Stirring up some magic in these five potion-making games that will make you all bubbly.
Harvest, extract, distill, bottle, sell, repeat.
Double, double toil and trouble - my current fixation is a weirdly specific one:
Five games, five genres, five experiences but each one scratching that specific itch: potions.
Grab your herbs, prepare them for distillation, brew them into a potion, put it in a pretty bottle, make it clink, exchange it for some shiny coin, and then do it again.
There’s something so very satisfying about unleashing my inner witch.
Let’s get started, these potions aren’t going to brew themselves - or are they?
Potion Craft
Oh man, this game. Everything about this game is pure perfection.
The paper-y graphics, the adventurous and innovative way of discovering new potions, there’s nothing I don’t love about this game!
It genuinely was a tall order not to compare all the other potion games to this one, but I think I did a pretty good job assessing them for the games they are instead of the game they are not: Potion Craft.
The Magical Mixture Mill
This is honestly the game that started this bout of potion bottle craving hyperfixation. Just the visuals of the cute little bottles making their way around the workshop in a nice little queue, utterly adorable! When they hit the ground and go ‘cling’, I don’t think you can get dopamine hits that easily anywhere else.
Alchemist Simulator
I started playing this game hoping it would be the “Thaumcraft but not a Minecraft mod”-game I’ve been craving for a while, and sadly it didn’t deliver on that. The game is quite punishing and stressful for me, despite being in the realm of cute and cosy I absolutely adore.
This is one of those games that I might and probably will give another chance in the future, when I’m bored and craving some specific itch to be scratched, but for the time being, it’s just not what I had expected or wanted.
Potionomics
Deckbuilding games aren’t for everyone, and while I generally feel the genre is difficult to get into and overwhelming with mechanics, Potionomics is very well-paced and rewarding, making it an ideal deckbuilding game to get into the genre.
There’s enough variation between brewing, selling and exploring to keep you invested and feeling like you always have three more things to do, and only two time slots to do them in. It’s very satisfying if a day works out exactly how you had planned it. Exactly like real life, but with cuter graphics.
Potion Permit
An adorable pixel-style JRPG game with a refreshing take on NPC relationships, potion crafting and home decoration.
I really love it when the starting point is not immediately good - the NPCs don’t trust you, don’t like you much, and your house is broken down and dirty. As you advance in the game, you really see and feel the evolution in how the people treat you, the way your house becomes prettier, which makes for a very rewarding playthrough.
As expected from a JRPG, it’s pretty story-heavy, lots of dialogue and cutscenes, so I understand that’s not for everyone. It admittedly isn’t for me, usually, but this is one of the few games I can honestly say kept my focus.
