Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator News

Potion Craft Fan Art Fest: Summer 2023!

Attention, artistic alchemists!

We're summoning your creative powers to join the Potion Craft Fan Art Fest: Summer 2023, where you can showcase your artistic talents and win awesome Steam game keys!

Over the next four weeks, we'll announce a new theme on our social media channels every Tuesday. You'll have the entire week to create and submit your artwork that brilliantly captures the essence of each theme.

The competition closes every Monday at 09:00 PDT / 12:00 EDT / 17:00 BST / 18:00 CEST, and our expert judges (the developers themselves!) will select three winners each week: 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. Winners will be chosen based on their creativity, skill, and adherence to the theme.

Remember to share your fantastic fan art online with the hashtag #PotionCraftFanArtFestSummer2023, or join the dedicated #fanart channel over on the Potion Craft Discord to connect with fellow artists and share your creations, or share your artwork here on Steam!

Don't miss this extraordinary opportunity to showcase your talent and be a part of the Potion Craft Fan Art Fest: Summer 2023!

Here’s a quick recap:

Event Duration: Four weeks, with a new theme every Tuesday.
Submission Deadline: Create and submit your artwork by Monday at 09:00 PDT / 12:00 EDT / 17:00 BST / 18:00 CEST.
Prizes: 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners for each theme will win a Steam game key of their choice from a selection of tinyBuild games!
How To Enter: Use the hashtag #PotionCraftFanArtFestSummer2023 when sharing your fan art on social media, or join the Potion Craft Discord and share your artwork in the dedicated #fanart channel, or share your artwork here on Steam!

Make sure to follow us on social media to keep up to date with each weekly theme, and everything else Potion Craft related!

Devlog #26. Garden 2.0: Room for Growth (Work-in-Progress)

We’ve already shared many details about the new garden mechanics we’re working on for the upcoming update:

"Isn't it too many plans for one small garden?" we thought, and instead, we simply expanded it several times over!

Now the garden will have three additional spaces that players can unlock as they progress in the game: a pond, a mushroom cave, and a crystal grotto. The roots of the magical tree spread far and wide, bestowing their accelerated growth effect everywhere.

Let's go through each one: the good ol’ garden where the tree grows has hardly changed, but we decided to tidy up and level the small mound that was only hindering gardening. Here, a wide variety of plants can be grown: flowers, herbs, mushrooms, roots and ligneous mushrooms.

To the right, a pond has appeared, where water plants can be cultivated. On the land in front and on the distant shore, the same plants as in the garden next to the tree can be grown. Moreover, excellent conditions have formed underground for growing truffles!

The mushroom cave is an ideal place for mushrooms (who would have thought?), but not only that: certain roots, thorny plants, and root vegetables thrive in the darkness of the cave. There is also ample space here for truffle cultivation.

The crystal grotto is the most enigmatic space in the garden. How does one plant a crystal? Do they require watering? How long do they take to grow? These are all excellent questions that we will address another time!

Isn't it brilliant?

Just as the Earth's treasures and fertile soils seem inexhaustible, so do our devlogs! Thus, stay tuned and follow our Steam Page. Also, make sure to join our Discord so you don't miss other upcoming devlogs!

Devlog #25. Garden 2.0: Potion of Wild Growth (Work-in-Progress)

Garden 2.0 will be a large and complex update, and we still have new features to share with you. Today we will show probably the most anticipated one – fertilising plants with potions of Wild Growth!

Alchemy and horticulture are friendly sciences and their strength is in synergy, which is why if you do not want to wait several days for plants to grow, you can just brew a stockpile of Wild Growth potions and accelerate this process dramatically.

You can get much further with a kind word and a powerful potion than you can with a kind word alone, so we decided to add an additional growth phase for each plant, which is achievable only after fertilising the plant with a strong (tier 3) potion of Wild Growth. Not only does it look cool, but it also yields more crops!

With enough potions, you can grow a plant from a sprout to fully grown in just one day! The stronger the potion, the faster the growth.

Fertilizing a plant that has just been harvested will cause it to regrow and be ready for another harvest. When using a strong potion, the plant will instantly grow to the Grown+ phase and yield even more fruit!

Our goal is to add new mechanics without disrupting the core gameplay of Potion Craft. We hope that the new garden will work in harmony with the rest of the game, making it even more enjoyable.

Stay tuned and follow our Steam Page. Also, make sure to join our Discord so you don't miss other upcoming devlogs!

Devlog #24. Garden 2.0: Planting & Replanting (Work-in-Progress)

As we continue to share with you new garden mechanics currently being developed, today we would like to tell you about planting and replanting plants. As renowned horticulturists of the past used to say, a game mechanic starts with an idea as a plant starts with a seed. Can you guess which Potion Craft plants these seeds represent?

Gardening is no less a creative process than alchemy, that is why we want to give players full creative freedom to place plants as their sense of beauty demands. The only thing is, be careful not to plant them too close together or the saplings will get lost in the grown bushes.

Grown plants can also be replanted or put back in the inventory if you wish to plant them later. The plant's growth phase will be saved in this case – you will not need to grow it from the sprout again.

The growth point of ligneous mushrooms is defined by two axes instead of one like with ground plants. Moreover, they can be placed in front or behind the tree, making it tricky to calculate proper planting positions. However, we are working hard to make this process as intuitive and responsible as possible.

We are excited for our hard work to bear fruit for you to enjoy in the future! There is still a lot of work ahead to improve the garden, but we will continue to share interesting insights with you in upcoming devlogs. Be sure to follow our Steam Page and join our Discord so you don't miss anything!
In the meantime, we would love to hear which plants you would like to grow in your enchanted garden.

Devlog #23. Garden 2.0: New Plants System (Work-in-Progress)

We know that garden upgrades are among the most anticipated mechanics for Potion Craft. Thus, we are opening a series of devlogs to share new features that are currently being developed for the garden, including new planting, upkeep, and harvesting systems.

Time is of the essence not only in game development but also in horticulture. Even if one is lucky to have a magical tree which makes everything grow faster in their backyard, nothing will sprout without a grain of patience, that is why we decided to add transitional growing phases for each plant.

But daily watering is also essential for growing plants, and the watering pot is just the right instrument for this!

Working on garden plants for different plant types, such as flowers, herbs, root vegetables, mushrooms and ligneous mushrooms requires a different approach. It is necessary to hold on to several principles while creating garden plants:

They should be recognizable and distinguishable from each other even in the earliest growing phases;
They should grow credibly, i.e. flower sprouts cannot have a bud in early phases, it needs to grow a bit first;
The size of the plants should not be too big or too small, so they would not take too much space or, vice versa, get lost among other plants;
And the most important one – the players should feel satisfaction while growing plants!

Sometimes it’s a real challenge to decipher how, say, a ligneous mushroom grows!

A sustainable gardener would never cut the plant to the ground when harvesting it, that is why it is important that harvested plants should look like they will soon re-grow again and yield even more. In order to meet the requirements of the new system we had to change the appearance of some plants compared to their current in-game visuals.

There is a lot of work ahead of us on updating and enhancing the garden mechanics, and we will share the sweetest fruits of this development in further devlogs, so stay tuned and follow our Steam Page and join our Discord so you don't miss other upcoming devlogs! Meanwhile, please share what garden improvements you would like to see in the game the most.