Potion Tycoon brings the whole experience of owning your own potions store to a fantasy world, whatever that means.
THE GAME
Potion Tycoon is a management simulator game from Snowhound Games, distributed by Daedalic Entertainment. As the owner of a potions store in a magical kingdom, the game consists of managing the entire process, from potion creation and employee management to product customization. However, your establishment is not the only one that sells this type of merchandise. Your rivals will always try to create potions better than yours and will want to take your place as the best store.
Create potions, upgrade your staff, grow the ingredients, customize your store, and promote your launches. Impress important people in the kingdom to receive more influence and rise in the rankings. Be the best potions salesman these lands have ever seen.
MY IMPRESSIONS
I have always been a denial to management games, but Potion Tycoon showed me why: haste. This type of game requires patience to evolve and advance, which may turn some people off. Keep in mind that the game wants you to take it slow, but when your rivals start to evolve and your store sells few potions, you can get frustrated. Also, there are missions with rewards and this will urge you to go faster and you might stumble. It is a fine line between trying to figure out where to improve or giving up for good. I confess that I had to restart the game about three times because nothing worked. Until I learned and it worked. And then it didn't work anymore. And I had to learn again.
Starting with the potions, you have to create them yourself, there are no predefined potions. In your own cauldron, mix the ingredients and test different combinations to get the ideal recipe. And that's not all! You will even customize the container in which your potions will be bottled. And don't think it's just aesthetics, it really improves your product and makes it more saleable. Be creative and name your creation. Don't do like me, who named my potions after drinks.
The ingredients are all grown in your own store. You start with random plants, herbs, and mushrooms, so it is always a different start. There are vendors who offer you new ingredients from time to time. Use them to create new recipes or to improve existing ones.
Your employees will do a little bit of everything if they are not directed to certain activities. They can be promoted and given improvements that will help them in their tasks. Be vigilant in evaluating your rooms, because if you don't meet the requirements of the employees, they will become demotivated. And believe me, they will be very annoying about it.
Rooms are every place in your store. Some machines can only be positioned in rooms that are below ground, the famous basements. The opposite also exists, with exclusive structures for rooms above ground. You must decorate all of them so that your evaluation pleases both employees and customers.
The game has a wide variety of machines, furniture, and objects with the most diverse functions. You will want to put everything in your rooms, but you will run into one problem: limited space. There is a limit to how far your store can grow. It seems there is never enough space. The game forces you to be very careful and calculate exactly what is essential and what is dispensable. It is a way to make the game more challenging, but I found it frustrating. I wanted to equip my store with the best I could, but I was barred by lack of space. Maybe it was a lack of management on my part, but there was so much to move around in the store that I just gave up and left it as it was.
I like the art in the game, especially the potions. They highlight the products, making them more than just items. At the time of this review, the game does not have Brazilian Portuguese subtitles. This can make it a little difficult to understand some of the mechanics for those who do not have a good command of the English language.
ACHIEVEMENTS
Most of the achievements will be unlocked as you play normally. When you get to a point in the game where your economy is good, you can force some achievements that require certain actions that you might not otherwise do, such as having an employee with one point in each skill, or hiring 20 employees. So wait until your money is stable to do things that might hurt your game. Also, there are achievements that are accumulated by all your saves, so don't be alarmed by large numbers.
In general, the achievements are simple. I really like achievements where you have to do something specific and different. Do we have that in Potion Tycoon? Yes, but I would like more. Maybe in future updates. Other than that, most of them are grind, but it is nothing too time consuming if your game is well on track, of course.
CONCLUSÃO
Potion Tycoon is an interesting game and it can get even more interesting. I liked what I saw, but it is notable that the game needs some improvements, that for sure will be made, because the developers are active in the community and are always listening and responding to feedbacks. I even needed help with an achievement that was bugged and was promptly answered and fixed in the next patch. They have a roadmap of next steps they want to take with the game, which means we may see new features and improvements to existing ones.
When I hit the ceiling of the game, where there was nothing new, I wondered about the replay factor. Would I start a new save? For what reason? I felt that I enjoyed everything that Potion Tycoon could offer me. I was challenged, I completed the achievements, but now what? Maybe that's all it is, and there is nothing wrong with that.
I don't know to what extent the build limitation is something that changes the game for the better. I can't tell if, if there were no limitation on building rooms, the game would be broken. Or if it is just a limitation to not ruin the performance. Anyway, all I know is that I would like to have more freedom in this sense.
I confess that I was very frustrated until I understood the rhythm of the game. I wanted to advance but it was too complicated for me. Some missions were not clear and I kept wondering if I had skipped something in the tutorial that explained these things. So I learned on my own. However, the balance is positive. A good game to play while listening to a podcast, for example.
Potion Tycoon is made by people who really seem to care about the game and this gives me hope that the game will only get better.
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