Potion Craft, developed by niceplay games, is a single-player 2D alchemy simulator for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S, where players brew potions and sell them to customers in their shop. The game has unique visuals inspired by medieval manuscripts and medical books and features satisfying interactions with ingredients and equipment. There’s also a morality system where players face consequences depending on what they sell to customers.
Alchemy 101
Players take the role of an aspiring alchemist who sets up shop in a previously abandoned shack at the edge of town. From here, players will brew potions and sell them to various customers seeking their services.
Players don’t pick ingredients from a list and click on a “Craft” button, unlike most games with a potion crafting mechanic. Instead, players carefully prepare and mix ingredients into their cauldron. The game uses an Alchemy Map to help guide players in brewing their mixtures and discovering new effects. Every potion starts at the center of the map. By adding ingredients to the cauldron and mixing them, players can move the brew to the desired effect. The path taken depends on what ingredients are used.
Additionally, players can extend how far that ingredient takes the potion by grinding it with a mortar and pestle before putting it in the cauldron. Once the brew arrives at the desired effect, the player uses the bellows to boil the cauldron, which adds the effect to the current potion. From here, players can either finish the potion or continue to add more effects.
Players can save potion recipes in their recipe book to brew again later quickly. Players can customize the potion’s bottle, label, and name, give the potion a brief description for role-playing flavor, or add notes for later experiments. It’s a simple system that’s very satisfying to use. And it gives players the freedom to experiment with making potions efficiently using the ingredients they have on hand.
However, players need to be wary of hazardous areas on the map, marked by skulls and bones. If a potion spends too much time in these areas, it will fail, and players will have to start back in the center again, their ingredients wasted. The good news is that a few new ingredients can be collected from the garden outside their shack every in-game day. The ingredients found here are random each day. But it often gives players a good helping of basic ingredients and a few advanced ones. Traveling merchants will also visit players, offering various herbs, mushrooms, and even crystals for sale.
Running a Potion Shop
Throughout the day, players will be visited by people requesting potions. The game takes a relaxed approach to customers in that there is no time limit, giving players time to make requested potions or experiment to find new effects to satisfy their requests. Often, customers will explain their issue and defer to the alchemist’s expertise to give them a potion to help them.
Does a guard come in who’s been hurt? A healing potion will fix them up. Does a housewife have a problem with vermin in her pantry? A bit of poison will do the trick. Does an innkeeper need something to help keep the beer cold? It sounds like a frost potion is just what he needs. Occasionally, players will get customers who have optional requirements for their tinctures. If players can create a potion without using a particular ingredient or by using a limited number of components, these customers will pay extra gold.
However, not everyone will come in with pure intentions. There will be customers who ask for potions for their selfish ambitions or with the intent to hurt others. Potion Craft has a reputation system that changes as players deal with requests. Actions such as selling a growth potion to the farmer whose crops aren’t doing well, or turning away the woman who wants a love potion to steal someone’s husband, will improve reputation. In contrast, selling an explosive potion to an assassin or turning away a mage who desperately needs a mana potion will worsen a player’s reputation.
In Potion Craft, the player’s reputation determines the clientele the shop will receive. Players can play as an evil alchemist selling to shady characters, a good alchemist who helps those in need, or a greedy one who sells to whoever is paying. Players can haggle for a better price regardless of who they sell to or buy from. This is done through a simple mini-game where players pick a topic to discuss, which determines the difficulty of the negotiations and click on yellow icons on a sliding bar.
The Alchemist’s Path
While Potion Craft doesn’t have much of an overall story, the game presents players with a series of objectives to complete in a book called The Alchemist’s Path. These objectives will net the player experience points, which they can use to buy perks to help explore the Alchemy Map or make potions more profitable. As players complete chapters in The Alchemist’s Path, they will unlock new ingredients, potion bases, and upgrades for the shop. One of the most notable upgrades a player can purchase is parts for the Alchemy Machine, located in the shop’s basement.
This machine allows players to use potions in complex, legendary recipes to create powerful substances to aid them in their potion-making, such as salts that can alter or erase a potion’s path on the Alchemy Map. As players advance through The Alchemist’s Path, they will be allowed to add more upgrades to this machine and thus create more potent substances. Eventually, players will have the means and know-how to create the magnum opus of alchemy: The Philosopher’s Stone.
Overall Impressions and the Future of Potion Craft
Players looking for a casual single-player crafting game will enjoy Potion Craft. The unique graphic design and medieval tavern music blend to create a soothing experience while players blend their alchemical creations. The Alchemy Map system is easy to understand, and uncovering more of it captures the feeling of being an alchemist conducting experiments to further their craft. As players progress through The Alchemist’s Path, they will encounter a gradual difficulty curve as customers come in asking for more complex potions and unlock more ingredients and upgrades to meet their satisfaction.
Furthermore, the developers plan to continue to add updates and improvements to the game. Shortly after Potion Craft’s successful launch from Early Access, niceplay games announced a list of upcoming features, including garden upgrades and planting management, new substances, salts, potion bases, ingredient types, alchemical gear upgrades, and shop customizations.