समीक्षा

• 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 18, 2022

  they better encrypt their 3D models
• gamedeal user

  Oct 18, 2022

  In a word: delightful. Potionomics strikes a balance between self-aware storytelling and comfortable gameplay with a pleasant, fun tempo. Every element feels curated to put a smile on your face as you chuckle at lines of dialogue and meta-gaming-humor. If you liked Battle Chef Brigade for its mix of culinary affection, platforming and match-3 mechanics, you'll probably enjoy this. In no particular order, here are things you might want to know about the game: The music is lovely, spirited and energetic. Not too much, not too little. The character animations are fun, if a bit over the top. If the TikTok personalities known for their Pixar character impressions starred in a video game, it might look something like this. The deckbuilding/card battler gameplay is simple yet rewarding. You don't have to be a genius to get something out of it, but clever plays turn into valuable resources for other aspects of the game. The potion-making is more about resource management and maximizing your outcomes. While it doesn't pose a huge challenge, it's not "dumbed down," either. The story, while somewhat familiar, will give you motivation to keep building up your deck through NPC relationships and brewing best-in-class potions to win competitions. I struggle to call this game purely "casual" because it has such refined elements. Perhaps "fun without stress" is a better way of putting it. There's just enough challenge to command your interest, but not so much that there's a discernible learning curve. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a light, humorous and well-animated romp through a magical narrative that gives you plenty of cute characters to romance, befriend and sell overpriced potions to.
• 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 could be excellent, in fact it SHOULD be. The animation is Pixar quality and I would love to have the time to get to know the NPCs better because the writing is above what I expected. But the biggest problem is that the time limit is WAY too short to relax and appreciate the game. It is seriously maybe half of what a relaxed pace would feel like. Firstly, there aren't enough time units in the game to fully appreciate each NPC. When playing, I felt that pressure eating into my time, but after quitting in frustration, I broke it down mathematically and you can't do it under the best of circumstances. So hey, at least I'm not just awful at time management. Secondly, "victory" (which if you lose its just... game over) is nearly entirely RNG reliant with a really short time limit to get the proper RNG to trigger, leaving absolutely no margin for error, making it a stressful experience instead of a charming one. I know other reviewers have harped on the bad RNG making the time crunch feel stressful, or conversely like you have all the time in the world if Baptiste is generous with drops, but that's not even my biggest complaint. It is mathematically impossible to experience all this game has to offer in one playthrough. And the mechanics aren't engaging enough to warrant multiple RNG slogs. Math incoming. In this game, leaving the shop costs one of your 6 units of time per day, and each hang out costs at least 1 further unit of time. To talk to each NPC I have currently unlocked- Muktuk, Baptiste, Mint, Saffron, and Quinn- I would be using up my entire day! So clearly you aren't meant to socialize with each character every day. But even doing the bare minimum socializing and using gifts to otherwise rank up affection, there aren't enough time units in the game to do it all. To "rank up" all 10 characters to rank 10, assuming I never did the "hang out" options and relied solely on gifting to raise their affection, that would be 100 units of time, plus the daily unit spent traveling from your shop, which works out to roughly two and a half cycles out of only 5 total (six units per day minus one unit spent traveling is five units a day, times nine playable days between competitions, is 45 "socializable units" per competition cycle). That means dedicating half your time units solely to socializing, which leaves you with precious little time to run your shop to afford the ingredients you need to pass the competitions in time. But that means entirely ignoring their cutscenes, several of which are really cute. To experience each of 10 character's unique cutscenes at least once, (which requires seeing their 1 time unit, 2 time unit, 3 time unit, and 4 time unit scenes, so a total of 10 time units) (plus the time unit spent just to leave the shop each day, as noted above) you are looking at using up the entire other half of your time units. Which means you literally will not get to open your shop once if you want to experience all the NPC dialogue in one playthrough. You will never be able to unlock all the haggling cards in one run through, either, because of this, even if you don't care about actually experiencing the cutscenes. This game cannot be finished to 100% without spreading it across multiple playthroughs. Math over. And to echo other complaints... If you get bad RNG, you literally cannot win the first competition. And the game is structured as 5 repetitions of the first competition, with more activities eating into your limited time in between each competition, giving you less wiggle room to grind for RNG. I won the first competition barely by the skin of my teeth and it came at the cost of not ranking up relationships with NPCs, which should be a large part of the game's charm, because I had to spend all my in-game time making basic health and mana potions and sending Mint out again and again hoping for decent drops so I could make the required potions for competition day. Baptiste can only be sent out once per day, with limited days between "game over" competitions, so if your drops from him aren't what you need, you cannot progress, and you're stuck sending Mint out again... and again... and again... I also experienced several graphical glitches which while not game breaking were disappointing for a non-early access game. When I alt-tabbed to Google gift guides upon return my entire screen was shrunk. A few times character models bent in awkward ways. Quinn's collar regularly clipped into their neck. For a game that is so heavily reliant on gorgeous animation for the charm, when that animation breaks, it is way more noticeable. I am overall disappointed in how this game offers very little improvement upon a saturated potion/shop/life sim genre and actually does a lot of things slightly worse. I know XSEED also was responsible for Rune Factory 5, where the post game was heavily RNG reliant. It could take up to 3 in game years of daily grinding to get some items without luck buffs! So I came into this preparing for some RNG and some grind... But, that was all post game and didn't have a 10 (well, 9, competition day itself doesn't count) day time limit staring you down for each "boss" battle with game over as a result of failure. If this game didn't have a time limit, or even if it had a more generous time limit, I could see it being a really lovely game. Rather than saving the RNG for post-game completionist content, it is a requirement to even graduate the tutorial. The modern Atelier games did away with the time limit because it took away from the fun and the charm of the games, and are still the gold standard of potion making games. There are no longer time limits stopping you from really getting to know their characters, and that was widely regarded as a positive step for the franchise. The magicimins in Potionomics require a decent amount of math to get right, but that means there will always be an optimal way to create a given potion, instead of dozens of ways that give different but potentially equally awesome results found in Atelier games. Recettear, which this game also draws the "debt collection" inspiration from, didn't require you to give up shop time to level up NPC friendships separately from adventures which gave your shop stock. That game had a much smoother feedback loop and it didn't ever feel like you were sacrificing in one area to progress in another. Potion Permit is still brand new, and that offered significantly more time to engage with NPCs. You could feasibly talk to every NPC every day. It offered way more opportunities to acquire potion ingredients and many more ways to combine them, going so far as to let you save multiple recipes for each potion, because there was no "perfect" answer. Potionomics does have "perfect" answers. That means there's less experimenting and more slogging, and even less margin for error, so even more reliance on "perfect" RNG to proceed, and even more frustration when the RNG doesn't proc within the small time limit. Potionomics could have been so much more. The time limit seriously puts a damper on literally every other enjoyable aspect of the game. Making a "relaxed" or "casual" mode would change my review to a mostly positive one and leaving this strict time limit challenge as more of an "iron man" or "death march" challenge mode, that is supposed to be tense and stressful and have a real risk of failure and completely disregard the relaxed and cozy atmosphere I gravitate to these games for, would make the experience far more enjoyable.
• gamedeal user

