Typing Alchemist started as a game jam game that I created over two weeks for the Pirate Software Game Jam 15. My experience up to this point making games has been minimal, this was my first game jam and my first finished game.

The theme of the game jam was "Shadows and Alchemy". When the jam started, I felt like ideas weren't coming to me as quickly as I am used to, so I fell back on a longstanding desire to make a typing game. While I am not good at typing, my family and S.O. love typing-related games. My older siblings often mention a dead game, Typing Maniac, (an old Facebook flash game) with a heavy dose of nostalgia, and I have wanted to make a spiritual successor for a while.

To satisfy the "alchemy" portion of the theme, I borrowed elements from Doodle God, another old browser-based game. This element combining mechanic made up the progression system of the game. As for shadows, I had the idea of using fog-of-war. As far as I know, this has never been done in a typing game, which was pretty motivating. I knew I wanted to challenge myself, so I took on shaders for the first time to implement the veil of darkness that grows as you make more mistakes.

The biggest lesson I learned with this game was that I do not know how to scope/estimate how long a game will take, at all. I did not get a working build submitted before the deadline and getting it to the point it's at now would have NEVER happened in the game jams two week span. So if I could redo this, I would ditch a lot of the fusing mechanics and have it focused solely on typing with a more linear progression. But, I have no regrets and am happy with how it turned out.

If you took the time to read this, thank you. This is the first of many games I will make and it is only gonna get better from here. Drop a follow if you liked the game or if you have any questions or want to work together comment/DM.  Peace!