Hearth's Light Potion Shop Reviews

Kind of repetitive and slow-paced right now but it's a great game to kill short bursts of time without any pressure or sense of urgency.

Relaxing and fun game that I see myself spending many hours playing to unwind. I love making the different potions to the request of my customers and discovering how to use the different ingredients. Indulging in gossip with the townsfolk is the cherry on top. I love the music in this game. It's so soothing and really gives the game its feel-good vibe — there is no urgency at all. There is only me, my ingredients, my potions, and my friends (and enemies). The music feels deeply nostalgic and takes me back to simpler times. I highly recommend this game to anyone that prefers a simple and straight-forward game that is easy to enjoy.

I do like this game, but it's not for everyone. Very simple, repetitive gameplay, but kinda interesting the way ingredients react to each other. More of a logic puzzle than "farming sim" alchemy. I'm looking forward to upgrade my shop, but it seems to be a slow process (at least for me). But for the price it definitely worth it :)

[h3] This game is simple. Its made well enough but it's not great. [/h3] You might get bored quickly. You can only move the camera, the character is stuck in one place. Took some time to get used to. Also after tutorial, it is necessary to reference a piece of text, which can be overwhelming. However throughout the game tips will keep poping up, guiding the player. For this price it's ok, but that's about it.

A beautiful and simple game for in between, for people who love repetitive tasks I can clearly recommend it. It's relaxing and calming. However, if you like games with more action, this won't be for you :)

Love it, this is so relaxing - I had a hard time putting it down last night, "just one more day!" Dev is super responsive too; camera was a little wonky for me when I first tried, I posted a suggestion in the discussion forums, BOOM, they made it happen. Awesome.

Hearth's Light is a refreshingly novel take on the potion shop/alchemist genre, and the core gameplay loop is hands-down my favorite of all of them (and I've played all of them, much to the chagrin of -- well, that's neither here nor there). In the game you are starting out from scratch with the intention of running a successful potion shop. As the player, you never leave the shop; you stand behind the counter, take orders, and from there combine ingredients to make potions to the specifications of your customers. There's no farming, no adventuring, etc. Just good old see-what-happens (and keep a bucket of water handy) chemistry. In Heath's Light, you make potions by adding ingredients -- green apples, various mushrooms, eggs, etc. -- to a bubbling cauldron. Each ingredient has 'effects'. Some of them are straightforward: a lemon adds three 'bitters'. Some of them are more complex: a cauliflower will exchange, if they are present in the potion, two 'savorys' for one 'I can't remember specifically right this second' but you get the idea. The challenge is to figure out how to combine the ingredients available (you work with what you're dealt) to make both potions to order and potions that are as valuable as possible. It is absurdly addictive. But in a good way. Well, at least in a very fun and really not at all harmful way. BIG CAVEAT: The game is in very early access. It was just released into EA March 24, 2023, so games-wise it's a squealing newborn. It sorely needs a massive optimizations push, and some gameplay elements need a bit of tweaking here and there to smooth out some rough edges. BUT, the dev is amazing -- available (pushing out bug fixes within a couple of hours), interested in feedback, and clearly passionate about and dedicated to the game. If you are looking for a polished, complete experience neatly bottled up and not at all smoking slightly, put this on your wishlist or follow list and carry on. If you can't handle a crazy bug or two (in my almost 6 hours I haven't run across a single bug, but I have seen at least one report of one in the forums), or if others have ever described you as 'difficult to get along with' then I'd wishlist or follow and carry on. If, however, you've had some real fun with early access games and thoroughly enjoy the co-op pursuit of perfection that emerges between dedicated players and dedicated developers, Hearth's Light is an absolute gem. Last word: Solid, enthusiastic recommend, with the standard EA caveat.

This is a beautifully designed game that offers a lot of opportunity for developing your potion business and exploring relationships with customers. It has a very relaxed atmosphere and the pacing feels just right... Could play for hours!

In it's current state I really can't recommend this game, which is really unfortunate bc it's got the framework to be really good and but it has so many small problems that pile up to make the overall experience unpleasant. Here is an itemised list of all the issues I had, in the order I encountered them: - It took me 4 attempts to launch the game, with it crashing immediately most of the time. - The tutorial broke, and did not display any text past the first page. - The camera feels awful. It uses either wasd or holding middle mouse to pan the camera. - There is no way to adjust the camera speed, or the graphics settings, or any relevant settings, just the volume can be adjusted. - There is a permanent noise filter, which looks... okay, but becomes difficult to look at quickly. - The items you get from the shop deliveries are random in both type and volume, which isn't awful on it's own, but it managed to screw me out of 4 different orders because I didn't get the items I needed for them. - Perishable items only last one day, which makes the randomness of the shop deliveries worse, as you cannot stockpile Items you don't need yet. - You have limited space for extra potions, so you also may not be able to use the perishable items you do have. I really hope this game improves over the next few months, its such a cute little idea and despite its issues I'm excited to see how it improves..

Lovely design and very relaxed gameplay. Making the potions requires the perfect amount of brainpower and there's no counter to stress you into rushed decisions. I couldn't remember exactly who all the characters were, but it doesn't stand in the way of gameplay at all. I had a few issues with orders that never got picked up, but really that just meant I had some extra potions at the ready so I didn't mind. Really nice game with a lovely, relaxed atmosphere that I immediately spent over an hour playing. At 1 am.