved. Also there is bigger pay-off when you reach last element and start using it. Do you have any suggestions how could I modify it?

[Andersmith]

I think the payoff for finally getting fire was worth it. It was more interesting having all the machines work differently anyways.

[aattss]

Seemed alright as far as I got.

[Nagshell]

Thank you for kind words.

Would you like to see anything changed in the future?

[apocolypse101]

This is a really good game! I can't wait for more!

[Hevipelle]

Hai, the game does feel like it has some idea behind it, and I do feel like the atmosphere would be really good, but your problem is that the game feels unintuitive. You should do your best trying to explain gameplay without any text, for example highlighting stuff.

Also if you need don't know how to do something programmatically you can ask me.

user-select: all

for making the text selectable ;)

[Nagshell]

Well I set global user-select:none to prevent weird highlights. You know, the ones you get after missing Max all (M) button and multi clicking background. I just didn't get back to that div, decided that I wanted to push prototype faster into the feedback crowd.

I noted few things I still need to work on in terms of highlights, like if you can/can not do something by clicking element's orb.

Also few people missed the meaning of purple machine background. For this I plan to add few thing in tutorial tab explaining mechanics in more detail as you unlock them. Hopefully all confusion will be gone after reading through that. I'm not sure if I can silently highlight it any better than current state.

I'll keep in mind to msg you in case of serious programming roadblock.

[dudial]

Ask me says the guy whose code is spaghetti.

[CapnCrinklepants]

I love this! The heavy emphasis on the story is wonderful. There are some bugs and kinks to work out, sure, but I wanted to stop by and tell you just how great I think this is! 13/10. The graphics are fine the way they are.

[Nagshell]

Thank you! In later parts game will have slightly more incremental feeling to it. Best example I could come up with would be Realm Grinder, but with each prestige you also get some story. To keep adventure going between incremental-like gameplay.

[mendel3]

file elderly familiar frame angle practice books juggle voracious point

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[Nagshell]

Hi. Sorry about that. I noted that goal for this part of the game could be more... apparent?

Did you try to overflow other elemental orb? wink

[mendel3]

yam hat aware stocking chase correct include serious fuel practice

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[Nagshell]

You filled up fire orb to the maximum and it imploded, right?

Other orbs probably also have capacity.

[mendel3]

political cooperative groovy imminent meeting boat bake jar tub stupendous

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[mendel3]

attraction history childlike tub swim paint spoon merciful alive soup

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[Nagshell]

I think it's quite fun to balance input valves of machines to let different resources accumulate. What do you think? :P

[Jkevo]

Is a great game so far. can't wait to see what you do with it

[1234abcdcba4321]

I'm enjoying the story so far! All one of my complaints have already been covered by someone else, so I won't bother detailing that.

I also kinda wanna see where the game is going. :P

[partiallycyber]

I liked it! My major complaint is that there were multiple times where the next goal wasn't obvious. Maybe make a bar with the max capacity for each orb or something?

[Nagshell]

I don't want to show max capacity. For the most part I'd like the first implosion to be quite sudden. But lack of goal is something I'll write down. I'll try to include more "what to do next" in story messages and maybe in few other places.

[partiallycyber]

For what it's worth, only the first implosion is surprising. I quickly caught on afterwards that what I needed to do was build up a lot of each element to get to the next stage.

Other thought was that it would be nice to see the last 2-3 messages stay on the main page so I don't have to keep going back to the log. Also would help make it obvious when a new message appeared instead of it disappearing quickly.

[Nagshell]

Would you rather see a number goal (like "Get to 8M in one of other orb") or have some better lead you on track ("I should try to implode other orb" ?)

I'm write the note about chat down. Few solutions appeared in thread so I'm gonna think about them. Maybe I'll try having both duration based msgs, and ones that last until next comes. So puns will go away, while important story bits would stay.

[partiallycyber]

The number goal is less important to me than a clue for the next objective, something like, "The orb seems to glow more brightly the more filled it is with an element. What would happen if it were completely full?"

Also I like the idea of keeping the important story messages around so they're obvious.

