Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator

Nice, simple, chill. What more could I ask for?

Everything works, UI is intuitive. No bugs, no scummy DLCS so thank you for the grand time!
Noticed a lag spike when I enter a fully planted enchanted garden though.

Kind of 'meh' , not good, not bad. The theme is good, everything else is repetitive and boring.

An absolute delight to play! I'm revisiting this for the new Enchanted Garden update and there's something very cozy about waking up each day to tend to the garden and brew potions for my customers. I also enjoy seeing the new faces in game with new merchants and clientele!

It is not just a game—it’s an experience. With visuals straight out of medieval manuscripts and gameplay that feels like you’re stepping into an alchemical workshop, this is one of the most unique and satisfying games you’ll ever play.

From the moment you start grinding ingredients in your mortar and pestle to crafting potions with care and selling them to quirky townsfolk, every moment is pure magic. The base game already delivered an incredible sandbox experience with immersion of the . And now, with the FREE 2.0 update, it’s better than ever.

For those who appreciate games with soul, artistry, and endless creativity, *Potion Craft* is a must-play. The developers have poured so much heart into this game and its updates, and it shows in every detail.

People have problems and you have ingredients, time to make some potions!

In my opinion, I find this game so relaxing. The music, the way that everything seems so tactile and the sound design is amazing. I think it's great that the game just lets you do everything at your own pace. Exploring the map, working on big potions in the basement, all whilst running a store (thank goodness the customers are patient).

Plus the level of customisation with each potion from the name, labels, colours and ingredients depending on how you make them, is fantastic. (I personally enjoy making the dumbest names for my potions, just for the hell of it).

True there can be some frustrating times where you don't have the right ingredients, you play a bit too dangerously and end up breaking your potion or you read the recipe wrong and you've picked up the wrong thing, but with as much time as you need to gather everything you want, it'll all fall into place.

I completely recommend for a relaxing time.

Mouse pad aging simulator.

Awesome concept and really clever mechanics but there are some quality of life things that are missing. There really should be some alternative to the stirring and mashing motions on keyboard. Not only is it really bad for accessibility in it's current state but it's also just annoying after a few hours. I would still recommend it unless your hands/wrists get strained very easily from repetitive motion.

Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator

Final Thoughts

Fun game focused on exploring a map and learning how to use the resources available to you.

some recipes are too hard but that's a skill issue for me also nice graphics and i love the gameplay dhsijdhdkskjdkskhdksjdksjdhksksksjdjsksjdhkslsks

10/10 would recommend if you don't have a skill issue
10/10 would recommend if you do have a skill issue

yes its good, go play it, but for your own sake do not buy too many recipe pages.

Really good game if you have time to kill. I like the farming aspect along with the idea of finding out to make your own potions. It's really a game you have to farm and be ready to explore and mess up on.

I just started playing after the Enchanted Garden 2.0 Update, so I don't know what it was like before, but this game is sooo enjoyable and fun! Experimenting,silliness, chillaxingnessitude: what's not to like?

I want to say I bought this when it was still early access and I've been in love every since I got it. It's low pressure and after a long day of regular life I can load up my fantasy shop where if I don't feel like dealing with a customer's stupid demands I can either tell them to get lost or I can make their custom order and charge them out the nose for it. I really like the newest update where I have access to the extended gardens and can grow exactly what I need. It's literally my evening wind down game before I head to sleep.

I won't lie, when I first played this after its initial release, while I enjoyed myself? I found myself getting distracted from it due to a slow slog of progression and a bit of being 'stuck'.

Thankfully, with the most recent Enchanted Garden Update, they've absolutely fixed that sensation and made it far more addictive to play. The talent tree system and expanded options for the garden let you progress and unlock avenues that fit your playstyle and preferences a bit more, and let you more easily match any challenges you find. If you were sitting on this game for awhile, now is very much the time to jump in; and if you've got an old save you've been neglecting like I was, don't flinch and just wipe it to start fresh. You'll enjoy yourself far more!

Having 100%'d this game:
This is a very strong recommendation in favor of this game with the caveat that you have to like these types of game. If is cozy and has some puzzle to it, but it's also quite grindy at the end. The 2.0 update significantly cut down some of the excessive sections, but it's still a commitment.

The 2.0 update in general was fantastic. Fleshed out some content and really helped you feel like a booming shopkeeper at the end game.

