The Magical Mixture Mill
A magical automation game on its way to become one of the best.
The Magical Mixture Mill
The Magical Mixture Mill is an exploration, base-building and potion crafting game that releases all the dopamine. Gather resources, build your alchemy workshop, brew potions, automate your production lines - keep your shelves stocked, your customers happy and your pockets full. And the best part? The adorable bottles go “cling” when they’re ready.
Introduction
The Magical Mixture Mill might be the only game (so far) that did magical automation this satisfyingly. I often just crave the satisfying ”cling” the bottles make when they’re ready and go back into the game simply for that very stimmy feeling.
Storyline
The game is currently in early access, and a bigger storyline is yet to be implemented. The premise is there, though, getting quests from adventurers for specific potions they need for their adventures, as well as several NPCs that look like they might have interesting requests and rewards as well. 👀
For the time being, there isn’t THAT much to do once you’ve reached the basic setup of your workshop and have pumped out all the potions for the first batch of requests, but that’s (hopefully) going to change soon!
Without spoiling too much, there is one character who lives in your backpack, who is the absolute champion. Such a creative character that I love so much I want to build all the workshops for them.
Gameplay
The premise is pretty straight-forward: your goal is to brew potions and sell them, returning the Magical Mixture Mill potion shop to its former glory.
As you explore the lands surrounding your potion shop, you’ll find various potion ingredients and crafting resources to hoard collect, with which you’ll build more machinery and expand your workshop, resulting in more potions to be brewed.
Automation means doing as little yourself as possible, so you can set up your workshop to extract items from a container, brew them into potions, bottle them and store the bottles somewhere safe. None of these industrial item-transporting pipes or conveyor belts, though. In this game, you can connect your containers and machines with magic, making items float on a line of sparkles and dopamine.
Atmosphere
The game is super, super cute. The way the items float around, the liquid potion coarses through the pipes, and if you time it well, the synchronicity of it all - pure dopamine. Combine that with a super catchy little tune that will stick in your head for hours after you’ve closed the game… yeah, I’m hooked.
Tutorial
The tutorial is straight-forward and does as it should.
Click this, do that, use this thing as such.
Nothing much to say about it, to be honest.
Modding
No modding support currently, though there is a framework in the works.
TL;DR
Recommended? Yes, if only for the ‘cling’ the bottles make!
Despite still being in early-access, the game looks very promising!
It needs some ironing out (e.g. the walking speed feels wonky) but I’m confident this will end up being one of my favourite games to sink my time into. It has all the elements that I like: exploration, base-building, crafting, automation - with the promise of some relationships to build and maybe some more customisation for my character, this is going to be a wonderful game.
For the time being, I recommend buying it anyway. The potion mechanics are so satisfying, and the bottles unleash a flash of dopamine when they go ‘cling’.
Questions or comments? Let me know on Steam or on Twitter!