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Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator News

Devlog #5. Potion effect compatibility

Currently Potion Craft features 23 different potion effects. And since it's possible for players to put more than just one effect into a single bottle, we had to come up with something that allows us to control how different effects interact with each other when you create another wombo-combo potion.

[h2]Table of compatibility[/h2]



As both names imply, it's a Google Sheets table which is used for reviewing and adjusting the effects compatibility. When a change is made, the contents of the table are pasted in a TXT file within the game project for the new configuration to take effect (no pun intended).

On game start the TXT file is parsed for effects names and 0 and 1:
  • 1 means the effect has synergy with the other and mixing them both can make the potion somewhat better.
  • 0 means that an effect is incompatible with the other, and will weaken should it be mixed with the latter.

Here you can see how all battle/damaging effects are perfectly compatible, except for fire and frost:



Also, all damaging effects are totally incompatible with recovery effects:



So making some, say, "Sneaky Healing But Actually Poisonous Potion" will require a combo of at least 1 Healing and 2 Poisoning effects to make it work. Any less Poisoning will leave you with a bottle full of useless slipslop and disappointment.

It's worth mentioning that effect compatibility is not always symmetrical. For instance, if a customer demands a Fire potion, any combination of Fire and Light effects will suffice:



On the other hand, if it's a Light potion that is required, adding too much Fire to the potion won't make your guest happy at all:



We tried to make our effect compatibility follow a specific logic and common sense (hopefully), and while the current balance seems legit, we may need to re-adjust and tweak some things in the future.

[h2]Stay tuned[/h2]

Follow our Steam Page and make sure to join our Discord so you don't miss other upcoming devlogs!

Devlog #4. Reputation

It’s about time we talk about the shop's reputation, one of the important mechanics in Potion Craft.



[h2]What is reputation?[/h2]

You’ve probably noticed this meter in the top part of your inventory:



This is your shop's reputation meter. It basically shows how much love (or hate) you get from your fellow townsfolk. The higher the reputation, the better: your potion's base price goes up, customers are more patient and willing to haggle with you. Should your reputation go down too much, you'll start gradually losing said benefits. Moreover, if your reputation hits 0 by the end of the day, it's game over, no more customers or traders for you!

So, how do you build up your shop's reputation? By completing orders, of course! But be careful: not all visitors intend to use your potions for good. And if someone uses your "rat poison" to get rid of their husband or wife, the townspeople will surely find out who helped them (spoiler: the only alchemist in the town), and you can bet they won't like it.

Okay, that's the basics. Let's get to the good part!

[h2]3 types of quests[/h2]

There are currently 3 types of quests in game: good, bad and neutral.

[h3]Good quests[/h3]

Let's have a look into how a good quest is set up.



This is the quest editor. You can see the following options available for adjustment:

Desirable Effects determines what kind of potion an NPC with this quest will be willing to buy. In some cases it may be more than 1 suitable effect for the same quest.

Potion Cost Multiplier determines how much gold an NPC with this quest will pay you. 1 means a standard, normal price. The Cost Multiplier is set to 1 for mostly all the good quests in the game.

Reputation Reward Tier N, where N is potion's tier (quality). Depending on how strong the desired effect in your potion is, the reputation reward may vary. For good quests the reputation reward is usually equal to the potion's tier.

Reputation Reward Kick basically means the amount of reputation penalty incurred when refusing to fulfill a quest. When you reject a person with a good quest, your reputation decreases by a certain amount. For good quests the penalty is usually set to -3.

[h3]Bad quests[/h3]



In bad quests reputation reward and penalty are reversed. You lose reputation by completing the quest and gain it by rejecting an NPC with malicious intent. We decided to make the reputation loss from bad quests substantially higher, so the penalty for working with baddies varies from -10 to -30. But, we also set the potion cost multiplier to a whopping 3 to make such deals more tempting to accept (and we feel like it works just fine).

[h3]Neutral quests[/h3]



Neutral quests are just what the name implies: they offer no reputation reward or penalty, so the player is free to handle them as they please. But neutral quests still feature a doubled cost multiplier, so it's still worth the squeeze. Currently, there are only a few NPC with neutral quests. One of them is The Witch.