This is a really excellent game and worth at least trying

The last update did everything I wanted to make this the perfect chill little game. Now I can custimise my shop with shelves for different kinds of potions, and buying in bulk means that i have a lot of those running around to decorate with. I now leave a bottle of sleeping pills next to the bed every night, just in case. And the garden is so sweet and cute, simple but a good investment and also goes to the idea of decorating the space. Loving it even more. Very addicting.

Wow this game was fun, but a little simple. Since the update they totally revamped the entire system would highly recommend it then and even better now.

Enchanted Garden 2.0 is a really great update to a good game... however, while its overall great, the rework of the "main progression" really dampens the whole experience.

*TL;DR of this way-too-lengthy review: This update makes most of the game way easier except the very end. Difficulty now comes from arbitrary number value changes.*

Repairing the Alchemy Machine to craft legendary crystals using specific potion effects is the "progression" of the game. However, it can get grindy, requiring specific potion effects that are extremely far away from each other on the map, requiring extensive resources and time. The 3rd crystal out of 5 was resource intensive enough prior to the update, I didnt even want to create Rubedo, much less see what the Philosopher's Stone required.
So, in this new update, they went about making these Legendary Recipes easier. I agree entirely with this choice. However, it was made far too easier than it should be.

- With the Enchanted Garden 2.0 update, 4 out of the 5 Progression Crystals now only use single-effect potions to create, which you will already have stored recipes for them for the sake of selling to customers. As soon as you discover a required potion effect, thats at least 1 and maybe 2 or even 3 Legendary Recipe steps already solved.

- As for the salts crafted out of the Progression Crystals, they use a mix of pure effects and mixed effects. I actually dont mind what kinds of mixed effects they ask, as making the required mixed potions all have complimentary effects (i.e: speed+strength+dexterity) teaches new players how to optimize making money from mixed-potion customer requests.

- As for the 5th and currently final Progression Crystal, sure, there are some effects that are really far apart, but by the time the game even offers you the recipe for it, you should have built up plenty of money that you can afford the powerful Gemstones from the Dwarf that completely bypass the potion map hazards to make this potion making. This update just reduces the amount of Gemstone usage or extensive plant usage, so you dont need to do full laps around the giant map border. (FYI, by the end of the game, you can get such powerful ingredient like Healer's Heather, Druid Rosemary, and Dragon Pepper which can travel so much map distance that there is very little difficulty in actually moving around the map anymore- just in trying to make a path in the first place with your huge range of options.)

- .......And it all falls apart upon reaching the 5th Progression Crystal Salt Recipe. While all 9 previous Legendary Recipes were easy enough with the right game knowledge, now suddenly all 12 required potions are all quintuple-effect potions forcing extensive cumulative laps around the map. This is what it was like for creating Citinitas, Rubedo, Sun Salt and Life Salt prior to this new update, and I'm glad its not that way, but the Legendary Recipes don't seem to change depending on what **Difficulty you play.
- I dont even think the new Wine potion map added in this same 2.0 update can even be used for any of these required potions due to required effects being completely missing from this new map. The whole point of this map seemed to be based on having highly treacherous map navigation for the benefit of faster access to difficult potion effects like Necromancy, Luck and Fear, yet I can hardly use it for this new progression. Even the ones that do allow using the Wine map are just not worth it because some of the existing effects are simply not much closer at all for what hyper-specific pathways you need to take if you want to evade using Life Salt.



** So yes, there's now difficulty options. Since the new overhauled talent system lets you accrue a ton more money and grow way way more ingredients of literally almost anything you want, the development team had the foresight to realize that since this makes the game easier, they should add difficulty options. However, like with how the mid-game Legendary Recipes got too much easier, they made the harder difficulty modes way, way too extreme.

- The rest of the difficulty modifiers are whatever, but there's zero stepping stone difficulty between the casual Classic Mode and the extreme Grandmaster difficulty. The listed value of 0.25x profits on Grandmaster difficulty is realistically closer to 0.0625x (16 times less) profits, because both your sell profits are divided by 4 AND all the merchants charge you 4x as much. Though of course, a player with a lot of hours in the game knows how to get much more profit.

