Alchemic Cutie

Alchemic Cutie is not Stardew Valley. Probably unironically, it's more Slime Rancher than Stardew Valley; but it's more Graveyard Keeper than it is Slime Rancher! It's more My Time At Portia than Graveyard Keeper and Stardew Valley but not more My Time At Portia than it is Slime Rancher. Now that you're confused, let's talk about what I do and do not like about FetchQuest Slime Simulator. This is one of those "I wish there was a Neutral Review option" reviews. I can't bring myself to give it a negative review because I have had fun with it. When I was managing slimes, I was having fun. When I was doing what is the majority of the game, I was not having fun. The majority of the game is undoubtedly, fetchquests. Some of the NPC's want 10-30 of something, every week the storage house wants 10-30 of a bunch of items, several NPC's ask you to take an item to a person or a place almost every time you talk to them. If you want to feed your slimes, it's a fetchquest to go and get the item from the wild and bring it back. And the biggest fetchquest - the intentionally designed fetchquest... Is the shrines. You need to feed a slime until it turns to a crystal, and then place that on a shrine. After every 3 shrines you can unlock a door, behind which is more forageables and more+better slime variants. More on shrines in a bit - but that is essentially how you progress in Alchemic Cutie. You have a good gameplay mechanic buried deep in the jelly system: more should be done with it. However, it's lacking a lot of quality of life things that could turn it into a whole game, and it's buried under the fetchquesty nature of the rest of the game. And, as far as I could tell at least in the early game: managing slimes is not even REQUIRED to progress, as any slimes will do for unlocking shrines. Essentially, progressing in this game boils down to: -Catch random slimes (for free) -Feed them til they turn to crystals -Take their crystals to the closest shrine -Repeat And it's the fact that these shrines get further and further away and requires more slimes - starts at 2, I am up to 3 now, and currently, I haven't discovered a way to carry more than 2 crystals at a time, and you're slow when carrying 2. So it soon becomes a slog. And the second area, the forest, is nothing but hidden paths that are obscured so you just have to ram your body onto the wall to find the shrine. And eventually, I got to a point where I took all 9 jelly crystals to the forest shrines. And then I went to go through the door and they said NOPE, NOW GO FIND A KEY FOR THE DOOR. My heart broke. I was no longer having fun with Alchemic Cutie. I know what this is, devs. It's not exploration. It's padding. Exploration is looking for out-of-the-way areas to find neat harvestable items or rare slimes. Padding is needing to rub on every wall and bush and stone to find an intentionally snaking path or hidden thing for required progression. Or needing to spend 5+ trips running two crystals back and forth between the various shrines. Only to be told, nope, we've hidden the way to the next area ON TOP of making me do so many trips to do what is essentially busywork. And all this time spent trying to get further I am not actually interacting with my best slimes and training them, which is what I WANT to be doing. Maybe when I have unlocked all of the areas or progressed further, the slime management really comes out and actually becomes required to progress. But I am 12 hours in, 2 in-game weeks. That should be enough to get to the meat and potatoes of the gameplay. In Stardew Valley, you use funds to buy crops. You farm and sell those crops for a profit. Then you buy more, sell more, expand the farm so you can sell more. I BRING THIS UP not because you should compare Alchemic Cutie to Stardew Valley, but because this is the backbone of any relaxy-simmy type game. In Alchemic Cutie, you can just cut grass to make money. You can sell random junk - which is everywhere. You can catch random slimes from the wild - for free, and sell them. You can use the flute on basic resources - then sell them for a profit. Making money is easy. Want to know the worst part about it? I'm 12 hours in and, while I know WHERE to spend money, I have NFI what to spend money on that is actually useful apart from more storage. Far as I can tell there are no expansions to the jelly pen? Just food and apparel for jellies - which is growing everywhere in the wild for free, and again, doesn't seem to even be required to progress? There's no farm where I can grow resources - I have to slog out to where it grows and pick it. Yes I can use alchemy to make it regrow while I'm picking it, but it only ever grows there. And I want to grow it at the farm. That feature would be in any other management game. It just feels like all I'm doing in this game is walking between two points - points that are getting further and further apart, and not spending any time with my jellies on my farm, which is what I WANT to do!!! I am not sure what the design was... If the core ethos behind the design of this game was to immerse you in a world with nice characters who have lives and personalities and routines, then it was a success... But you need a game around that - and worse still, you have one that don't feel like it's the focus of the game. This feels more like "This is my OC island setting, do you like it?" than "I made this time management sandbox for you to play in" that something like Stardew Valley offers. My simple fix would be to make the shrines take ONE crystal - a crystal that requires a certain perk setup or slime variant. Not 3 of any slime. 3 of any reeks of padding - padding is anything that's easy that takes a long time. Make it require work. Make it require me ACTUALLY interacting with your CORE GAMEPLAY LOOP, PLEASE! At the end of the day... Would I say you should buy Alchemic Cutie? No. I am going to instead plug World End Diner - A much more time management of the same vein as Stardew or anything else in the time management relaxing game genre. It sucks because, the devs of Alchemic Cutie are active in the Steam discussions, have already helped and interacted with me, and I'm almost positive they're going to see this and I hate to do that to them. But what is here is just not right - I care about managing the jellies. I do not care about holding w and shift, I don't care about taking Frog Man his package for the 30th time, I don't care about Grandma's courier job to Juna for the 48th time, I don't care about running to the forest to pick the Woobly Doobly Berries that grow only there. I just... I just wanna feed and pet and love and minmax my slimes because there is actual REAL potential in this slime management, but I want it to mean something, and have a purpose. But it doesn't. I'm sorry. If it does have a purpose - then the purpose should show it's head before the 12th hour. I will review it positively, because I am sure that it is just my personal preference that I am no longer having fun - I mean hell, some people like The Tenants and that game is just placing down furniture til you die of old age. But this is not for me. There doesn't seem to be a reason to interact with the parts I like without first interacting with all the parts I do not like. Sorry Vakio and Viridian. Edit: April 2022 I checked back in on this game; turns out my most requested feature (mostly, that shrines have requests for individual jelly crystal types to encourage jelly management) was actually implemented! Quite a fair while ago, in fact. Other than that, there's been many quality of life and gameplay expansions for things that were lacking, like the jelly management and competitions. Am I going to go back to it? Mnnhhhhhhh.... Next question please. BUT, it is a good sign of good intentions. I am adding this footnote to the bottom of my review, given it is still present on the store page but not [b]entirely[/b] relevant any more.

