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Today I am writing up the design doc for how creating cures works in the Apothecary job.
My main inspiration is the Amiga classic, Dragon's Breath.
Theme Hospital also has a part to play in inspiration for the quirky ailments and humour.
However, I would love to see your ideas as to how the mixing and crafting works (already know how the shop part works). So get your brewing hats on, polish up your cauldron and find your pestle and mortar and get posting your thoughts!
I have a terrible mix, bad sense of humor and terrible knowedge of english, so you don't take me so serious.
If you want a funny shop i sugest make a look to "holy potatoes a weapon shop mega", a craft hulk hogan potato XD.
Theme hospital is a masterpiece full of good ideas. Incapacition potions can be, venom of laught, incontinent hunger, incontinent pe pe.
One thing I always hope for in potion brewing mechanics is that the outcome isn't too fixed. In the Elder Scrolls, you add specific ingredients and you get a specific potion effect. That's not what I want in potion brewing. I would like the time at which you add an ingredient, the temperature at which you cook it, and the length at which you cook it, to have an impact on the type of effect you get, not only it's potency. And that you have to do it roughly on feeling. Guess the temperature by looking at how many bubbles there are. Guess the time by eyeballing an hourglass. Making it less an exact science makes the whole thing feel more like experimentation. It creates a sense of 'anything can happen', something I feel is missing from most potion brewing mechanics.
If you want some silly humor that stands out compared to other crafting mechanisms seen in games, why not a pet that you feed herbs and other ingredients that spits/poops you the potion in return?
The way you raise said pet would influence the potions it makes (quality, quantity, speed, etc).
I love this idea!Quote:
Originally Posted by GalloViking
I'm picturing a big ol' monster that looks like some sort of super fluffy cow/dog fusion.
Feeding it things and then having to catch its magical drool in various bottles.
"The secret to good potion making is not letting other people know how it's made."
Feeding things various foods to try produce a different fertiliser is something we have in mind.
As for the apothecary, it's amusing but it needs to feel like a job, and have some craft about it.
I like the idea of bubbling pots, exact amounts, condensing tubes, grinding ingredients and jars full of weird stuff.
Well, I liked the potion brewing mechanism of Minecraft.
I like this idea for getting different effects. This kind of experimentation could make it fun for the community to work together and share new findings. Not sure about the adding things at certain times. The days are designed to be short so it might not fit Kynseed well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aynen
Hi! I have little knowledge of english....so don't kill me!
I work in a lab, with human plasma. The realistic concept is veeeeery slow and boring. So...I think taking theme hospital as inspiration it's a great idea.
An apothecary reminds me of Panoramix (a druid, and yes, it's not the same as an apothecary...but the origins of them!) he is a character of a comic-book series named Asterix and Obelix, and his "lab" could be an inspiration.
Also, and sorry If someone said it before, the doctor of darkest dungeon, with his mask, is very inspirational also.
Btw, a good mix between these characters would be awesome. For example, you can focus on differents kinds of threatments: herbals, chemical brewings you made, "old-gods-recipes"...
The ideas of Aynen and Galloviking are also great.
My recommendation it's NOT to use a very long time of brewing...I have enough "brewing" in my real job, thanks! :explosion: xD
Just kidding, but the use of a a lot of ingredients, the possibility of buiding your own shop and decorate it, and leveling up the instrumental, would be awesome.
Sorry for my english and see you around!
Quote:
Originally Posted by GalloViking
Maybe a combination of these two ideas? :think:Quote:
Originally Posted by Aynen
As funny as it sounds, we are not doing the animal pooping potions idea...but keep them coming! Everything is cool to read :)
This is not about brewing and I don't know how much of a doctor you want to be in the apothecary, but what about leeches?
They were (and sometimes still is) a common treatment,like phlebotomy(= Doctor cuts your wrists to let out "bad" blood), for many types of illness. They could be collected through fishing or searching in shallow waters, if a certain level of fishing/apothecary is reached, you can build leech bait for more efficent collecting. To continue the guessing idea, you have to watch the patient how the leeches work (looks ill at the beginning of treatment ->looks healthy when leeches worked ->looks ill again if they draw too much blood).
Would give a slightly "Eeeeww!" effect to the job, and it was always hilarious in The Sims: Medieval when the doctor just threw a bucket of leeches in the patient's face.
Aww. I'll keep it in mind for another game then XDQuote:
Originally Posted by Charlie
I can't think of anything else that both stands out and fits what you're after for now but I'll keep thinking about it.
Ok, now these are (hopefully) some proper thoughts for the apothecary.
You start with a small cauldron, a mortar and a recipe book. At this point you can make simple potions and salves.
Like in Aynen's post, the efficency of the potions and salves depends on how long you cook/grind the ingredients. When over-/undercooked, some potions fail and are worthless, some maybe reveal other unexpected effects (Many of our medicines were discovered by accident).
You can write down your steps in the recipe book by yourself, so you don't have to keep it all in your head and it's something different from the typical 'Unlock recipe and it writes itself down correctly'.
