Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Oct 30, 2022

  A great game, absolutely love it, the only thing I would've really enjoyed would be if, after finishing the game, you could continue playing free of any burden and just be a potion shop you know?
• gamedeal user

  Oct 18, 2022

  Good but...

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  Ok so: <*>The game is gorgeous <*>All the management mechanics are fun <*>The characters are *compelling* <*> The gambling haggling* minigame is pretty fun, although suffers from the same pacing issue as the rest of the game. By all and all, as someone who loves daily life X dating sim games, I should adore this game. But there is one quirk. The game is stressful. You have very few time slots in a day. There are very few days before the next tournament . And you constantly feel like you don't have enough resources. Not enough for the time limited contracts, not enough to upgrade your equipment or shop, not enough to take take of your hero, not enough for the weekly potions. And I say that as someone who hasn't failed so far. I came in here expecting relaxation and sweetness akin to stardew valley but instead got faced with stress akin to a real debt. At that point, I can't even afford to worry about romancing the characters. IMO this game would gain a lot from a much slower pace where every thing happens less often and slower (except making potions) I want to make more potions, I want to send my hero out more often but with less progress, I want to spend more time worrying about upgrading my shop and less worrying about making more than a 2% profit margin. Also, currently, making your entire life about supporting the guild is the only way to get past week one (and probably further, honestly I need a break) as far as I can tell. I just... shouldn't feel exhausted while having won the first tournament should I?
• gamedeal user

  Oct 18, 2022

  Potion seller, I am going into battle, and I want only your strongest potions.
• gamedeal user

  Oct 18, 2022

  This game took 6 years to make because the artists & animators went SO HARD on EVERYTHING. Each character has so much charm and their personalities set them apart. The gameplay elements are all fun. With shop managing like Recettear, the potion making of Atelier, and card negotiations in Slay the Spire what's not to like? You can even romance some characters too. Also this last part is not a criticism, but you should know there aren't any voices for the characters, so it's all left up to the imagination.
• gamedeal user

  Oct 23, 2022

  This game is one of the best I've played all year, but it needs an endless/freeplay mode - essentially just the main game without the time limit. Having to complete the game in X amount of days is fine and all, but I really want to mess with ingredients, talk to all the characters, play the haggling minigame without having to worry about efficiency.
• gamedeal user

  Oct 22, 2022

  A Grand game with Common problems.

