Review: Potion Craft (Early Access)

This one-of-a-kind simulator will charm you with its delightful aesthetics and unique gameplay. Set in medieval times, you take on the life of a rookie alchemist managing a potion shop. You must try and satisfy townsfolks’ needs and desires while honing your skills as an alchemist and as a merchant.

Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator is the first big project for developer Niceplay Games. It was published by TinyBuild which is quickly becoming quite a hallmark in the growing world of indie gaming, with titles such as Hello Neighbor and Graveyard Keeper under its belt.

Welcome, new alchemist!

The game greets you with a bit of background information before guiding you directly to your new potion shop, which will serve as experimentation ground, as marketplace, and as your home. The short and sweet tutorial will hold your hand through the first few steps: how to get ingredients for potions, how to create potions and discover new recipes, and how to interact with townsfolks and sell them your goods.

Before any of the narrative even begins, you will be enthralled by the sepia yet vibrant visuals. I cannot get over how uniquely beautiful the aesthetics of this game are – not only are they clean and very pleasing to the eye, but they also create a soft and immersive ambience. The graphics and the soundtrack work together in conveying a soothing medieval setting, and altogether enhancing the gameplay through improving the simulator aspect of the game. They capture you and suck you into the little world they create. This game is a true work of art. The user interface is also exceptionally clear – we do not get lost in the various components of the game and menus. Everything is very intuitive.

Step 1: Make potions!

Most of your in-game time will be spent crafting potions, and it is by far the most innovative, creative, and riveting part of the gameplay. It is quite simple and intuitive at its core: you drag and drop some items from your inventory into a cauldron, hold the ladle and move around to stir, then heat it up to create a potion. Ingredients in your inventory are acquired from your garden (you grow your own flowers and mushrooms) or purchased from various merchants that pass by your store on occasion. You may also choose to put ingredients into a mortar and crush them with a pestle before putting them into the cauldron, altering their effects.

This is pretty fun in itself, but the real fun runs one layer deeper: there is a potion-making map, that you uncover more and more through trial and error. Every ingredient you choose to mix in has a specific trajectory in which it will drag your recipe on the map. You may also add water to strategically dilute your potion, dragging your recipe towards the center of the map. This is like an exploration mini-game, perfectly embedded into the crafting/simulation game! The map itself even has obstacles that affect your potion if your recipe goes through them. The map seems to be quite extensive, and the recipes numerous and diverse, especially considering they can be fused (e.g. a poison potion can be fused with an explosion potion to combine their effects!).

One more thing that particularly caught my attention: the customizability of potions design. While it does not affect gameplay whatsoever, all potions you create are highly customizable in design. You may select from hundreds of pot shapes, sizes, labels, symbols on labels, and colour combinations. I caught myself spending so much time customizing all my potions to make them look cute and unique!

Step 2: Make money?

Every day, there will be about ten people at your doorstep. Most of them will have a request for you that you will try and fulfil with a potion that satisfies their needs, which they will then buy from you. This is how you’ll be making money and increasing your popularity and reputation. Some of the people that visit will be merchants from which you can purchase a variety of special goods (ingredients for potions, recipe book pages, etc.). In both situations, you may choose to haggle with the visitor, in which case, you will be given a little reflex mini-game, where you have to click on a bar at the right time (think of it like timed attacks in Paper Mario or skill checks in Dead by Daylight) as many times as possible. If you succeed, this results in a better deal for you.

I think it is neat in concept but haggling becomes repetitive quite fast – so much so that after two hours of gameplay, I decided to just not haggle anymore. It wasn’t worth the hassle for a few more coins. I hope that the full version of the game develops haggling further, because it is a good idea and should not be ditched, but it is too repetitive and insipid in its current state. Interactions with fellow townsfolks are interesting and sometimes colourful in flavour text, but they would also benefit from a bit more depth and variety, as they are currently quite flat.

Wait, there’s more?

It is noteworthy that this game also features an RPG element – you acquire experience which allows you to level up one of four skills that improve your alchemist or merchant qualities. Your character also builds up (and loses) reputation and popularity through certain interactions (haggling too much, selling a dangerous potion to a sketchy person, etc.). There are many achievements to keep track of your progress and to have concrete longer-term goals. These details are fantastic additions to this simulator. There is also an absolutely beautiful garden in your store that provides you with daily ingredients for your potions.

While I have absolutely nothing negative to say about the visuals and the soundtrack which made me fall in love at first sight, as well as the potion making, the game in its current early-access version lacks depth in certain of its mechanics and would benefit greatly from further work. This is mostly evident in the merchant aspect of running the potion store – haggling, most notably, and adding personality and variety to the recurrent townsfolks – but also in other tiny aspects of the game aside from the potion-crafting. It would be fantastic to be able to tend to the garden or just interact with it more than merely clicking on plants that randomly appear daily. Your own room is also quite insignificant: in its current state, it never changes, and all it does is serve the purpose of allowing you to start a new day (and thus refresh your plants and clients). It could change as your store grows, it could also be where you write recipes, where you look at your achievements, etc. You could also buy furniture for it and seeds for your garden. The leveling aspect as well as popularity and reputation are a bit inconsequential as well. Some of these side elements feel too much like an afterthought, in this early access version of the game.

Final remarks

All in all, however, Potion Craft’s shortcomings are outbalanced by how brilliant the potion crafting is – which is perhaps why the social aspect seems so lacking by comparison. Everything other than the alchemy itself feels underdeveloped and like it has a lot of untapped potential. Once again, let us also keep in mind that this is a review of the demo version, so we can expect many improvements. And I have to say, even in its current state and in spite of its flaws, I would be buying the game. It is incredibly relaxing yet engaging, clean yet vibrant, simple yet deep. Everything is just so… pretty and captivating. Potion Craft will attract you with its artistry and hook you with its potion-making gameplay. You will keep wanting to create more potions, try more recipes, customize more pots, and explore your crafting map. The other stuff is far from perfect, but that is not why you will be playing the game anyways. Potion Craft is, after all, an alchemist simulator, and it does serve that excellently.

Buy Potion Craft on Humble Bundle! By following this link and making a purchase, your charity will automatically be selected as Qweerty Gamers, a 501c3 LGBTQ Gamer Nonprofit!