Potion Tycoon Reviews

The panning direction for this game is backwards and there isnt a setting to fix it, unplayable.

Fun but challenging game. I played for 8 hours and haven't picked a key yet. I recommend.

Really happy with everything this game is. Would love to see an update with more ways to play (scenarios, maps, campaign etc) and more content in general. Thank you!

This is such a good little time waster. 10/10 it's fun picking out all the ingrediants i can try and mix together and building all the rooms.

Yes, the tutorial sucks for this game. Other reviewers aren't wrong in saying that. I would strongly suggest skipping the tutorial entirely. Go look at the wiki page or one of the beginner guides people have posted to get the core mechanics info if you're struggling to figure it out. That said, this game is entirely possible to puzzle out and play, and immensely satisfying to beat and see the end game cut scene pop off. In my case, a new rogue Queen restoring a mythic tree with your potions and then spending a small chunk of time bestowing honors onto my many Grand Master craftsmen for their aide. The rest of this review is hopefully helpful pointers to other players who might be struggling with tactics. First off, and where the rest of the advice stems from: Go big and plan ahead of time. Immediately pause the game at opening time of midnight. Build your House from scratch, don't use the tutorial layout. Lower the default height of rooms by 1 square to save some money. Have your staircases to one side of the building. The middle of each floor is the longest hall you can stretch a build. All your store in above ground 1 (1 cash register & 3 potion cases to start); workers quarters on floor 2 with an arm chair & 2-3 bunk rooms; 3 cookers & 1 bottler on underground 1; 1 of each processing machine & an extra bottler on U2; gardening hall for your starting 3-4 plant beds on U3. The remaining end of each floor is for smaller rooms for pallets, marketing, or sales rooms. I'd suggest building the pallet room on U2 with 3 pallets- 1 for raw ingredients, 1 for processed, & 1 for finished potions. A small room on upper floor 2, off the worker barracks, for the research table. The space for other side rooms is initially unbuilt to save money. You get a $500 reward for completing starting goals for equipment being laid down- make sure to hit those first, then use the money to add your 2nd & 3rd potion cases & a few processing machines you won't initially have the money for. Toss up a little light and the 2-square wall-shelf decoration in the main long rooms to help with worker happiness. You'll have roughly $350 left, and your starting gardener. More than enough $ to hire the 7 novice workers your initial tycoon points can provide for. Don't waste points on tier 2 workers unless they have rarer valuable traits; specifically alchemists with +1 to arcane power used in potions. Don't bother hiring Diva or other bad trait workers unless you have zero choice for getting at least one alchemist. If you paused a midnight, you'll have a set of people you can pick from, and then when a new business day hits at 6 am & workers are rushing to build things, you get a refreshed worker roster to pick a second round of people. Shoot for 3 alchemists, 2 operators, a clerk, & either a manager who has the trait to boost tycoon point production or a greaser to keep things moving quickly between stations & help build faster. 1 bottler machine is good for 3-4 cookers once production is going; your starting 2 will get you past the initial bottling rush to get things on the shelves & then last you until later mid game when you have the full production line. You don't ever need more than 2 of any kind of processor if you're balancing recipes & eventually upping your operators to be more efficient; mid game cooker replacement cuts down on the need for them. 1 cooker per potion until you have worker traits & decor buffs boosting their speed of brewing; then you can easily do 2-3 potions per cooker. Saved room from needing less cookers & processors in the mid to late game goes toward more room for extra seeds so you have double output of the most commonly demanded kinds or extra pallets for stocking up resources. Money left after initial equipment, construction, and workers hired is for worker pay and 1-2 seeds for when the merchant rolls up for the first time, IF she's offering ones that are under $200 each and expand the types of stock you can make. Don't worry about the more expensive flavor or power boost seeds in the early game- potency isn't important at first. Out performing competitors via appeal can be obtained easily by processing the core herbs to get rid of bad traits, using the non elemental sides of other core plants for extra boosts, and keeping prices on the higher end of bulk rate for the first few weeks. Don't push hard into regular or premium potions until you've unlocked cheaper glass bottles & have a rounded out roster of basic bulk potions created. It seems at starting that you get 1 elemental seed and 2-3 of the other kind of seeds; so buying 1-2 new elemental seeds will give you the most new combinations for your money. If merchant has more than 1 & they're cheap to buy, but you don't have enough money, it's the ONLY time I would suggest taking out a loan to cover the first seeds & some extra worker pay, as having a decent variety in starting products is so important. ESPECIALLY to make monster & skeleton repellents, as well as warding & summoning potions- those are the most frequently demanded for events, & the repels being in stock can drive off attackers scaring away customers. Not having them available early on will tank your playthrough. Frankly, before you do/build anything, open alchemy tab and check the combos for what your starting seeds can make. If you can't brew at least 1 of the 4 critical event potions from your starting seeds, and preferably the 3rd/4th seed is an ingredient for another- it would be worth starting a new game to get seeds that'll make the biggest impact. The other potions are for fulfilling other goals and eventual VIP offers, you can't neglect them entirely. I would strongly suggest declining VIP requests for the first 3-4 game weeks, UNLESS they are asking for 1-2 crates you already have in stock and can therefore spare. I wouldn't worry about trying to fulfill specific orders until you've expanded enough to not only keep your shelves stocked, but have enough space for 1-2 spare cookers/labs that will be dedicated to churning out those requests when they come up; and in between VIP orders you use them to boost event potions being made or stockpile other potions when it's quiet. When the Raven event pops up, one of the effects is boosting new potion recipe strength, AND they maintain that strength AFTER the event ends. Even if you're not actively producing a recipe at that time, at least revise all your recipes to lock in the boosts. There's another event that decreases recipe quality, I think the Mole one- you obviously do not want to make new potion recipes then. Expand crew and equipment in proportional ways as your seed supply expands and allows for new types of potions, prioritizing getting the widest range out first. You'll ultimately shoot to have 6 floors above and 6 below. When you hit mid game (unlocking the big air vents and such) and have a small stockpile of potions available to keep shelves stocked, along with $3-4k set aside- that's when you take a 1 time hit to production disruption to make your halls higher, making space for the bigger equipment and packing in more quality of life items or the trophies & artifacts you've been getting. Be prepared for your first few attempts to flop. Even with good planning, you can potentially get screwed if the market repeatedly throws no helpful lifelines with trade partners and customers are demanding everything you don't have. That's life. But you learn from failure and can put that experience towards making your next attempt more likely to succeed. And when you do succeed and make it to the throne room, and have the royal seal adorning your shop and granting a massive boost in the aftergame free play, it's cause for cheers. Sincere thanks to the dev for this very challenging but rewarding game. And good luck and much fun to anyone who decides to play.

