The game was pretty great in the beginning. The way of exploring the map/types of potions using different paths created by various types of ingredients felt refreshing and fun. Running a small potion shop and fulfilling various requests of the people was relaxing and satisfying. But then the map opened up, and exploration and discovery became difficult in an annoying way. The gameplay loop became a grind fest with barely any significant upgrades to help with any of that. I reached the first milestone and finished the Nigredo which again felt useless and unsatisfying.

I feel like the concept is solid and this game could have been amazing with some minor changes to the loop, a decent narrative, and some quality-of-life improvements.

I'd recommend trying out the game for yourself if you get it on a sale.

The gameplay is very simple - every morning some grass-ants grow in our secret garden, and visitors come to our shop with different needs and requests. Our task is to listen to everyone, figure out how to help their troubles and mix such a concoction by rubbing the necessary herbs in a mortar. It is advisable not to confuse a love potion with a sleep potion, although sometimes you really want to. For this simple trade we get a little gold, with it we buy improvements to the shop, more and more fancy herbs and mushrooms from the herbalist or mushroom picker, all this stuff goes further into potions, for which we get more and more gold and so on until we get tired of it.

I'll fully admit I was predisposed to not enjoy this, I'm not particularly great at spatial reasoning puzzles. The real problem, though, is the tedium.

You're at the mercy of too many things outside your control when you want to make any kind of progress. That would be fine if it led to interesting choices. But here it's a case of "I need x herb to make y potion, and the lady who sells it hasn't shown up for three days. Guess I'll continue autofilling the same orders again and again until she shows up".

For the kind of person who sort of just needs a thing to do with their hands while listening to a podcast or whatever this seems ideal, less so if you want to engage with the game in front of you.

É um jogo divertido no começo, mas depois de um tempo começou a ficar enjoativo.

Acho que podia ter mais coisas pra fazer num geral, acabou ficando repetitivo demais.

Gostei bastante do estilo visual do jogo e dos efeitos sonoros, inclusive foi isso que me chamou atenção pra jogar, mas faltou explorar mais conteúdo diferente pra me prender.

A pretty fun game that I liked playing, but will probably never actually finish.

There isn't much story, which I suppose is to be expected. The map mechanic is fun but very repetitive, especially on a controller.

I'd probably recommend this if you're looking for a cozy, low-stakes game with great art.

i'm seconding all of the reviews that say potion craft simply just gets kind of tedious and unrewarding, although i think the actual gameplay loop is amazing and there's simply no other game like it. i greatly enjoyed the early parts of this game.

potion craft has a system for buying and selling materials: materials will be on sale at random points, so you're incentivized to only buy certain materials, especially in bulk, when they're on sale-- especially because the cost of repairing larger upgrades is quite steep. but that means that you're ALWAYS low on materials to make potions with, and when making potions in later chapters becomes EXTREMELY cost-heavy, it just becomes... more frustrating than fun.

potion craft could've been amazing but is held back by that one simple mechanic. it's really sad, because the art style and early gameplay loop is so unique and fun, but it's bogged down pretty early by what i described. :(