Brewing and haggling sim Potion Craft opens for business in early access
Brew yourself a cup of something special
Step on in and please don't mind the badly-labelled vials I've left lying about the shop. Potion Craft is now in early access with all its myserious brewing and haggling and alchemy-ing. I've been quite taken with the demos and playtests for this one so far, not least because it brings some spirit back to the act of crafting. It's out now in early access, during which Niceplay Games will be adding even more crafting options to toy with before its full launch.
If you'd yet to hear me hollering about it, Potion Craft is particularly enjoyable because it allows you to physically grind and pour and stir all your ingredients in your cauldron as you please. There's an actual art to concocting each potion you attempt to brew, crushing up your Windblooms just the right amount to make sure you brew a healing potion of the highest quality. You can spot a bit of all that down here in its release date trailer.
Outside of the brewing itself, you'll have control over which recipes to save in your book, how to design the labels of your potions, haggling with customers, and chasing the secrets of the Alchemy Machine in your basement. It's all mostly relaxing and enjoyable, I find, set to some laid back medieval music and the manuscript art style.
As they'd let on previously, Niceplay Games plan to beef up Potion Craft during early access by expanding your control over your ingredient garden, adding new potion bases, new recipes, and more. They get slightly more specific in their launch day post, mentioning "garden upgrades and planting management" which is of particular interest to me.
In the versions I've played, Potion Craft's garden grows on its own without your input. You've got a set spread of ingredients available most days and have to buy the more extravagant options from merchants. Having constant access to Windblooms each day meant I found myself specializing in healing potions but rarely had the materials on hand for a good poison. I'm hoping that "planting management" means choosing what to grow so that my shop becomes even more mine when I create a niche for myself as the local brewer of, say, potion-based explosives.
Niceplay haven't estimated a specific timestamp for their early access run just yet, saying that "we will make periodic major updates that will show the progress of the development and when it’s clear that the game has enough features and is in the state we want it to be, we will go for a full-fledged release."
If that all sounds like your cup of probably-not-poisonous tea, you can now snag Potion Craft in early access over on Steam. It's currently discounted by 10% to £10.25/$13.49 until September 28.