Alchemy of the Earth

Perfect game for those you like flower picking in skyrim(Everyone who's seen me play skyrim has teased me for this.) Has plenty of bugs and weird controls, but the more you play this game, the more you learn strategies on your own. My advice if you choose to pick this game up is to play around with the spells, take your time with the mortar and pestle to find ways you can maximize your crafting, and read through items in your inventory. You can tell this is a passion project, from the well designed hand crafted world with plenty of points of interest, to the great written dialogue. If you like flower picking, and want to support a solo developer, I recommend you grab it.

As a female gamer and one who has been playing games for awhile, this is a new change from what is out there. It's not survival in the typical sense and it's not a cozy game but it's a more relaxed pace with an interesting concept. There are some aspects of it that do need a little tweaking but overall it is an enjoyable game to play.

**DISCLAIMER** I played and reviewed the Demo of this game extensively, and have found zero improvements from the Demo. I do not believe this game is worth spending money on, or playing for free. Aw man where do I even begin with this slop? First off you can instantly tell the dev has no idea how to tell a story there’s zero structure no emotional weight nothing to make you care it’s like they scribbled vague ideas on a napkin and hit publish The open world? if you can even call it that just empty boring space with zero intention or design behind it it’s not immersive it’s not fun it’s just dead and ugly Character movement feels straight up broken stiff awkward no weight or polish and what kind of first person game doesn’t even show your arms it’s 2025 and this feels like some Unity tutorial asset flip The enemies are actual skeletons wearing armor that doesn’t even fit like seriously it clips floats and looks like trash there’s no thought behind them no variety no challenge just lazy lazy design And the spells man they don’t make sense they don’t feel good to use they’re just sparkles and sound effects with no impact or identity it’s like someone made a magic system with zero rules or logic But the UI is where I fully gave up it looks like they tried to rip off SkyUI and failed miserably it’s clunky hideous inconsistent like 5 different people designed 5 different menus and never talked to each other the alchemy menu in particular is straight up embarrassing looks like it was done by a 12 year old on a Chromebook And for all that ugliness the game runs like a dying horse frame drops stutters and horrible performance on mid-range hardware no optimization no excuses it’s pathetic how badly this thing runs for how bad it looks This whole thing feels like an unfinished school project not worth your time not worth your money once the game does release (idk the price point but it should be free and tbh it shouldn't even exist is the more apt question) don’t download/buy this trash P.s. How lazy do you have to be to copy and paste Sky UI? An actual decent mod from a decent game doesn't belong in this slop. Talentless. Sure hope you didn't waste any money advertising this. The music genuinely sucks, by the way. Yikes.

Too many bugs and unfinished stuff. Numerous items have "placeholder, hello" as text. Crouch doesn't work. Esc from several screens doesn't work. I found a book, but was unable to interact with it at all. Same for what looked like a recipe. I'm not sure it was a recipe, because it just sat on the ground, not letting me do anything with it.

the game needs a lot of ui and game mechanics works. It seems to be getting updates but for now its hard to recommend this. the world is pretty and picking flowers is nice, but its hard to make it far enough into the game to explore much biggest issues in my opinion: -Skeletons appear out of nowhere and surround you -combat is unforgiving -many UI options do not work -esc button often doesn't work -volume sliders do not work at all -controls are clunky -you must pick things off the ground but cannot look straight down -crosshair is inaccurate -you pick up so much stuff that important stuff gets lost in the notifications, so its difficult to keep track of your inventory feed (maybe instead of listing everything individually it could be something like: "Picked up medicinal petals of chamomile X(insert number value)" or something.) -game does not pause when you open the inventory -ai is a major turnoff. even ms paint would be better if you can tolerate some of the problems this might be a gem worth visiting, im really curious to see more of this game but its difficult to fight enemies and the controls at the same time

This game is honestly something special. The world feels alive in a way that kept me exploring just to see what was around the next corner. Every area I found had its own vibe, from quiet meadows to creepy ruins, and it all tied together with this strange, haunting atmosphere that really pulled me in. The alchemy system is deep but not overwhelming. Mixing ingredients, experimenting, and finally figuring out the perfect potion or spell felt so rewarding. It’s not just “combine X with Y” either—there’s a lot of room for creativity, and I loved that my concoctions felt like they were truly mine. There’s real tension too. Some of the creatures out there are no joke, and the fact that your potions can make or break those moments makes every encounter exciting. Using a potion at the right time or managing to escape with a clever spell never stopped being fun. The narration and music add so much to the experience. The voice work gives the story this mysterious, almost dreamlike quality, and the soundtrack is perfect. For a debut game, it’s crazy impressive. You can feel the care that went into the details, from the environments to the crafting system. I’ve played a lot of survival/crafting games, but this one really nails that sense of discovery and wonder. Highly recommend if you’re into exploration, atmosphere, and experimenting with systems that actually feel meaningful. It’s one of those games that sticks with you after you close it.

A bit of a cozy game, was relaxing to walk around and pick plants and push back skeletons

The character's boring monologue drones on like a bad audiobook narrated by a depressed and unmotivated old man, clearly too old to be on Discord or wherever the dev found him, but fortunately the mediocre bland/uninspired music drowns it out. It's this way too loud ear grating loop that sounds like it was composed in a free app by someone tone deaf. And the actual written dialogue itself? I am unsure if it was free or paid for, regardless, not a good choice by any stretch. I'm actually happy the music blasts over it because it's that embarrassingly bad. The world? Calling it, "open," is a joke because it's dead empty, no life, no vibes, just vast nothingness that arrived D.O.A. (dead on arrival for the uniniated) on Steam with 0 active players according to SteamDB. So much for those, "positive," reviews 😂 it really is impressive that this dev had to ask his friends to make them, I checked, despite all of them being negative and protraying a game they would not normally purchase, play, or give a second glance. Instead of adding a basic swimming feature which is easy when you have no visible arms, legs or body in general; you elected to make it so your character walks and runs on water. Really smart. And there are invisible walls blocking you from points of interest in said terribly implemented water. Immersion? Ruined, not that there was any to begin with. All of the stairs, scaffolding, and castle (?) walls are fused with random terrain mountains and rocks which makes no architectural sense showing a fundamental lack of research and common sense from the developer, blatantly unskilled work at its finest. I noticed the use of SKYUI, a popular FREE mod for Skyrim on Nexus. You really couldn't even try to be unique or original, you just steal the work of better men? Is it envy or gluttony? To be honest though, I can tell clear as day the parts of your menus that you yourself did work on. Cluttered, hideous, confusing, and borderline unusable. This is a game created by someone who would definitely get fired from a Trust and Safety job at Discord. Not a coder, not a modeller, not an artist, not a designer, not a writer, not a developer. On a constructive final note, after grinding through a whole 36 minutes of this concept (this is not an actual video game), it's clear the dev should pick up a new pastime. And notice I said pastime, not profession? Being a game dev is out of their Mythrealm™. [b]Dissapointing.[/b]

so poorly optimised i need to turn everything on low setting to get a solid 30fps, ryzen 7 5700x, radeon rx 7600 xt i will maybe check back in a few months

Enjoying this so far! Intrigued by the story and moody atmosphere. Could definitely use some hotkeys though, because having to switch between items through the menu when being attacked by multiple skellies cost me my life!