  Potionomics is a charmer of a title. It's satisfying, it's interesting, it's compelling. The art and visual design are both utterly delightful, and the fundamental structure of the game is a lovely send-up of other cutesy commerce classics like Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale, combined with some less in-depth yet still crunchy mechanical elements that one might find in their favorite card battler - slash - deckbuilder title. The issue is that Potionomics is simply is not very user-friendly to play. It is dire need of quality-of-life features to such an extent that it places a very significant burden on the player that really should be provided by the game's UI or documentation. Firstly, Potionomics is absolutely stuffed to the gills with timers. You only have so many pips to spend throughout your day, and that's fine; the time pressure is one of the principal challenges! This isn't an issue, although someone seeking a leisurely experience will be disappointed, the issue is that for the majority of the time these timers are hidden from you -- more than time management, Potionomics tests your memory. You've left your shop to visit some friends. Your cauldrons are brewing. It's morning. One of your cauldrons will be ready in two time-pips, one will be ready in three time-pips, and the third won't be done for five time-pips. Tonics are worth more today, so you plan to go home in two time-pips, bottle the tonics from that second cauldron, and sell -- which takes two time-pips. Then you can bottle the ones that are five pips away right now. You keep this all in your head, because there's no way to check the timers on your cauldrons when you're out. You could go back and check the timers to make sure, but that'd lose you time if you had to come back out again. While buying lumber, you notice -- hey! -- you've got a building material that you know is also an upgrade for a cauldron. You think. You can stop by Muktuk and check, no problem, but then, oh, you can't see what it takes to upgrade anything when it's place in your shop, even if shelves are empty or cauldrons aren't brewing anything. Thinking, well, it's worth it, you go back and unequip the cauldron. But another cauldron finished brewing, so it's time to brew a new potion for that. After you do that, you go back out and ... wait, what were you doing again? Something with Muktuk? Right! Upgrading the cauldron. Oh. You were right about the materials, but you don't enough have gold. So now you're out the time it took to go back to the shop and out again, and the cauldron you took with you was doing nothing while it could have been brewing. You can upgrade the showcase you haven't been using, though! What does the showcase actually do again? It says +10% sale price for potions, but you can't sell anything on a showcase, so where the +10% figure in? Is that for the whole store? Adding it and removing it doesn't seem to affect prices for anything. Do you need to put a potion, specifically, in it for that to work? Could you put a tonic in there? There's no in-game glossary, guide, etc. that you could reference to get these questions answered and there's no feedback from the game of any kind when you swap things around, so that's a wash. You come back to the shop after a shopping spree. You expanded your place, let off some stress, and bought a mess of ingredients. Now to brew. You've got some money, so you're planning on sending out a hero or two on a quest. Do you remember what tonic you needed? Sure you did. Fire. What cure did you need, though? Poison? Silence? You only checked on the expedition at the start of your outing. You could go out and check again, but then you're out the time again -- and you were planning to open the shop right after starting to brew; if you don't open the shop and sell these potions you won't have the money for the quests tomorrow morning, or the potions might not be done in time. Without the money the next morning, you open the shop for some cash and decide to send the expeditions out in the afternoon, wrap up the day, and save and quit. On coming back to the save, you remember that you sent out expeditions, but when? Sometime in the afternoon. Was it right away, or did you lower your stress first? That would have pushed it forward. There's no way to know, because you can't check the time left on a hero's quest while you're at your shop -- or anywhere. The only indication of when a quest is done is when the hero isn't grayed on the town map anymore, but you can't check the town map without leaving your shop, which takes time. You sent out three heroes. Did they all go to the same place? Did any of them get a speed potion? You think you used one ... is it worth going out early just to get those ingredients? If you go out too early and they're not back yet, well, more wasted time. Next morning comes, and all the potions you left brewing are done. You've got your plans. You've paid the marketing team to make sure tonics to be worth more, so it's going to be a tonic bonanza over at your place. Brew, burn firewood to speed it up, sell while they brew, and repeat. But, oh, ore is on sale today. Wait, wasn't there a really good ore you used for Sight Enhancers before that you ran out of? You've got a custom order for Sight Enhancers. Time to open up the ingredients -- oh, but if you're out of an ingredient, it doesn't show up in your list. The last time you brewed one of those was days ago; what ingredient was it? What color was it? Do you have something you could substitute? You could run out to check, but if you get it wrong, there goes the time again. You open up your ingredients list. Maybe you still have one. The list is not sorted, nor can you sort it. You mouse over an Ore. Wait, it's not an Ore, it's a Mineral. Can you sort by ingredient type? No. You mouse over each ingredient that could be an Ore, one by one. Well, it must have A, B, or C in it. Can you sort by magimins? No. Again, you can't sort in any fashion. Fine, we'll check the brewing menu, that can get sorted. You sort by A. Every ingredient that has any amount of A in it appears, even the ones with a little bit of everything, even the ones that have just a little bit of A and then a bunch of E, which isn't even in the recipe. Can you show ingredients that only have A? No. Can you eliminate ingredients that have D or E? No. Are the ingredients in any kind of order? No. They're not in order of how much A is in them (8, 6, 4, 64, 18, 40, 18 ... ) or how much total magimin is in them (8, 6, 4, 144, 40, 40, 18 ... ) or what Type they are (Fish, Fruit, Flower, Ore, Mineral, Fish, Slime ... ) or alphabetically (R, F, F, L, G, D, H ... ) or any other way you can discern. You think you remember it was on Page 3. But Page 3 when viewing what? Everything? Items you're out of just go away, so it might be on Page 2 now. Or if you got things since then, maybe Page 4. You run out to check. You've already unlocked over sixty ingredients for Quinn. Their stock is not in any way sorted, and you can't sort it. You page through. Ah, there it is! Oh, but it's not an Ore. It's a Gem, and Gems are more expensive today. I really do love Potionomics. I've been following its development for some time, and it would be fair to assume that my expectations may have been high, but I did not purchase it with starry-eyed hype. I want so very, very badly to recommend this game. It's lovely. But I can't. Look, maybe for people with better memories this isn't an impediment, or people who take notes or open guides in another window -- but these are problems that seem like fundamental issues with design. They make the core gameplay loop of a game that should be delightful an exercise in frustration and anxiety. I hope, in time, it gets the ingredients it's missing.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 6, 2022

  Great game! 10/ 10 The difficulty is just right and the characters and game features are all so interesting. My only wish would be that after finishing the game, the game would open a 'run the business' sort of day to day business thing so I could explore the whole world, collect items and unlock all of the cards. Hopeful something like this is eventually added.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 10, 2022

  i love making potions and kissing girls
• gamedeal user

  Oct 18, 2022

  they better encrypt their 3D models
• gamedeal user

  Oct 22, 2022

  Good game. Only con is that it's timed. Feedback for developers is to have new game plus so we can play forever