Potionomics

LOVED THIS GAME! I love the story, mini games and all the characters, even the competitors, they were so fun and interesting.

Another representative of shopping sim genre - this time it’s all about potions with addition of several love\friendship interests, so a pinch of dating sim included too. But besides all that, selling your creations is not so simple, you got to win card game too. So as mentioned above there are several aspects to the game - brewing potions from ingredients which means balancing ingredients in right proportions, selling them via card game and dating\friendship sim. There are also a bunch of other mechanics included - shop improvement, sending adventurers for ingredients, aging potions, enchanting them, activating marketing strategies to improve trades etc. All in all it’s not very difficult title, as with almost all other management sims - you got to balance resources and sales to grow, since you’re not taking part in hunts for components, need to make sure not everything is sold out and there are enough tonics to equip your heroes for trips in wilderness. Card game itself starts very very simple, but further down the line includes more buffs and debuffs that make things bit more interesting. Dating sim though is very straightforward - gift things your target likes or spend time with them to raise affection level, have a dialog with them and choose right answer to further increase relations. Graphical part is surprisingly well taken care of - just check screenshots, 3d models haven lots of animations, though sometimes a bit over the top, but they do look quite good, maybe a bit less stylistically standing out from others of similar design direction, but still, most shop management games go via another route of distinct style to cover bit less technically impressive visuals. Audio is okaish for music and sounds, nothing out of ordinary, just background noise. Voice acting on the other hand almost always really well done and there are surprising amount of lines for such game, even few songs from one of characters, which were actually so so. There isn’t much to the story - you inherit crappy shop, inherit debt and got to improve you situation by taking part in potion makers tournament, battling other alchemists. All this happens on island full of magical stuff who was once ruled by Witch-King of Angmar… I mean witch-queen Maven. Some love interests reveal more of the world story after you progress through their relationship enough, with Saffron in my opinion being the most interesting one in that regard. But to be honest several characters were quite entertaining in their own ways, also option to have multiple romances is very welcome addition as is no need to have intimate connection with all of them, you could just choose those you like and friendzone others. It is still better to level to the max all of them though cause of useful bonuses and stories.

It's a fun 20 hour game! The crafting system is neat but could use some more depth, which is also what I'd say about the dungeon system. But as far as a scheduling game and a fun game? recommend, worth the money, and super worth it on sale.