[h1]悠闲的田园生活，偶尔也来过过慢节奏的日子吧[/h1] [h1]写在开头[/h1] 一开始入手这游戏的时候，就是因为被像素风的模拟经营类游戏所吸引，在现在紧凑的生活节奏中，偶尔放慢脚步也不错。 游戏整体的玩法与牧场物语侧重点不同，由于背景是以炼金为主轴，所以收集物品道具成为了代替种田的主要玩法，在游戏中需要玩家通过整个地图上物品的收集和炼金进化，再结合史莱姆的养殖，来诞生各种各样不同的道具，完成一系列的游戏任务。其中游戏的主线更侧重于史莱姆的养成，而游戏的支线则需要用道具通过炼金来获得任务物品，更侧重于收集。 [h1][quote=] [table] [tr] [th]　欢迎关注 [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/38287879]网易UU鉴赏家培养计划[/url][/th] [/tr] [tr] [th]　来这里找优质游戏、开黑日友、白嫖UU时长卡　[/th] [/tr] [tr] [th]　加速Steam社区、游戏记得用UU哦_(:з」∠)_　[/th] [/tr] [/table] [/quote][/h1] [h1]主体[/h1] 游戏有两个主要的玩法，一个是史莱姆养成，另一个是道具的收集。在游戏中需要通过支线来获得金钱和一些稀有的道具，而支线的主要侧重点就是在道具收集上，玩家操作的是一个炼金术师，而炼金术师的能力就是能够改变各种物品的性质，很多物品需要从地图上采集最基础的道具，然后通过自己的炼金技能来改变物品性质，满足任务的需求。 这一点也是相当有意思的地方，由于游戏中的提示比较少，很多的物品需要各种各样的方式来获得，这就需要运用自己的经验和异想天开的想法来解锁了，游戏中唯一的提示就是在获得过一次道具之后会提示道具的转化路线，但是转化的方法并不会给出来。因此还是有一定的挑战性的，尤其是在炼金的转化每天有次数限制的情况下。 另外，游戏由于炼金游戏每天次数限制的关系，堪称时间管理典范，一日三餐每顿可以回6次次数，所以游戏时间一天大约可以用35次左右的炼金术，而由于有限时任务的存在，如何合理分配好这些炼金术的次数就是重中之重，因为野外的资源自然恢复速度很慢，很多时候也需要消耗炼金次数来加快资源恢复，并且抓取史莱姆也是需要的，虽然不是种植农作物，但是时间管理这一块的核心是不变的。 并且物品的转化不光是有自己使用炼金术这一条路线，还有给史莱姆喂食后从史莱姆的排泄物里获取这一条路线，因此有时候即使自己绞尽脑汁，把能见的物品全都炼金一遍，也会有一些东西无法出现，这就需要玩家充分思考了。 而在养殖史莱姆这一块，因为史莱姆有食物、心情这两个要素，并且需要史莱姆成长到一定程度才能够解锁主线，这一块培养也比较复杂，因为很多的高级回复物品都是需要炼金术炼金之后才能够获得，普通的地图资源采集物回复效率十分低下，这又回到了时间管理这一个核心上了，并且在后期史莱姆的驯服培养也是重要的一块内容。 [h1]不足[/h1] 游戏整体素质还是比较不错的，但是在一些细节的地方还是欠缺人性化，就比如物品的收集这一块，游戏中给到的提示十分的少，再加上整个地图物品种类特别多，这就导致了物品的刷新点只能靠玩家自己记忆力来记住了，并不能通过游戏中的提示手册来获取物品刷新的位置，哪怕是自己已经探索过的地方。 另外一点是植物在采集之后，会变为只留下根茎的状态，而这个状态下由于植物位置互相混合，很难记清原先这个根茎是什么植物，游戏中也没有提示这个植物原本是啥样子，因此在是否需要使用炼金术加速它的恢复速度，就容易产生浪费一些炼金术次数用来试错的情况，在一些比较极限的限时任务中就反馈很不好。 另外地图标记也只提供了4次标记次数，对于资源提示做的并不好的这一块来说，无疑是杯水车薪。 [h1]总结[/h1] 游戏整体还是很不错的，悠闲悠闲的一个人玩游戏也是一番乐趣，如果玩腻了之前像素风的模拟经营游戏，这款游戏可以作为一个很不错的替代品来游玩，不足之处对游戏整体的影响并不大，比较推荐。