  Oct 18, 2022

  Good but...

  ---

  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 19, 2022

  The time management is so good I busted out a pen and paper and planned out my week. ...I don't even do that IRL what is going on.
• gamedeal user

  Oct 21, 2022

  Disclaimer: I'm on the fence on recommending this game right now. It is extremely charming, cute, the art is amazing, and the game play loop and various features are so much fun if the player just had the time to actually explore them. The artwork and characters are all super well done and charming, but the game demands too much of you on too tight of a timeline. I was most looking forward to getting to know each character, building relationships with them and earning their cards, and gradually building up my potions shop into a thriving business. Unfortunately, it feels like there's hardly any time to even touch half of the mechanics in the game and I feel like I can maybe invest in one or two character's relationships; with only ten days between each competition, there's zero room to breathe. It feels constantly stressful. I would like to be able to take the time to explore the many wonderful features of the game and build character relationships, but instead I feel pressured into attempting to balance making mana and health potions for adventures to gather ingredients, but also brewing separate potions to sell to make money to buy ingredients and much-needed upgrades, and having a slew of custom orders that I'm having difficulty completing because I still need to make the potions for the competition in a few days that I'm barely up to par to be able to make. I think all of this is just exacerbated by how intensely stressful the limited amount of time to do anything is... I feel that 20-30 days would be much better than 10, or a week after each competition to breathe for a bit, gather ingredients, do hang outs, etc. I just want to interact with the cast of characters that drew me into this game in the first place, lol. I'm not at end game yet but I've heard that the game just kind of ... ends once you finish the third competition, which seems strange to me. There's so much potential for an endless mode where you can just make potions and grow your shop.
• 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
• 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.