Potion Tycoon

It's alright. I post this as negative simply because there are so many better similar games that scratch the same itch, like Mind over Magic, rimworld, Corsair cove, potionomics if you really want the econ and crafting rather than building etc. That I don't think I can recommend this one if someone is looking at a review to decide.

tldr: If thinking of buying, hold out for a sale. It's kinda buggy : egs >sales desk occasionally gives a bugged negative value result >when you try to up or down the position of items in production queues on some productions desks, it'll move the item somewhere in the queue other than what you wanted >when moving rooms around sometimes items within the room won't be moved with the room and will be left in untouchable limbo. Mostly the game involves: > creating mushrooms and herbs > producting potions from combinations of said mushrooms and herbs > selling the produced potions > managing staff to do all the above > maxing fame for higher customer throughput and creating potions more appealing than the NPC opponent's potions in order to maximise chance of sales. > by completing quests of a combination of the above tasks, complete the story questline to win the game. Kinda shallow gameplay wise for the regular sale price. Given the gameplay depth/graphics available I'd say it's a $AU20 at best, but it's priced at @ $AU30. If you're patient, wait for a sale price. If you don't care about the price or have no ability to control your spending impulse, by all means go for it! The current sale price of $AU11.80 is probably the game's most appropriate price point. Mind you, with my comments on pricing, keep in mind I'm someone who remembers being able to buy a can of soft drink for $1. If the bugs didn't exist, I'd probably recommend as buy.

Game crashes if you make too many changes during building mode. Upload an earlier save to be able to continue, then make sure to only implement a few changes at a time.

Be prepared to think about this game when you're not playing it.

I like the style. The tutorial is AWFUL. So much stuff happens at once and the videos overlaying just makes everything more confusing. That said, after 5 hours of gameplay, I could not figure out a running shop. Material cost and wages straight up outweigh the sales. Every single time. Even when 'guided' by the tutorial, the resulting shop makes minus. Either I'm not getting how the game works at all, or the numbers are so tight that you cannot make ANY mistake or deviation from the intended 'plan'.

I love it but there is room for improvement. It has great potential

In my playthrough I had no bugs and no crashes. But the game has very limited replayability (different starting ingredients) , the mechanics are not explained. What does the room rating do? Is it only for the mood? What is a "cult following"? And many mechanics are shallow and i basically ignored them in my one play-through. Different customer budgets and preferences, building elements to guide my customers, some of the processing units, marketing, decorations The only mechanic that is somewhat impactful are the events which you should not ignore (on highest difficulty). After the first half of the game it felt more like a grind with no challenge and tens of thousands of gold with nothing to do with. I like the graphic style though and at least in the beginning it might take a little bit of thinking to make money on highest difficulty.