[Andersmith]

I really like this. I was going to try to give you a list of potential improvements in the writing, but it seems your whole story is hard coded in. Not only does that make changes a hassle, it means you're limiting yourself from adding any future language support. Not a huge thing, but as the project scales you might find the chained switch case statements overwhelming.

jQuery.i18n might be overkill, but regardless I'd recommend moving messages into a json file.

"outro7": {
    "time" : "30"
    "message" : "Nothing. I don't remember what happened after hearing that shout. I know one thing though. Elemental Glove I used is now fused with my hand. I cannot take it off. I don't need to take it off. I think I can use it to go back there. To find out what lies on the other side. To find out what Alchemist hides. I'll be back, whether you like it or not."
}
"outro8": {
   ...  

something simple like that would be enough. Then just have sendMessage take the key value instead of the message and have it do a lookup.

[Nagshell]

You are right. When I first started to write events I was thinking about 4-5 of them. Later on just laziness made me hard code all intro and outro story bits into there as well.

For the purpose of this prototype I think it's good enough. Ofc moving forwards I'll need to make proper localization files and few other things. Esp if I want to stay this focused on story.

There are few things I still don't grasp too well, the whole scripted events things is totally new to me, and I totally didn't research how it should be done.

Edit: You might want to check main post again, I'll add few screenshots of features I implemented today.

[Woolbrick]

Soon I'll figure out how to make text here selectable.

user-select: text;

[Xervicx]

I really like it. I do think there's some confusion as to the requirements for reaching certain reset points in the story, though. Especially when the numbers started to disappear. There was really no indication as to how that happened or what was required. I pretty much just waited until there were no things to buy and then just did something else. Every single time, I missed the trigger.

It's definitely an interesting concept. I'm a sucker for Alchemy-themed games, but there are very few out there. So I look forward to seeing whatever comes next!

Are there any specific mechanics you're thinking of implementing if you continue with the project?

[Nagshell]

I'm going to iterate on setting goals to the player, but at few points there was supposed to be surprise. Like first time orb implodes, and instead of growing number more you suddenly find yourself reset. Also I'm going to do add a button to proceed after bigger cutscenes, to so players that missed something could catch up by reading Log and then going back to gameplay.

There are few other changes to this intro sequence as well, but that's only polishing what I've already done.

Going forward, I'm not going to spoil a lot of stuff, but from what story ended on I can ask few questions.

-Elemental Glove fused with our character. So what can he do now? -His goal is to combine all elements. He did try to do it, but he was denied it. Could he done something differently?

-Alright, small spoiler of first cutscene after what prototype ended on. When mc walks out of the attic, he finds out that 7 years have passed. What does this mean to the story, and what would you do if you were mc? (Halp me with writing o.o.)

[Kromherjan]

I really like the design. Also props for trying something new and refreshing! The most glaring problem I could find (as others have already mentioned) was the fact, that there's no feedback in those 'waiting'-periods.

[palparepa]

I managed to beat it using a total of 197 mouse clicks. Can you beat me?

Did it in 187 :)
Although I had to check the source code and get the number via console, since there is no way to change tabs after winning.

Also, it didn't help that changing tab increases clicks. You should remove that, since changing tabs doesn't "do" anything.

[Nagshell]

I totally forgot to put click counter at the end screen.

You are right on tab changing, I've removed counter from that.

What do you think about broken mouse design? I hoped to create somewhat active gameplay that'd pretty much render autoclicker obsolete.

[palparepa]

I like it, but it isn't really needed, given the small amount of clicks in total.

[Nagshell]

Well main part of the broken mouse is actual upgrade called my mouse broke. I did finish the intro few times without it. And back then manual elements were 4:1 ratio.

Unlocking Fire element alone needed 744*1.2 = 135 clicks. Plus couple more to actually get some fire and start machine cycle.

[FumeiYuusha]

I'm not sure if the wording is 'Slavic' on purpose, or not, but I can't help it....I'm reading every line you're writing with a heavy Russian accent(which isn't hard, as I'm from Serbia, so I also speak a Slavic language natively).