- For reference: my Classic Difficulty mode is on in-game day 60 with 9/10 Legendary Recipes created, with the recipe to purchase the Philosopher's Salt costing about 24,000 gold with maximum Talent discounts. And this was my first Classic Mode file (well, after the 2022 release that revamped the map) where I did not know where everything was.
- Meanwhile, my Grandmaster Difficulty file is on day 30, and it hasn't yet been able to purchase a roughly 5k Alchemy Machine Part, much less the 12k Void Salt recipe- the literal first purchaseable Legendary Recipe.
-The Mushroom Man and Herb Forager merchants are now running complete and total scams. I have no need to buy a single Thunder Thistle for 117 coins, when a Lightning Potion made from 3 Thunder Thistles would not sell for that much. The only path forward in these modes is by using the Garden to get a minimum of 18 from every herb and mushroom planted every day. The seeds of a plant only cost ~50x the price of a single one from the Mushroom Man and Herb Forager.
-With how extreme the prices and profits are, I'd anticipate around 200 required in-game days to be able to afford the Philosopher's Salt that would presumably cost over 100,000, based on it costing as little as 24k in Classic Mode- when I had well over 76k when it was offered to me on my unoptimized first file.

And this isn't even the most difficult mode. I dont know who asked for this, but niceplay games decided to add a Suffering Mode. "0.25x" price profitability was already over 10x more difficult, but with "0.1x" profits, it might just lengthen the game by at least 50x.

To quote the description for the Suffering difficulty mode: "An extremely unfair, ruthlessly grindy, and blatantly imbalanced version of the game for those who want to suffer instead of relaxing. It may cause frustrations and feelings of unfairness.
Not recommended for anyone."
I could use those same words just for Grandmaster difficulty. Grandmaster could be well over 8x longer than what my CURRENT skills could optimize.

Just nerf these difficulty modes or add a stepping stone difficulty between it and Classic. Then make the Legendary Recipes actually change with the difficulty. If you're gonna make it super grindy to even buy the recipe, then at least make it take longer to create the crystals or salts too.

Still enjoy this game. but I only see reason to play after each new update, which is a struggle with the slow development time (I don't mind the slowness though). But its hard to actually recommend the Enchanted Garden 2.0 update until it receives proper balancing. The new talents and enchanted garden are very powerful, yet they made the legendary recipes easier; the only way to make it harder is with difficulty modes that dont change the legendary recipes.

Delightful puzzle game, recently improved even more with 2.0.

The game is awesome but suddenly with the new update i have weird vertical lines disturbing the image, could you maybe add some kind of V-sync?

man this game is so epic i just play it while i'm listening to like a video or music or something like haha comfy game go brrr

After months waiting for the 2.0 update it has finally arrived and it was definitely worth the wait! The devs have given a lot of attention to detail, gameplay and balance. The game feels a lot better (creatively and mechanically) and more immersive than ever! The new talents feel great and the gardening experience is so cool to play around.

It took me 27.7 hours and over 170 in-game days to get all the achievements. It would have taken significantly less if I were not so obsessed with storing an absurd amount of ingredients.

I really like this game, especially the music. All those different kinds of ingredients are cool and interesting. I tried different kinds of recipes to make the potions to avoid using up a specific kind of ingredient. Sometimes, the merchants simply did not sell the thing I needed or carried a disappointing amount of ingredients to sell.

Although my popularity level was high, I felt like the chance of getting pricey ingredients was still pretty high. Additionally, I think the penalty of failing the haggling is too much. I was screwed if I missed twice or thrice. What's more, the difficulties of 5-star and 4-star haggling is significantly higher than that of the 3-star, and they give only a 5% discount. I think they're not worth the risk at all.

The clients' requests are sometimes weird. Many players, including me, do not get the needs of the clients in some cases. And some requests do not make any sense, such us "I want only a weak potion." when it comes to protection against lighting and fire.

Overall, I think this is a good game. I did realize that the dev wanted to release more contents of the game. They are even shown on this page. Unfortunately, we have received no further updates from them. But I got this game at a discount. I think it's worth the discounted price. If the dev does release more features of this game, I will be happy to play more.

I personally love this game but it's been a year since the last update and there has basically been silence from the devs. I will change my rating once an update has been released.

Good potential but the devs have abandoned it with no info given to players. Kinda disrespectful to the people buying your game to just bug off without a word.

An interesting concept, but still in Alpha status. No updates in years, only notices about sales and bundles. I'm starting to believe the developers have abandoned the game. As it stands, I cannot recommend the game.

This is by far the second best alchemy system ever devised in the history of gaming. #1 of course will forever be the system in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, of which perfection is a cheap word to describe the mastery of potion-making mini-games.

My favorite aspect of this game is how each effect was thought through, and its position in the map. This brings me back to the flash games of yore, something I could dump hours of my life in and feel accomplished. A great game that I can wax off an hour or two on while still dealing with the other things in my life.

Well done, and worth any price.

Amazing game till you realize the "upcoming features" have been upcoming for over a year, that even in game upgrades are advertised but never made available and that the devs have abandoned the game. They say "soon" every few days/weeks/months and here we are. Don't buy, you'll want more that you're not getting.

