There is a place on Olympus dedicated to all those capable of making the difficult easy. Of all the seats that shape your table, video game designers have a dedicated place to eat without getting fat for all eternity. Potion Craft is just one more proof of how much they deserve that position.
Chosen from our 13 must-haves at the Steam Demo Festival, Potion Craft is the reason why game design seems like the linchpin of any title. You may like their art more or less, it may work better or worse, but if it is not fun there is nothing to do.
Make boring fun
Make the boring fun or, which is the same thing after all, make the difficult easy. There is the key. In the case of Potion Craft it is the process of inviting the player to become an alchemist to create potions and sell them to the public.
The one that heals after a battle, the one that poisons your enemy, or the one that makes your plants grow back. Combinations of herbs, mushrooms and flowers capable of changing the life of the buyer while you get a good pick in the form of gold coins.
Putting herbs together to create juices, in essence. In a flat environment, without walks in the forest or animations beyond such basic things as stirring a cauldron or stoking the fire of a kettle. Something so simple and yet so profound, entertaining and well thought out . So funny despite being, at least on paper, downright boring.
For the outsider who is considering how to approach the design of a video game like this, the idea of adapting any farm game that comes to mind seems the easiest option. A doll that goes from here to there planting, collecting and gathering elements on a crafting table .
Potion Craft , on the other hand, takes the difficult route, that of the eureka who probably lit a lightbulb within niceplay games when they found the mechanics that would sustain the game. A surprisingly original formula that, in reality, is reduced to a handful of indications that move you through a maze.
Beyond Farmville
Behind all the paraphernalia with which to prepare potions is the map that gives meaning to the game . In it, different objectives appear in the form of potions that we must approach starting from the center. With this we can first discover, and later create, the different potions that customers will claim in the store.
The ingredients that we collect at the click of a button from the nearby forest are only the indications that move us from here to there . A winding path to the right, a zigzag up, a parabola moving left and down.
Elements that, once added to the mix, will draw on the map the path that our creation will take until reaching the desired objective. An insultingly simple process. Also insanely funny .
With the combination of herbs, their preparation, and a jug capable of diluting the mixture to move back on that created path -and thus avoid the dangers that would destroy the mixture-, Potion Craft already gives a good account of the potential of an idea to which, of course, there is still much to add.
There will be room for more combinations, for some personalization of the garden and to shape a narrative with more weight. But the truth is, it doesn’t seem to need much more than it already offers. We will see how you feel the expectation generated. Grow more or less, we’ll be there to applaud your achievement when it lands on Steam sometime in 2021 .