[h2]How to keep your reputation high[/h2]

To make sure your shop's reputation does not drop to zero, please follow these easy tips:

Read the quests carefully! Don't just skim the text for potion effects needed by the customer. Especially if they ask for some poison.

Always sell your strongest potions! The stronger the potion you sell is, the more reputation you gain. You can worry about if they can handle your potions later *wink*.

If you are running low on gold and have some reputation to spare, it's okay to make a shady deal or two... Just remember to sell a potion of the highest tier possible to make it worth it!

[h2]Stay tuned[/h2]

Follow our Steam Page and make sure to join our Discord so you don't miss other upcoming devlogs!

Devlog #3. Money, money, money: gold & gems system

If you’ve ever sold a potion to a guy who’s kind of shady, but is willing to pay a lot... Or if you purchased a bunch of ingredients from a merchant leaving them with empty stock, you may have noticed that not only coins but gems and goblets also appear on the scales.



To make this system work we have created 77 sprites: 69 coins, 6 gems and 2 goblets plus 65 more sprites for cases when money shares a scale with a sack.



There is a lot of work put into each object in the game and sometimes we have to go through many variants before finding the one which would look and work just right. So here is an exclusive look at some of the original visuals created for the scales that didn’t make the final cut.



It's always sunny in a rich man's world, and it's always cool to follow our Steam Page so you can stay up to date on all the latest Potion Craft news and devlog posts!

Devlog #2. NPC system: Appearance

Since new and unique characters enter the player's shop every day, we have created a system for convenient and fast generation of them.



In-game characters come to the player's shop every day to purchase another potion. We experiment a lot with the visual part of the game while working on the project. To make it easer and faster we have written a complex but flexible system for choosing the appearance of shop clients.



NPC is a set of different elements of appearance – body, hairstyle, eyes, face, hat, earrings, scars, tattoos and other. As of today NPC can be a container for many elements of appearance from 15 categories at the same time. In addition, NPC object itself contains more than a hundred graphic layers to fit these elements.



We have created a special tool to make the addition of new unique characters and their appearance elements as simple and convenient as possible. This tool allows us to completely automate the process of changing elements of the characters' appearance – we just need to name appearance sprites correctly and put them into special folders. NPC generator will create the necessary files and organize them into categories.

Based on the created basic characters, we can create unique in-game characters using the NPC browser.



Almost every character in the demo is one or another modification of one of just three basic characters – warrior, female citizen and male citizen. The NPC browser allows us to customize each variation to the smallest detail – choosing the skin tone, clothing form and colors, hairstyle, eyes, face shape and other elements of appearance.
Special attention is paid to accessories and body features – scars, tattoos, necklaces, earrings, armbands, chest medallions, shields, etc.

NPC generator allows us to create unique NPC variations quickly and conviniently. We spend time and energy on drawing parts of the characters' appearance only, which can be put together as a constructor details.

We will make more Devlog posts in the future, so make sure to follow our Steam Page (you will get notification in Steam when we make a new Devlog post).

New challenge: Mushroomer's Secret Recipe *wink*

This week a familiar face will hold the tools to help you with your next challenge, just be sure not to sample too much of your own potion!

[h2]This Week’s Challenge: Mushroomer's Secret Recipe *wink*[/h2]
Use only mushrooms (anything that Mushroomer sells goes). Your potion must contain the Hallucination effect and at least one other effect. Your combination of effects, name, and description of the potion must make sense. Any order of effects is allowed, and each Alchemist may submit unlimited challenge entries!

[h2]Join our Discord to participate[/h2]

Join our Discord to participate in the challenge and read more about the rules (in #weekly-challenges channel)!
Work together to reach community goals and unlock emojis for the whole Discord server.
The most interesting/creative recipe will be highlighted on our social media next week along with the new challenge!

[h2]Last challenge highlight[/h2]
This week we wanted to highlight a submission by extranji for the previous “Potion of Poetry” challenge.