After about 9 hours I feel like you've seen everything the game has to offer. After that, it feels like you're spinning your wheels in the mud, because the game lacks the granular information and control you'd need to really optimize and automate processes. My biggest criticism is that the late-game technologies feel sort of pointless because money already felt pretty much meaningless by the time I was only midway up the research tree, and the late-game technologies don't feel particularly well planned-out or impactful for gameplay as whole. The small size of the building you're operating in is frustrating, and the "advanced construction" research doesn't actually expand the size of your build boundary like I originally thought it would. Overall, this is a competent and enjoyable incremental game with aspirations of being an automation game. It lacks the depth and granularity necessary to approach some of the big names in the automation genre, but it's worthwhile time for money spent. With about 11 hours of gameplay in a single run under my belt, I feel like I've seen everything it has to offer, and I'm satisfied with it.

While the game looks great and looks like it'd be up my alley, I would suggest passing on this one. If you're fan of simulations, tycoon games, or "create your own product" games - pass on it. Maybe it'll get better in the future though. For a Tycoon game, the progression didn't make a ton of sense to me, neither did the potions in relation to the progression. Better ingredients + product in demand = profit, right? Not really! I found that every marketing attempt failed (aside maybe two), and even though I made potions adequate to what was in demand (from in-game papers to even checking the stat when creating the potion), I never seemed to render actual profit. It made it difficult to buy better ingredients and led to more of that progression standstill for me. For a simulation/creative game, the customization is lackluster. As far as I could identify, the NPC variation for your hireables is very limited, as is the decoration choice (maybe 4-6 swatches for each item), and on top of that.. You can't really cater to a specific sort of NPC aside just limiting your own potion stock but those other types of NPCs will still appear and then complain, hurting your metrics. Also you can't change the true exterior of your shop (as far as I could tell) aside room adjustment (add, expand, remove, condense). Now finally for the most damning part, for me anyway.. The potions. Ingredients are kind of set, it appeared the recipes are pre-determined. There are some options but it felt very limited. The bottle also lacks real customization - I think the game would really benefit from a color wheel or allowing us to add patterns to our bottles. I do know more customization (IE: type & charms) is on the way, but I can't imagine it would be much better. I am grateful that there appears to be no banned words on the filter, you can make some very funny potions. TLDR: Skip it, not customizable enough, potions boring to make, kinda bland experience with a profit based progression that's hard to overcome but feels pointless because of aforementioned bland creative experience.

Started with a cauldron and a dream. Ended up becoming kingmaker. Hire weirdos. Mix monster toe. Outsell rivals. Gameplay? deep. Systems? satisfying. Vibe? Cozy chaos. UI's clunky early on. Late game slows down in master diff. But once it clicks, it clicks. Perfect for fans of management sims with a magical twist. Bubbling fun. 4/5 potions. Would concoct again.

It's not that fun and a little clunky. It doesn't seem as polished as it could be. And it seems buggy -- even though I have a cash register, a clerk, and interested customers, I can't sell potions because the clerk is idling by the staircase.

If its on sale? Yeah go ahead, buy it! Certainly a wait till sale type of game. Its quite buggy, be sure to remember to save your progress! Don't take on too many requests at a time that they go off screen and expect the odd worker to get stuck either in the walls underground or on objects. If they get stuck in the walls just put a room there, if they get stuck around something else just fiddle with the object or room till they start working again. I also feel like there isn't much of a middle ground in the game, once you get some 2.5 bulk potions you can just wait till you finish researching most things and gather seeds for all the plants then you just go straight to making the best potions. I played on the normal difficulty setting and never felt the need to make middle quality potions.