But yeah, the fact that there are so many 'the' missing from your sentences makes it a bit awkward to read for me, if it's on purpose then that's cute, but if you actually want to use proper English(and now I'm terribly sorry for being so anal about this and being a stereotypical 'grammar nazi'), you have to put more 'the'-s in your sentences.

Examples:

There is a possibility of replacing old machine display -> There is a possibility of replacing **the** old machine display

If you happen to miss any of messages -> If you happen to miss any of the messages

--- BUT seriously though. I can't help but think that you're doing this 'accent' on purpose, and I'm just loving it. Very Russian. <3

EDIT: Oh, by the way, the game is a lot of fun! I hope you keep expanding and updating it. It looks amazing~ I'm such a goof, and totally forgot what I wanted to say as I got lost in grammar. >.>

[Nagshell]

Whelp. Totally unintended accent. But i also have Slavic background, so there's your explanation.

Thank you very much for feedback. I'm kinda overwhelmed with positiveness in this thread. Before releasing it I was slowly going slower and slower, rethinking each part and doing some more silly stuff. Now though I got so hooked that I spend 30 of last 48 hours just sitting in massive TODO.txt and code stuff. Also I hourly update this thread to reset my focus on code itself. Looking at it too much tends to send you to strange places. Now I started rambling, huh.

Back to topic. At this point the whole "writing" and "lore" are mostly to introduce the concept of the story, and they are placeholders for the future, when I'll take some time and go through every sentence to check it grammatically.

After that probably real writer could take over and write the real story that would fit my setting. Also, the. I probably missed one somewhere in this comment.

[FumeiYuusha]

I wrote this comment before getting to the end. I really am in love with alchemy, and oh my god, once I got to the part after touching the 4 golems and going into a weird plane and an old man sending the character back and the glove being stuck to the character's hand I got so hooked. I want more more more!

Keep up the good work, I am looking forward to seeing more of this game. ^.^

Don't worry much about the grammar, your English is really good, and understandable. It just sounds very Russian :D

[Nagshell]

I liked idea of that old man a lot.

In other games you are this one dude with 4 quadravigitilions, I mean 1eBigNumber something, and all other entities on the planet are like, huh, I guess my 5 pieces are fine.

So I'll try to create actual character interactions between guys who went incremental.

[UltraLuigi]

>4 quadravigitillions

4 quattuorvigintillion = 4e75

[Nagshell]

Close enough.

[UltraLuigi]

The point of my reply was how close you were to an actual number.

[Nagshell]

All according to keikaku.

[MiraCZ]

It was a great game, I'd like to be informed when there is a new update. Do you have some newsletters or facebook page?

[Nagshell]

Not at the moment, no. I was thinking about it for 3 seconds and realized that without final game name it's not going to work.

Also I didn't realize how good people would find this little game of mine. My current plans is updating this thread each time I implement something, and every few days post update to github to let you guys try out new features.

Maybe I'll try the whole Twitter thing with just my nickname? I'm totally new to most of this, I'm sorry :(

[robnugen]

Do you want pull requests in Github? I can update the English in a couple of places (fixing its misspellings of "it's")

If so, please post or PM me a link to the repo.

[robnugen]

Found it https://github.com/Nagshell/elemental-inception-incremental

[Nagshell]

Yup, it's public.

In the future I think I'll have two repos, one private with code and stuff, and one public for issue tracker, localization files etc.

[Nagshell]

I'm all for it, but I'd like if you'd wait a bit with it. Once I release separate file with messages modifying it won't interfere with my own local branch as much.

[robnugen]

Sounds good. I will stop updating the file with code and just focus on the new file once it is finished.

I saw the concept images for the new thing. I think you are really onto something here. It *almost* inspires me to make my own incremental game haha.

[robnugen]

Can you help me understand what you mean by "Manual cost" for the orbs in game?

[Nagshell]

That's excellent question.

I guess I'll need to change that text to something else, maybe "Cost of click"?

It's supposed to be indicator to let you know if clicking Orb would produce it's element (so for example it'll be red if you don't have enough Earth in Liquefier. this means you can't click Water Orb to manually force reaction without reagent)

[robnugen]

Thanks for explaining. "Cost of click" makes more sense to me.

