Tiny Apprentice
Entry for the GameDev.tv 2025 Game Jam
You are a new apprentice to the local Wizard who owns an Emporium/Tavern. While cleaning up after hours, you accidentally knock over a box containing a shrinking potion that caused you to shrink. Now you must travel across the magic tavern to get to the antidote.
Controls:
W/S - move forwards/backwards
A/D - rotate left/right
E - Interact
Spacebar - Jump
Left Shift (hold) - Sprint
R - Reset to last checkpoint
Assets used:
Bar / Interior - Functional Low Poly assets
Legends - Retro Loops by Josh Lim
Comments
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I had SO much fun playing this! I created a video of my gameplay for you. I did not run into any issues, and once I got the controls down with some practice, I was able to beat the game. Thanks for entering the jam!
Thank you again for playing! I'm glad you enjoyed it! Thank you for sharing your recorded experience, as it provided a lot of positive feedback and showed where to improve. Truth be told, I was mostly focusing on the level design and post-processing for this jam since I'm normally a narrative designer by trade. Good to know those aspects caught your attention.
This is such a fun concept! I loved the overall vibe of this game, and I am truly surprised that you were able to complete it all with one person!
Fun: most of the "fun" was with the theme. I didn't find myself particularly engaged in the game play itself, but maybe I just needed to give it more time :)
Theme/Aesthetics: this theme was top notch. Well done! No notes.
Music: this was a good pick to fit the vibes you were going for, albeit the music itself felt like stock music — but it was! I'd love to see what a composer would do with this game. I personally would have gone with a lot of the instruments that you did, but upped the reverb to make the world feel larger when at a tiny scale and use metallic sounds for bits of "magic" in the air. Mechanics: worked stably for me! I would have preferred that the camera view didn't zoom in so much when I moved forward so much. Overall the gameplay was smooth and I didn't find myself frustrated with any glitches.
Story: again, really cool concept! I would've liked to see more overarching narrative, but for a one-person team this is way better than I would expect with narrative design.
Overall, great job!! I'd love to work with you on a future jam.
You mention YuGiOh and I instantly love the game. The magic aspect and shrinking due to a shrinking potion I thought was an nice touch. I loved being small and viewing the goblets being bigger than me.
I feel as if the game could have benefited from a camera the player could control with the mouse instead a fixed camera. I had issues looking backwards. The game could have also used more checkpoints because it was demoralizing to go through all that only to fall and start way back to my checkpoint. I found a way to get back to my initial failure without a checkpoint but noticed I couldn't do that with all my failures.
Thank you for your feedback. I do plan to fix the player controller once the Gamedev.tv rating time is over.