Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator

Review

You’re a novice alchemist and you have finally found somewhere to settle down after travelling around. You have found an old, abandoned house, and it seems that an alchemist lived there prior to your arrival. It’s got a garden ideal for growing herbs and other ingredients, along with alchemy equipment in the basement. It’s been a while since anyone has lived there and the alchemy equipment is in need of repair, but after some hard work, you’ll have your very own Potion Shop up and running.

For now, though, while the alchemy equipment is out of use, you have your trusty Cauldron, Mortar and Pestle, Bellows and Water Ladle. Using these basic tools will allow you to make your potions; you have a couple ingredients to begin with. You can just put the ingredients straight into the cauldron; however, you’ll get better mileage out of your ingredients if you crush them in your mortar and pestle. You will get twice the benefits out of crushing your ingredients than if you just dropped them straight into your cauldron. Using the Water Ladle will allow you to add water to your potions, it will move your potion bottle back towards the centre of the potion map where you started.

To make potions you will have to put the ingredients into the cauldron. This will then lay a dotted line with an “X” this way and that on the potion map; the map is almost completely covered in a Fog of War. As your potion bottle moves around the map, it will reveal more of the map along with open books and potion bottles with a Question Mark on them. You will need to place ingredients down to form a path to one of the bottles that has a question mark. Stirring the cauldron will move your bottle along the dotted line laid down by your ingredients. Next you will use the bellows to heat the potion up in the cauldron; after a few blows of the bellows a puff of smoke will appear from the cauldron. This is to let you know that the potion is complete, revealing the mystery potion. Finishing the potion will have it put into your inventory allowing you to sell it to a customer.

You can create a mixture of potions, so instead of finishing a potion, upon reaching a potion you can carry on to another potion bottle. This allows you to mix two or more types of potion into one; for example, you could mix a health potion with one that restores mana. You can save a recipe in your book of potions, although you only have enough space for five potions. You can use these saved potions to create them with a push of a button should a customer want one. This will save you from having to add ingredients and is handy for those potions of more complexity.

On the map you will move over some books, and collecting these will unlock Talents which you can use towards four categories. The categories are Alchemy Map (Visibility Radius), Alchemical Practice, Trading and Haggling. They have levels ranging from six to ten (depending on the category), and they cost from one to three Talents to unlock.

In your little place you’ll find the front area is your shop; here every day customers will come and tell you their problems and you’ll have to get the right potion for them. If you offer them the wrong potion twice then they’ll leave your shop not very happy. However, if you give them what they want then they’ll be as happy as Larry. The happier your customers, the more your popularity will grow. While you can sell your wares for a price, you can also try to haggle for a better price.  This also goes for passing merchants who will visit you in the hope that you will buy some of their ingredients. You will find items and mushrooms which you may not have access to, which can lead to needed potions.

The backroom is where you’ll prepare all your potions.  Out back is your garden, where you’ll have herbs and mushrooms etcetera growing each day. You can collect these items and use them to prepare potions for your customer's needs. In the basement is your Alchemy Machine, however, it’s seen better days and is currently unusable. You can repair the machine if you find a merchant selling the parts you need to bring it back to its former glory. The final room in your place is the upstairs attic, where you sleep at night after a hard day's work. Once you have done everything you can during the day, going to bed will reset the day, allow needed ingredients to grow and be ready to make more potions for the customers knocking at your door.

You’re not going to be able to keep everyone happy; there are going to be plenty of people for whom you’ll be unable to sort out a potion. This could be because you don’t have the required ingredients or knowledge of the potion a customer wants. You will have to uncover the potion map as much as possible revealing all the potions. However, scattered around the potion map in between the potions and the books are piles of Skulls. You don’t want to have your bottle move over these skulls as your potion bottle will empty the longer you spend moving over them. If you empty your potion bottle crossing the skulls, then the potion will fail and you’ll have lost all the ingredients that you had in your cauldron.

There are goals to complete as you progress; they can be found in your Alchemist’s Path book. Currently there are Seven Chapters with varying numbers of goals to complete. Completing all goals in a chapter will open the next chapter and you will also gain a reward of some sort upon completing a chapter.

The game is still in Early Access, so there will be some problems along the way, news things being added to the game and even possibly some things removed. So, bear in mind that it is in Early Access and things can change. There’s more to come in future updates with new potions, maps, upgrades to your garden and more.

The game is easy to play and learn; it will take some grinding to fill the coffers, uncovering some of the potions and fixing the alchemy machine, and you will upset some folks by not fulfilling their requirements, but your reputation will grow, as will your shop.  Currently, the game is a little bit copy-and-paste what you did the day before for the upcoming day. I haven’t been able to get the alchemy machine up and running yet; I’ve been a bit short of the old pennies when the merchants come a calling.

In the settings there’s option for Window Mode (Borderless or Windowed), Limit and Show FPS, Language (English, German, French, Polish, Chinese, Korean and Russian).

Review written by Piston Smashed™ for Zeepond.com

Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator Steam Store Page