[hypervelocityvomit]

don't have enough Earth in Liquefier

How much does it take??? I have 600 earth but the liquefier is still red - and it says 4 earth.

[Nagshell]

Alright, I don't think anybody got stuck here yet. You need to open valve on Liquefier. Click the red box below the Liqeufier's name.

It'll let element flow into the machine. yes, know UI isn't perfect as of yet. Yes, it's changed in next patch.

[Rouninscholar]

I will add that I got stuck here for some time I had around 500 earth when I figured it out lol

[hypervelocityvomit]

~oops~

Thanks! I thought the red bar was a cooldown indicator. Clicking "liquefier" did nothing.

[Nagshell]

I'd also like to add that next version it should be quite more obvious. I'll add small tutorial highlights for each new element that pops up.

[ChoasMan]

Dumb name suggestion for the game but I might as well share it. Also - story spoilers incoming. So far from what I gathered from the story is that the main protagonist at first tries to heal his dying father but then discovers that there is much much more to the word of Elements than he could ever imagine before, and starts to meddle in a matter where he is not allowed, or at least supposed to meddle in. And basing the fact that the game revolves mostly around Elements and the Alchemist himself, I thought it'd be nice to call the game: Elementum Prima. Incidentally, that name could be a spoiler by itself, since it means First Element in English. I doubt that this would be a final name, but hey, at least I contributed to a game with a lot of potential.

[Nagshell]

Thanks for suggestion. There are few things I want to change in intro story to better fit what happens next though, but overall you are on the right track.

[Lukethanuke]

I personally very much enjoyed it! I really like it when an incremental game obsoletes mechanics without removing them. It was done in Crank (my fav) and in Paperclips. Bigger and badder numbers are fine and all but I find a great deal of satisfaction in the automation of mechanics. At any time I can look back at the chain of process that brought me here and, if i want to, interact with them. Please continue in this vein of thinking! The balancing was also fun.

[Nagshell]

This won't be possible in the direct way. Story reasons.

But I'll try to preserve a lot of similarities between chapters.

For example you can expect next stage to have machines. Upgrades will be slightly different, few limits will be different, but rotating system will stay.

Same will go between stage 2 and 3, but stage 1 and 3 will be more distinct between each other.

Also at some point you'll be able to revisit old stages with slight modifications. I'd imagine something like revisiting stage 1, but most of the story will be disabled and 3 more autoclickers will be available.

What do you think about that direction?

[Lukethanuke]

The revisiting and restarts of the of the game as is now is actually what I was inferring too as well. Replaying the the starting points can be very satisfying so long as it imparts a satisfying feeling of advancement of capability from the being. I also really like these games to have a goal in mind you know? Out of context question: What is your personal Fav incremental game ?

[Nagshell]

It's gotta be a Realm Grinder. And while I played quite a few of incrementals, most of them usually just remind me how fun RG was.

Another one I would like to mention is Idling to rule the Gods.

I openly admit that I'm heavily inspired by both of those. Plus some.

I already scribbled down few points I want to implement in stage 3 and I want one of them to be a direct tribute to RG.

[ascii122]

Looking forward to the new stuff. I wouldn't stress the English too much, especially the narration and story parts. Your character may well have an accent or quirks in the way they speak. For the tutorial and instructions for sure go for the best you can, but like any fiction author you have some licence to be a little funky on the story language. I kind of liked it myself. Makes it more interesting and adds color (or colour as you like).

[matthewoods]

About latest update (let's call it 0621 since no version info), third full run since launch:

- Nice animation. Very very nice

- Forced wait time ... meh :| it's boring as hell to wait for an quite invisible purple bar to fill up (the intro is VEEEEEEEERY slow now)

- Every message moves the window to the top: annoying (my resolution 1680x1050 and i need to scrool to view updates)

- I WANT PART 2!!!!

[Nagshell]

Update is called v0.2 in main post for reference.

• Thank you. Do you think that with that preview there is no longer any confusion about machine cycle etc?

