Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator News

Hello Alchemists,

We hope you all had wonderful Holidays!
Thank you to everyone who has participated in the Feast of Winter Cone seasonal event. Let us know what you think about it and if you managed to find all the decorations around your shop!

This small update will retire the Feast of Winter Cone event as well as address “the empty map issue” that some players have encountered before. We’re aware of this one and are trying to resolve it with this update. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a bit more complex than we originally thought, so we hope this update will fix it (or at least will give us some more information). If you still encounter “the empty map issue”, please do let us know in the #bug-reports section of our Discord server.

[h2]Patch Notes:[/h2]

• The Feast of Winter Cone event is now over.
  
• Hopefully the “empty map issue” that some players could have encountered, is now fixed. If you're still experiencing this issue, please let us know.

We’re extremely excited to announce that Potion Craft has been nominated for the “Sit Back and Relax” nomination for this year’s Steam Awards! Thank you all so much for your support in getting us here!

This time round we’d like to ask you to cast your vote for us one more time to help us win this award! Voting is open until January 3rd.

Greetings alchemists,

It’s that time of the year when everything slows down a bit, the trees and houses are covered in beautiful shimmering snow, and the festive decorations are all over the place! Ah, can you feel this unique atmosphere in the air?

This year we’re excited to invite you to the Feast of Winter Cone! Your fellow townsfolk are celebrating and having as much fun as they can, and you should too!

[h2]Watch the new trailer[/h2]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Just look at all the decorations around you and try to find them all to get the festive experience that you can later use to level up your alchemy skills!

Have fun completing the new set of tasks that can be found in the Alchemist’s Path book. Discover crazy little details around your shop and meet some familiar faces that visit.

[h2]Patch notes[/h2]

• Feast of Winter Cone: festive decorations, a new minigame to find hidden decorations around your shop, and a special festive Alchemist’s Path chapter.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Alchemy Map, Books and some other items may not display correctly on low spec computers. These items will now be displayed in a lower quality in such cases. If you still encounter this issue, please hit us up at #bug-reports in our Discord.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused customers in a bad mood to pay more for a potion than they should.
  

Thanks for playing Potion Craft and being with us this year. Your continuous feedback and support mean the world to us. We’re sincerely wishing a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you! May your holidays be bright and your experiments fruitful!



We also want to point out that while this is a minor festive Potion Craft update, we’re currently working hard on the next big one that will come out in the near future, and we can’t wait to tell you more about it!

Please make sure to follow us on Social Media and join our Discord to stay up to date on everything Potion Craft and chat with the community and developers:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Discord
• Reddit
• Imgur
• YouTube

Hello, fellow Alchemists!

In today’s devlog we will tell you about the new save system – a part of the upcoming update, which we are currently working on.



The save and load menu has been redesigned from the ground up. It now has quite a few useful features that have been requested by the majority of players. Let's take a closer look at them.

[h3]Changing save names[/h3]
The new save system will allow players to give unique names to the saves. You will no longer accidentally erase your main save, nor will you confuse your save with the save of another person playing Potion Craft on the same computer. We've also improved the default save naming to consist of the current in-game day and the overall playtime.



[h3]Saving player statistics[/h3]
Players will be able to see their in-game progress in the loading menu soon! In the upcoming update, each save will display key game statistics: player’s level, shop’s popularity, reputation, total amount of potions brewed, and so on. In-game statistics will help you navigate among all your saves. You’ll be able to show off your statistics to your friends or in our Discord, too!



[h3]Save files compatibility[/h3]
For each save, the version of the game in which it was made will be shown. This is necessary for players to be able to see if the save is compatible with the current version of the game.

Some major game updates can change the balance of the game, the sequence of the visitors, the content and the structure of the project so much that old saves will become incompatible with new versions of the game. You will still be able to continue playing on your old saves, but to do this, you will have to rollback the game to an older version in the Beta-settings of the game on Steam (detailed instructions will be given in the download menu).

We will try to avoid this whenever possible, since we understand that resetting progress is not the most pleasant thing in such a game, but we will have to do it at least once, due to the huge number of revisions of the mechanics, balance and structure of the project.



[h3]Save file management[/h3]
Another handy feature is a special button that opens the folder with all your saves in file explorer right from the game. Players won’t have to search for the save folder manually, so the process of transferring existing saves to other devices will become more convenient and faster.



Also, deleting a save that’s no longer needed doesn't even require opening the explorer. Just click the “Delete Save” button.



[h3]Unlimited saves[/h3]
The old save system was originally supposed to be temporary, so the option was chosen to make it as simple as possible until there was a need for a more complex one. From the community’s feedback, we saw that 5 save slots is not enough, so after the introduction of the new save system, the limit on the number of saves will be removed altogether.

Also, the number of quicksaves and autosaves will be increased from 1 to 5, so there will always be an opportunity to go a couple of saves back.



The new save system is important, but not the only part of the upcoming update. We are actively working on other features, which we will also tell you about soon!

Thanks for your attention! Follow our Steam page or join our Discord server to never miss new devlogs and important announcements!

More than two months have passed since Potion Craft was released in Early Access, and we would like to thank you all for playing it, for your feedback and for your support! We are currently working full blast on a large update. While making games is not a fast process, we still want to tell you about content to come. To do this, we have started a series of devlogs on features that we are currently developing and that will appear in the game soon.

To begin with, we are going to show you some new NPCs as well as unveil the process behind their creation. There are two global types of NPCs in the game: with a stable appearance and with a customizable one. Despite the differences, which we will expand on a bit later, working on both types begins with a sketch.







NPCs with stable appearance are returning visitors. For example, Mushroomer and Herbalist are among them, who are well known to you. They always look the same, that’s why creating them is comparatively easy: you need to divide them into layers correctly, define a head rotation pivot and draw 6 face emotions.







NPCs with the randomized appearance are divided into classes: citizens, warriors, rogues, peasants and so on, each of them having their own set of parts. For example, a Female Wealthy Citizen class has 3 dresses, 2 head wears, 3 hairstyles and a lot of necklaces. Each time such NPC comes into the shop, her appearance gets generated from accessible parts, which includes unique parts for this class as well as universal ones for all females.



In some cases, we make an appearance variable by using a lot of accessories. The Female Warrior class has only two armor variants and two helmets, but there are as many as 4 different weapon types and 3 shields, which may be combined in many ways.



When all parts are made, we then need to set color schemes for those of them that have variable colors. We also need to decide what layers of clothing and accessories should have the same colors. For example, headwear color is usually one of the main clothing colors.



And there’s still more to come! We also have to decide the place where the potion is stored after it is given to the visitor and the trajectory with which it flies there.



You now know how long the NPC journey is before appearing at the shop, so, please, don’t refuse them potions! Stay tuned for more devlogs on the upcoming update. Please don’t hesitate to follow our Steam Page and make sure to join our Discord so you don't miss other upcoming devlogs!