Quick looks - Potion Craft - Part 1
2First episode of a quick look at Potion Craft. It's out in early access on steam right now. You work as an alchemist in a medieval-styled potion shop and a learning on the job. Customers come into your shop with all matters of ailments and you have to brew a potion that satisfies their needs. You can haggle, and get good reputations that improve your prices, but also increases the difficulty of potions that need to be synthesized to meet their needs. The potion brewing mechanic took me a few minutes to figure out, but once I did, I really enjoyed it. You do have to really do some experimentation to find certain potions, but at some level their is a bit of a logic (slight spoiler for an example; explosive potion is near fire potion etc... on the 'map'), Certain recipes can also be saved and brewed directly from the book saving you time (imo their are too few slots to start, but these can be expanded). You pick the flora in your own garden at the start of each day and you can also buy more exotic things from travelling vendors. The shop upgrades are still being worked on right now, as I mentioned it's still early access. There is some equipment that can be repaired in basement, but I haven't got to the point yet where I can do that, so not sure how that will expand on the gaming experience. Overall I really enjoy this game, super chill and definitely something I could see sitting down and losing a few hours of the day playing. My minor gripes would be, the recipe book is very limited at first and it is expensive to expand. I also in the next part find out the cost of the next equipment (in the basement), which feels extraordinarily expensive. This make me a bit worried for the length of the grind to reach stages, but as I said, it's early access and the shop upgrades will probably help alleviate these daunting gaps. My second one is minor and relates to the garden where you grow your flora; currently (as of 2 hours playtime), I have not been able to customize it in any way or choose what grows there. Again, this is probably going to be an upgrade in the future, but right now it's kind of strange you just go there click all the plants and start the day and that's that. It's not really interactive, they might as well just start your day in the inventory and skip over this. If you can customize this in someway, then I get it, or even if plants decomposed so you might only want to pick those you need, then I would get it more. perhaps though I am missing a reason not to pick things? Let me know in the comments. :P I'd still heartily recommend this game though, especially people who enjoyed shopkeeper sims.