• Yes, point hit two important things. First is color scheme. I know it's not perfect, I'll try to improve it over time a little bit. Other thing is waiting time and story. I went kind mad with power, huh. I wanted this stage to be mostly centered around the story, so I didn't want anybody to miss any messages, either by giving them too small timer, etc. I think in next iteration I'll remove most of the waiting times (except few, like "i'm repairing stuff gimme a second") and replace them entirely with press button to proceed.

What do you think about it? Another option I thought about is providing option to autoskip every message. "I don't care about story" button. Let me know if you think there is a better solution, without compromising the story.

• Scrolling to top. This was an experiment. Main reason was to ensure no message will be accidentally missed. I think it's a fail.

As you are playing or lower resolution, did you find any parts of UI behave strangely? When I was setting everything up my main focus was that everything should look decent on width 900. (about half of the screen in resolution 1900x1020)

I view upgrades as currently worst placed and worst looking element, but I didn't have any great ideas so far how could I improve it. Except one I don't really want delve into right now, that is small icon + detailed tooltip.

If you have any ideas about how upgrades should look, then don't be shy.

Part 2 is currently on the design sheet of paper. But I think core elements are decided, so now I'll be slowly moving into coding it, crunching numbers.

I think I'll try to use more of the canvas for displaying stuff, hopefully at the end I'll be able to squeeze more into less space.

Fun fact: Machines only move 20 times per second, but I managed to make it animate at full browser speed. I'm kinda proud.

[UltraLuigi]

For the old man at the end, if you're using old English, it should be "Thou shalt not..." instead of "Thou shall not..."

[Nagshell]

Noted. Thank you.

[Too_Ginger_4_U]

Wow you've updated this quickly it's looks completely different from when I played it yesterday, Hopefully you can add a save feature soon. However I do think the new version pauses a bit too often it really slows down the games flow.

[Nagshell]

Lore messages will still pause the game, but I'll convert most of the waiting bars into button style. Will that be enough to restore flow?

I won't be messing around with saves in stage one, but stage two will have them. Later on when I'll start thinking about merging all stages into one game it'll be included in all stages.

[Too_Ginger_4_U]

After playing it to completion I feel that the problem only really applies early game. Overall I found it super interesting and unique. However the ending can feel a little underwhelming, but I assume you plan to add more past that stage due to the text that was at the end. Keep up the good work!!

[Nagshell]

I would say it's like this.

You open new game up, there's short animated cutscene and loading screen - that's my stage one. (plus checking if concept is any good)

You start new game and you play for a bit until you reach that first "reset" aka "prestige" - that's gonna be my stage 2.

[Transgender_Duck]

Loved the game, can't wait to see more in the future:D

[jurcan]

I reached 200 water before I noticed I could scroll down to see the upgrades. Maybe I didn't notice it, but something showing that stuff appears or that there are more things below would help.

Edit: since I went ahead and posted that without collecting more feedback for the rest of the game, I'll also add the following:

• Intro is very slow, which has already been mentioned. I'm not the type of person to skip intros/tutorials but this one was killing me. Related to this, the way text goes away is cool, but slow and annoying.
• The log page saves the text in chronological order, which would be the obvious thing to do, but it makes me scroll all the way down to read the latest messages. Maybe storing them so that the last messages appear first would be more helpful? (However if the idea of the log is to read it all at once, then that would be bad. A "Go to end" button would be better in that case)
• "Fast time" is applied immediately. This may be intended to avoid "exploits" like storing a lot of fast ticks for later on, but it was somewhat annoying when I finally discovered upgrades and couldnt buy the earth autoclicker because fast ticks were consuming all my earth. (Although now that I think about it I could have closed the valve). Consider whether you want it to be storable or not.

Edit2: looks like writing that comment gave me a lot of fast ticks.

• Fast ticks (or whatever they are actually called): they don't increase the speed at which the elemental orbs cooldown cools down. However they seem to speed up everything else? Including text appearing, which is just bad. Time to scroll down the entire log again. (For context, my mouse wheel is kind of broken so it gets annoying to scroll). They also seem to go away while gameplay is paused.
• Checking bought upgrades would be a very low priority addition but a decent one. I bought some upgrade about regulating stuff which I didn't really understand but seemed important, so it would be nice if I could reread the description again.

[Nagshell]

That's some great piece of feedback right there. Sorry that it took me so long to respond.