Alchemic Cutie is almost good. It feels aimless. The writing is a bit immature, the quest lines feels padded and there are way too many items - to the point that the world feels full of junk. There are also some loose ends design-wise which aren't tied up, and several obvious bugs, such as the way text is displayed at times. Definitely buy on sale and only if you are really really hungry for a little sandbox farming game that is more on the gentle, aimless Animal Crossing / Slime Rancher side than on the more purposeful and rich Stardew Valley side. The problem is the Quest lines. You can go too many places based on too few interesting things and too little interesting character interactions. For example, it would be better if you unlock an area and need something alchemic from it - but you never do. Would have really recommended more substantive goals with the slime breeding, too, e.g. unlocking specific achievements and types like a rock slime or diamond slime. And producing materials with them which are needed for some quest lines, e.g. diamond slime makes diamond shards, or you need the luminescent slime's irradiated jel to make something quest-related - that sort of thing. I honestly think this game could have been in Early Access and still has potential to be majorly improved. I will check back in 3-6 months and see if there is a reason to flip my review to Positive. There's a lot of nice things here, and the music is good. Btw, I also agree the "suction" noise for picking up plants should change to something more appealing. :)

I'm only putting negative because I wish I could do neutral. Ultimately, I cannot recommend the game at its current price for what it currently is, but I think there are some great basics in it that could be very fun. Basically, I got the game because it seemed like a Stardew Valley/Slime Rancher game, with the cute aesthetic and exploration that I enjoy. The game as it stands though is very confusing and a lot of the things that I would consider intuitive...aren't. You're a flute mage who lives on a slime farm with the rest of your family. Speaking to the people in your house doesn't really teach you much more, other than that you have at least one brother (although I would have sworn there were also two?) and that you are supposed to collect things. Mechanics aren't well explained imo, and the ones that are feel clunky to use. An example? There are at least three different things that can be used as currency that I found before I even finished the first part of the main quest. Additionally, I have absolutely no idea how the slime ranching/evolving slimes to crystals mechanic works. You can feed them practically anything, and there is no noticeable difference between what you feed them. You plug in almost anything as food and it eventually becomes poop and crystals. There's a breeding mechanic, but I'm not sure to what end. The journal that supposedly explains all of that has SO MUCH INFORMATION in it that it's either overwhelming to rifle through, and doesn't have easily accessible points for where to find the info you've unlocked. Speaking of the journal, where is the info for what the temples translated into? I unlocked the first inscription, and then had three more crystals on the farm and dad was nowhere around so I went and plugged them in, too. When I went back to dad for the translation, he told me it was in my journal. But WHERE? There are tabs within tabs within tabs, no alerts for new information to access, etc. Then, my previously never mentioned bird best friend invited me to come taste food, but I can neither figure out where or when. The energy for casting is very short, and while there are areas you can use to refuel, none of them are intuitive. You can go to the library, you can eat meals with your family at specific times, and you can visit unlocked crystal shrines to get extra energy. All in all, I am sure that a lot of work has gone into making this but it feels very unbalanced and a little chaotic, and instead of being a fun and relaxing experience it just feels stressful trying to understand what you're trying to do.