This game fell into the same trap of so many other early access titles. They come up with a compelling and fun early access version, make lots of early sales, then lose any motivation to finish the game. There's got to be a better way. Maybe only let devs charge up to 50% of their proposed retail value during EA, or maybe only release half their early sales to them until version 1.0? I don't know, but this same problem is prevalent all across the Steam platform. There needs to be an incentive for devs to reach that version 1.0 milestone after the initial rush of sales they get in early access.
As is, this is a cute, relaxing unfinished game that was fun the first play-through while you think the all too familiar mantra of early access..."this has so much potential".

Very fun idle game, I love to play this when I just need to relax and unwind or when I'm just looking to pass some time. Truly do recommend and enjoy this game.

The game is charming and visually quite stunning, and I love the concept. That said, the gameplay loop got way too repetitive way too quickly for my liking. There just wasn't enough to grab me long term, and the mechanics aren't varied enough for my taste. Also, the incentive for progression feels a bit weak. There's only so long I can stare at this (admittedly pretty) UI and do the same 3 or 4 actions over and over again.

Very neat premise. A quiet game that allows you to think while keeping your hands busy. Also you can sell potions to a legally distinct Witcher.

I would be happy to change my review if the much teased and anticipated update ever materialises, but there's been silence on the update front for about 11 months now and the possibility of abandonment is beginning to creep up

i WOULD recommed this game, it is good, but its been ALMOST A YEAR since the last news on the promised update, and as they have been part of many a sale, i HIGHLY doubt that that update is ever going to happen. sad really as i enjoyed the game quite a lot and most of my problems WOULD be fixed IF the game EVER got updated. if it miracuosly dose happed before the heat death of the universe i will change my review.

Unfortunately I was very disappointed in the development of this game. As someone who thoroughly tested the demo for the game back at the end of 2021 I can attest that it has effectively gone unchanged since it's demo version aside from some language updates. This game hasn't even gotten QoL updates the community has been asking for, that's how bad it is. It was promised that large game changing updates would come after the release of the game, yet despite increasingly infrequent devlogs on supposed giant updates to the game, the dev team has effectively been radio silent on why this is the case and almost 3 years out now there has been no content updates at all despite the game very clearly still being in an unfinished state.

The game has a really good foundation, but I feel like it is still an alpha/beta game. If they worked on giving the game an end or purpose it would be so much better.

This game has some engaging elements, it's a fun concept, but it doesn't really seem to go anywhere with that.
The worst thing is that as more dialogue was added it seems to have gotten more confusing to new players. I had recommended this game to people in the past, but from the time I recommended it to the time they played it, the game changed in some subtle but significant ways where it asks players to make a leap in logic and that leap is multi-directional so they might end up all over the map and still not find what they where looking for. In some ways that is fun when the game does it well because it helps you explore segments of the map and be adventurous, in others it feels like it's wasting your game resources and real-life time. And when you are reminded of the fact you are playing a game and spending a portion of your life on it and you just want to make it to the fun part... weeell that's not a good thing.

On top of that, this game has made a lot of promises and I have seen others mention this as well. Where its been a long time and they keep promoting and collaborating with other games while never really adding those features. I think a lot of people feel wronged by this and it's understandable.
So while you can have a bit of fun with this game it is hard to recommend it as it might be frustrating and you might be buying it thinking that you want to see all the flashy new things they say they will add and because it seems as if they are actively working on it. But as it has been years, it's hard to believe in that. And the full game release is barely different than its early access version.

The game's basically been abandoned by the devs. It's fun, a bit repetitive, but fun. I get a nice feeling when I get a recipe for one of the crystals done and start on the next but otherwise eh? They promised so much new stuff in 2023 and look, it's nearly 2025 and there hasn't been a single major update since. Don't bother.

It has unique physic mechanics, however the game is repetitive and has no clear aim about what it wants to be, Similar to a tech demo. Highly appreciate the artistic effort, but i can't recommend.

game is unfinished. fun for the first few hours but gets too repetitive that it feels like a chore creating the more advanced reagents. promised content looks so cool but it's been years and no updates.

Game is fun for a while although only playable in small chunks as it gets repetitive faaaast.
Basically abandoned by the devs, the 2.0 upgrade being promised on the store page still hasn't happened and the devs/publisher have gone completely radio silent.

But at least they offered 3 15% off promo bundles this year, hooray! /s

I really like the mechanics for the game but it quickly gets repetitive. I wish they would just add new customer requests or different dialogue instead of spending >1 year on improving the garden...