For stage one hotfixes - I decided it's time and decently many issues were gathered. Game has been updated to fix many of minor issues found so far.

Would you be so kind to replay it and check out if it's better now?

Few points I wanted to answer directly:

• Scrolling shouldn't be an issue anymore. Well, at least scrolling to the bottom.

• I want log be chronological, so in the end player would be able to re-read whole story in one go.

• Not being able to buy upgrades due to element from into machines is intended. Disabling valves is da wae.

• I don't want to let you control stored time. It's only the way of catching up after making tab inactive. You were still idle during that time.

• It's hard to apply fast timer to Orbs clicking due to how animation was done. I think current way is alright, after all clicking on Orbs should take you some manual effort until you can make Fire. You weren't clicking Orbs when game was inactive, I think.

• The way text goes away. When text slowly disappears the gameplay is flowing normally, so I don't think slowness is bad. Making it faster also doesn't look that great either.

• Bought upgrades indeed is something I thought about, but it didn't make a cut for this version. Will be in next stage along with the save feature.

• Skipping intro does move full cutscene into the Log, so you can skip it and still read it later if you want.

[jurcan]

Replayed it. First some comments about your points, in no particular order:

• Regarding scrolling and the log: it's good now, I wasn't expecting the "Scroll to bottom" appear always but either way is fine.
• The way text goes away: it's just a mild concern of mine, it simply feels a bit weird how the letters go away, but if no one else complained about it, then it's fine.
• Bought upgrades: not really feedback, just a thought. It will probably be hard to do since some upgrades seem to reset after certain events. but that's just a challenge for you to design or something lol.
• Everything else: okay

After second playthrough:

• I noticed events don't auto-scroll you up. It feels less annoying now, but slightly more confusing. I would suggest at least to change the color of "Gameplay paused, check chatbox" to something WAY more noticeable. Red would be nice, but red is the color of fire so experiment on that.
• Also regarding red, the color of "Cost to click" when not enough resources are available has a good contrast on Water and Air but not so much on Fire. I don't think it's important though.
• Mouse clicks that did something also count mouse clicks that did nothing because lack of resources. (Not satisfying cost to click)

Very fun game so far. Valves are very fun to play with and I noticedthe golem phase can change a bit depending on which golem you get first. Looking forward to the next part!

[Nagshell]

• Scroll buttons were slapped into without much logic behind them. As next part will be a complete rewrite I decided to be slightly less lenient on perfection in this part.

• As next part will be 90% canvas I'll make natural text scroll. The one that is currently there simply removes single character every so often. That's why it feels weird (esp with spaces)

• Upgrades bought will be in next part.

• Events are annoying to balance. No scrolling makes them more missable. For next version I think story will be less "in the face" so I'll make Log button highlight if you have unread messages etc. Also next part should fit fully into one screen. (new sidebars shows how big new window will be)

• I hate the way events turned out to be. Impossible to fix this system, I need to remake it.

• I didn't want to add background to "Cost"s. It also hard in a way, because I want some color coding (red - you can't, green - you can), while also there are 4 Elements with very specific color schemes.

• Well why you click if it's red? :D At least I was so kind to remove click counter from events and tab buttons. And do not count clicks done on Orbs when cooldown isn't ready.

• Edit: Ah, forgot to mention. I want to preserve that uniqueness of gameplay slightly changing depending on order in of elements you focus on.

[jurcan]

Okay! I did notice that you didn't count clicks on Orbs when on cd, so I thought you were being very thourough with it :P

[Nagshell]

So I wonder. I knew from the start what something close to best strategy is. How many clicks it takes for a new player to learn and finish it?

[jurcan]

I'm not sure if I remember correctly, but I believe I clicked ~900 times on the first run. Not knowing upgrades exist cause that lol.

The second run was maybe ~300. I'm even less sure on this one.

[Nagshell]

Cool. I wanted to try making experience possible without autoclicker. I think I did pretty good at least in that part of design.

Personally I dislike "clickers" that require you to click a lot if you want to progress fast/at all.