Even at 2x speed with cheat engine this game is still so slow. The gameplay loop just has you go and find some slimes, feed them a bunch of garbage, and wait. Then feed them more garbage, and wait. Eventually they turn into a crystal, which you'll need a few dozen of to actually progress between areas. That's it, that's the whole game. There's no point in talking to NPCs aside from occasional fetch quests. Most of the plants you can harvest are worthless. And there's no reason to actually improve your slimes with quality food and exp crystals, because the only point of slimes is to pump them full of garbage until they turn into a crystal.

There was a positive review hoping for a neutral score and I agree so this will be the bad half of that. This is a cute and interesting game that could be great after a quality of life overhaul. Until then only buy if you want to support the devs or can handle less than stellar ui choices. Everything is hidden in dialog trees. I also and hesitant to say the game barley tells you much, but it could all be hidden in the single massive help book mixed with the character bio's and lore files.

When I first started playing this game, it was too easy to progress in the plot and I got through it too easily. When the devs made update 1.3, they said it was going to be harder, so I decided to play it again. They made it impossible to progress. I actually believe the game is unbeatable based on the changes they made.

It's hard to recommend the game because it has some BIG flaws: It looks great, it sounds great, and the controls are fluid, but the problem lies in the gameplay. The thing is that it's cryptic, you'll wander everywhere trying to make sense of what you are suposed to do. Tutorials are non existent and the menus are a puzzle. The game expects you to play around with slime breeding and learn everything by trial and error and talking to the NPCs. The overwhelming amount of items you can gather at the start of the game and their effects doesn't help. It's too overwhelming. There's another problem: The slimes. Why do I have to breed slimes? The narrative fails on that regard. Do they fight with other creatures? No. Do they evolve? No, they just change color and symbols over their head and turn into crystals to put in some places (too many). Do they have powers to help uncover areas? Kind of... The slimes help you find: More items. What you can do with these items? Get more items. It's like there is no objective. You have money but there's nothing to upgrade, just more items for the slimes to eat and poo more items and you can use alchemy to make more items and make them participate in like 3 or 4 minigames to get more items. I know there are quests, and slimes help to complete them, but what is the reward? You guessed it, more items. I think that the slime breeding is supposed to be the center of the gameplay loop. But it just doesn't work, because there is no big motive to breed them, just to keep breeding them. Plus, the amount of things you can do with them is preety limited (turn them into crystals or play a small amount of mini games) I played 7 hours and after doing a bunch of secret uncover I will stop for now. I thought that the story (wich is hidden behind a lot of padding) would advance or new mechanics would be implemented but I can't see that happening. Maybe I'm wrong but after 7 hours there´s nothing new, I just run around getting items that are lying on the floor (yeah, the items are just there...), feeding them to the slimes that give me more items and it never ends, nothing different happens. I can't upgrade their ranch, or my tools, or the house, or the village or something. I can't even create new slimes, they all look the same with different ears and colors. I am sure I'll keep playing but there is no motive to move forward in the game, just the hope that the gameplay gets better.

A great looking game, with amazing potential. However, it sadly fails to actually deliver in so many ways. I wanted to recommend this game, but I just can't with how everything seems so unfinished. Many things in the game, like competitions, seemed pointless. I only realised how to do competitions right at the end of the main story, but even when I finally realised how to do them, I felt there was no point in doing them. The only 1 trait seems worth ever having. I really wish combinations were needed for the main story. As for how to pass the time, I had to finish the game first until I finally read (on these forums) about using the library to pass time. That sure would have made the game more enjoyable, but then also probably would have made it extremely short for me due to how you can abuse it. I would have loved to see unique rewards only possible from various tasks, which were required for the main story. You can just do the main story and never have a reason to do anything else. I also noticed plenty of items were useless. For example, making a jellie stay awake didn't seem to matter. I could use abilities just the same when they were sleeping in my backpack. Many people may still enjoy this game, as I know I did, but be warned that you might find yourself disappointed.

Its cute but i cant stand the pick up sound effects and it crashed within the first 15 minutes, is there somewhere i can submit bugs?