Good relax game, the only thing that i disliked after a while is the mouse movement to stir the cauldron, would be cool to be able to use the keyboard to do that.

Very chill game with lots of room to be creative and explore different avenues of alchemy and potioncrafting. There's no time limit for customers at your shop, and you can take as much time as you want each day to mess around with potions.

I love the art. I love the theme. I love the music. I love the simple UI and layout.
I positively hate the game play mechanics for discovering and upgrading recipes.

Chill, but in the fun way.

Sadly the grind for the last book is a bit much, hope we see more mechanics in the future to challenge us further into the creation of the philosopher's stone, rather than just buttom mashing into its creation.

Great game, however the devs have not given any updates or devlogs in a long time combined with continuously putting an unfinished game on different sales and promotions

tldr: Game feels incomplete, doesn't feel like it lives up to advertising, gets boring the more advance it gets, and is very light colored which sometimes puts a strain on my eyes.

I have mixed feelings on this game. I had fun for a while and have some friends that love it. But this game isn't finished and you can tell.

First, there are some requests in the game that you just actually cannot fulfill. Sometimes customers come to me with special requests and I cannot do it based on what the request is and where the potions location is on a map. It is not the end of the world and would not turn me away, it is very rare, but I feel like that could have used a little more QA.

Next, there are features shown in the game that you just can't use. For example one tab advertises to upgrade your shop tools. I was so confused as I could not figure out how to upgrade anything. Well I looked it up online and people were saying that it is an incomplete feature.

Then when using the alchemy equipment I tried to save the recipe as that option is there but I noticed I could not select it. I again looked this up online and again it was noted that this was another uncompleted feature.

Lastly there are the maps. Some potions are much harder to make on certain maps. They eat up a lot of ingredients and personally I don't feel like it makes sense to try and make them for customers when looking at potion selling cost vs. ingredient cost. I only make those potions when I have to because I am trying to make one of the key items I need to meet game requirements.

There has been talk for a while of a third map that would definitely add to the game and make certain potions more practical. However I see many threads discussing that this has been coming for over a year with no updates. As it stands the two maps do not feel like enough, and I feel like this leads into the game feeling more repetitive and incomplete as the game progresses to more advance potions.

The third map point leads into my other complaint - I also find some of the advertising misleading. To advertise you can grow your own ingredients doesn't make much sense to me. Sure, there are ingredients growing in your yard. However you have no control over what grows and don't interact with growing ingredients besides clicking to pick the daily randomly generated plants. The haggling system also isn't that extensive or interesting in my opinion. Just some quick clicks of a button if you need more cash.

To call this a sandbox game is also a pretty big stretch. Also the whole "Sell your potions to the townsfolk while role-playing as a noble artisan, a greedy weasel, an occult dark master, or whomever else you may wish to be!" comment feels like a stretch too. This would literally just be you role-playing that is not a feature of the game. Sure if you sell to sketchy people your rep goes down or up. That does not align with the advertisement.

I really wanted to love this game. I had fun for a while and if this type of game interest you I would for sure buy it on sale. It just doesn't feel worth it to finish the quests in game when it gets so repetitive and when you can see where it is lacking. Some of those "upcoming" features they advertise really felt like they should have been in the game upon release. There are areas you can see/click that just aren't completed.

If they ever add those updates I'd happily come back and play more. But for now I just feel like I've reached a part where I get it and there isn't many more interesting things to be done. It does have a lot of potential and I'd be excited to try again with updates in place.

Also one final note - I did recommend it to a friend that bought it because I thought she would like it a lot more than me. She ended up having to return it due to having a hard time reading the light colored map. I agree it can make my eyes sore after a while. I wish they had a different more visible color scheme option even if it breaks from the aesthetic.

Very fun game for a collectibles freak like me. Chill and rather easy, although looking for an unknown recipe on the map can be tiring

Disappointed.
The start of the game is really enjoyable, but it gets very overwhelming and repetitive the longer you play. (towards chapter 5+ for me personally)
imho, the game being so good at the start makes this even more disappointing. I was really enjoying the game up until around chapter 5; then crumbles to an egregious insult of a time sink.

Having to mix effects for the alchemy machine is absurdly obnoxious and feels like the mix potion requests are intentionally obtuse & just there to test your patience and waste your resources. I immediately lost all interest in trying to progress any further just *looking* at that entire mess for ONLY the second stone.

If you enjoy utterly tedious tasks and wasting lots of your time, maybe you'll like the whole game.
It's lacking in some serious QOL features aswell.