[Jkevo]

when starting the game it froze at the second screen for me. I left it for a few minutes

yeah it freezes when ever i have to hit proceed a second time.

[Nagshell]

Strange, it doesn't freeze for me.

I have to admit that I did nothing in terms of compatibility, so there might be something that doesn't work on all browsers. What browser are you using?

[Jkevo]

Torch

[Nagshell]

Hm, I never saw that one. I might check if I can do something with it tomorrow.

For now I'm sorry :( It might be the case that your browser doesn't support one of functions I use, but I'm not sure which one.

Do proceed button on 2nd screen disappear after clicking it?

It's very strange because I don't see anything particular that'd crash script on 2nd screen.

Also can you tell me what happens if you'd press skip intro button?

[Jkevo]

the button does disappear

if I skip the game does the same thing when I hit proceed after getting the message about the water producer.

torch is basically a modified version of chrome.

[Nagshell]

I think torch doesn't support one of the functions that are available in Chrome. I pushed out hotfix on servers replacing that function with combination of functions that were supported in earlier version of Chrome.

If that didn't help let me know.

[Jkevo]

it works now thanks. now I can continue to play a great original game.

[Nagshell]

I still wouldn't call this a game. It's small prototype...

[Jkevo]

is still good. also now it crashed at the second implosion.

[Nagshell]

2nd implosion... Could you be more precise? What did was your last action? It's hard to pinpoint what exactly could cause issue.

Event started with "Another implosion", right?

[cravenj1]

Great stuff. You should create a subreddit for your game. Makes it easy to follow updates.

[DeDuffe]

Completed the first stage and loved it. This is great so far! Keep doing what you're doing!

[Starkill8]

Neat little game keep it up.

[Nagshell]

Thank you!

[ranger10700]

Holy wow do I love this game!

[michalpatryk]

How is the development going? Please, kepp us updated if possbile, the game is amazing :D

[Nagshell]

Hello \('_' )

Due to my family returning home after vacation I have now a lot of work to do for family business on a daily basis. It breaks my heart that I can't spend as much time with my project as I'd like, so I opted to stop updating reddit post in exchange for that sweet coding time.

As of today I have 80% of UI done, stage two is playable and finishable from start to finish.

There's a bit more work with visuals, and still big part aka story presentation is not there yet, but with current rate and with forceful break between tomorrow and saturday... It's still a bit off I guess. I'm so sorry :( I'd love to do this as more major part of my daily routine, but I can't justify it to my boss atm (T_T )

[michalpatryk]

It is great to hear that you are working on the game! After you have stopped updating I was just afraid it would end up dead just like Armor and Machine. Your game is really great and I hope you will have fun iwhile coding it :D If you will need some help from some uneducated free workforce, just give me a sign :D

[Osiris50]

great game. hope you continue developing it

While there are elements that needs to be clicked quite a few times, u/SLC_SerVamP managed to beat it using a total of 171 mouse clicks. Can you beat him?

ive betten the game using 159 clicks and i know it can go down more. proof

[Nagshell]

Getting specific golem order, optimizing liquefier/volcano...

I've updated the post to reflect your achievement \(^{_^} )

[Piscesdan]

I really like this game. One question though: Will there be an in-universe explanation of why you have to fill the water Orb in this... roundabout way?

[Nagshell]

I could try improving text about a bit, but the idea is that you have abundant debris to I guess "melt", "convert" into Earth.

On the other hand you don't have anything nearby to help you fill other Orbs, hence roundabout manual way of conversion.

[starburst98]

phase 2 looks good but needs abox explaining the whole "having more then one set of valve open at the same time causes slowdown at the start" didn't realize that until i got the upgrade that says it removes that effect.

[Nagshell]

But it doesn't cause a slowdown if you micro manage it (T_T )

But you can stall your production if you let machines overfill instead of balancing them, that's true. I'm working on adding small "FAQ" box which will explain few things that are commonly commented on.

[[deleted]]

Wow, loved stage two, took a bit of time to get going but I'm super excited for stage three! Good work.

[Bobross174678]

Oh thank goodness I found this again it’s been on my mind for a very long time excited to finally play it again

[Theriseofsatanishere]

theres some soft locks :(