The next tier would add an Alembic (http://c7.alamy.com/comp/CT9JJ7/chem...bic-CT9JJ7.jpg) for simple destillation. If you put basic potions in it, they will get stronger. Because of vaporizing you would need two basic potions to create an advanced one though.
The Alembic also unlocks more products like parfum water (is that a word?!) and essential oils.
The next tier would add a destillery (maybe like the one in Dragon's Breath). Simply destill potions won't be enough anymore to create high quality potions, you have to mix destilled liquids with grinded herbs to make them stronger and maybe even to add some extra effects.
For extra treatment and more accuracy you can buy special tools (like scale, hourglass,...) for the working station.
Well, that was a long thought... Hope it helped a bit. *disappears in dark corner*
I reckon the best course of action for developing potions is to do the whole cauldron thing with the potions and things but I would like to interject that the ingredients should be various plants although nothing as generic as the primary color plants that were in the Rune factory series.
There are actually a lot of interesting plants out there that people have and still use to cure wounds, burns, Basil can repel bugs, and some flowers can be consumed.
Catnip in particular has uses as well aside from the obvious.
Instead of herbs you can have potions made from Alfalfa.
A garden dedicated to your cauldron work.
Happyheretic: nice stuff...some of that is what the design is heading towards. Am thinking 3 types of thing you can craft...Powders, Creams/salves and Potions.
Swifteye: I was thinking of having a herb / flower garden attached to each Apothecary. The reason is I don't want the world having pickables everywhere (as it may be tricky to define what is collectible), so the idea could be that anything that is used in the Apothecary can be grown in the specialised garden (and at your home farm in 'herb' garden patches.
A Mr Fairweather item, The Cupboard of Many Doors can be bought that allows shops to share ingredients, so open the cupboard in one shop and get access to all ingredients from your other shops.
One idea could be the purchase of seeds to later grow them in the garden. You only need to decide which stores the seeds have to be on and how difficult it can be to find them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie
I will be revealing more about the design itself, with diagrams and explanations, when our Backer Dev Forum opens in a matter of days!
Looking forward to it.
just hoping that there'll be some special garden plots to grow said ingredients, or splicing things/plant mutations in such said garden plots. Special pets/faes as assistants.
aside from that, my favorite game is the Atelier series so maaayybee you can see the alchemy system and see if it fits what you need!
Will have a look thanks.
Each Apothecary has its own dedicated 'herb garden' and there's space at your home farm for more.
Picking ingredients like herbs won't just yield 1 use either...you can get a few leaves etc from 1 picking.
on a random note, I'm a gardener myself so about herbs, I tend to cut off the flowers of the herb to keep the plants growing and not dying. Since once the plant get flowers and seeded, it just dies off. Just throwing it some random stuff out. Still really liking the poop pet though ;'>
With the herb garden, the thought is that you do not need to replant them and that you are picking leaves.
Still thinking on whether they should be annuals, bi annuals etc...so in practice this means you pick leaves, herb regrows after x days but after a year ot dies off so you need to re-plant then.
Thoughts?
I think any/all sounds good to me (since herbs are both in reality--depending on the herbs). If you're looking for more in depth, then there's the caring/fertilizer/pruning/hybrid crossing for "forever" / increase yields/etc. But that's a complete add on mechanism than what you've mentioned.
I think annual, bi annual, forever is ok depending on the kind of herbs. Variety is fun :-DQuote:
Originally Posted by Charlie
You could also let some herbs be not be harvestable in winter - as the plant goes to "sleep". Maybe there can be updates for the herb garden (kind of greenhouse? to take the winter malus away)
Also there could be caves somewhere in the world to be found, where you can grow some super special herbs - these just need really extremly special conditions, which can only be found there.
Well you would be able to find herbs and other ingredients in caves, that are unique to caves (especially mushrooms), but the player has no ownership of any cave.
HOWEVER, I think an upgrade for the player home could be a cellar (that could even lead to a cave) where you can grow these varieties and have them easily to hand.
So thanks to you, that's going in :-)
Jippieee :-D
i love the idea of having a book that you can keep track of your recipes in! There's already going to be so much other information in the game to keep track and i have a difficult time with my memory.
The idea of a cellar upgrade that could lead to a cave is super awesome! Not only because i like being able to farm ingredients but also because it's whimsical and fits so well into the whole concept of the world!
i always enjoy having little critters around that can help me out with things (i will name any and every creature/mechanical/tool i come across), but tied into the idea of the potential Sassyback Ledger, just having another 'magical' type notebook would be cool. Like it starts out as a 'baby', not saying much at all, and as you add more into it, it 'grows up' and can start aiding you in remembering recipes, or perhaps discovering new ones...
(i have no idea if any of that made sense. lol )
I understood that perfectly :)
I think a cave idea and a balcony/roof greenhouse is a good combination. There's just something about a glass-like roof top space that you can see the outside while growing a bunch of rare plants around--with sparkle pooping butterflies flying inside (defying nature --snowing and stormy outside while inside is all green and lush). cellar sounds good for brewing and such ;'>
Sounds very nice (I love stuff like that) but we are avoiding 'upstairs' and the overuse of glass :-)