If you like medieval alchemy and the distinctive art style of old-timey manuscripts, you’re going to want to pay attention to Potion Craft. This unique twist on item-crafting games is coming to Steam later this year, but you can check out a demo as part of the Steam Game Festival that starts today.
Potion Craft casts you as an aspiring alchemist who’s left their home village and decided to set up a potion shop in an abandoned cottage. Success will mean experimenting with all sorts of different ingredients, inventing new potion recipes, growing crops, running your shop, and befriending (or be-enemy-ing (?)) townspeople and local nobility.
The demo will be available for the duration of the Steam Game Festival, which runs from Jan 3, 10am to Jan 9, 10am (PST) / Jan 4, 7am to Jan 10, 7am (NZDT).
Here’s an overview of the game, from its Steam listing:
• Unique visuals inspired by medieval manuscripts and medical books.
• Hyper satisfying physical interactions with ingredients and equipment.
• Sandbox style gameplay where you have many different avenues available, and it’s up to you to figure out the best way to complete each task.
• Sell your potions to the townsfolk while roleplaying as a noble artisan, a greedy weasel, an occult dark master, or whomever else you may wish to be!Work with all sorts of ingredients
Leaves, flowers, berries, roots, fruits, minerals, and a plethora of mushrooms are at the ready for your mortar and pestle. Just like espresso, the fineness of the grind matters!
Learn the art of potion making
Concoct your potion plan. Grind ingredients and carefully mix them in your cauldron. Heat the coals. Boil and stir. Add the base: water, oil, or… something else. Congrats on your first potion! Was it easy to learn? Now try mastering it!
Experiment and invent new recipes
Carefully plan your route via the Alchemy Map to combine different effects. Be mindful of common sense: you won’t find a market for a poisonous healing potion… right? Or would you?
Sell potions
Every day customers will come to your store looking for solutions to their problems. You will face consequences depending on what you decide to sell them. Attract guilds, befriend notable figures (or feud with them), gain riches and influence – and one day, you may even decide the fate of the whole town.
Buy ingredients or grow your own
Every alchemist needs ingredients. You can buy them from traveling merchants: it can be pricey, but successful haggling may save you some coin. Or you can just grow your own!
Get creative with customizing
Want to give a special appearance to your best potions? Go ahead! Change bottle shape, label type, icon, and colors. You can even give it a custom name and label description. Carefully arrange your unique potions to showcase them on your shop’s shelves and tables… or carelessly throw them around – we’re not gonna tell you what to do, just have fun!
Potion Craft is being developed by niceplay games, and it’s recently found a publisher in indie specialist tinyBuild. This announcement came as part of today’s “tinyBuild Direct”, alongside a few other noteworthy titles:
- Pigeon Simulator, aka “GTA meets Goat Simulator“
- Expedition Zero, a first-person survival horror set in rural Siberia
- Despot’s Game, a roguelike with “TABS flavor”
