Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator News

Hello alchemists, today we have some exciting news for you. Our newest Potion Craft Playtest is OUT NOW!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Experience the Alchemy Machine and discover Legendary Recipes, meet new customers, take a look at the reworked Recipe Book, and much more! Plenty of new stuff awaits, but don’t worry, we’ve got you covered and will walk you through some of the new features below.

[h3]Reworked Alchemist’s Path[/h3]
Get ready to start your journey down The Alchemist’s Path with the completely reworked progression of 6 new story chapters! Complete a whole new set of quests and get valuable experience to upgrade your skills.



[h3]Alchemy Machine and Legendary Recipes[/h3]
Brewing potions is fun and all, but the real challenge starts in the basement of your alchemy shop. Restore the Alchemy Machine left by your predecessor and discover Legendary Recipes such as Nigredo and Void Salt.

• Nigredo is one of the powerful endgame recipes and ingredients that you could craft using the Alchemy Machine. Alongside some other legendary ingredients, it would be of good use to create the mythical Philosopher's Stone. It could also be used as a crafting material for Salts.
  
  
• Void Salt is one of the first salts that we introduce to the game today. It will help you to master your brewing skills and create even more perfect potions by adjusting the potion’s path on the alchemy map! Keep in mind that different salts have different effects, but we’ll talk about this later!
  

[h3]Reworked Recipe Book[/h3]
Organize your potion collection and notes like never before! We have completely reworked your handy book giving it a fresh new look, the ability to reorganize bookmarks manually the way you wish, add new pages to it using the Enchanted Paper, make edits to the old recipes, see its history and much more!



[h3]Meet some new customers and merchants[/h3]


Word is spreading around the area bringing more visitors to your shop! Get to know new villagers with their unique stories and decide for yourself whether you want to lend them a helping hand or not. You’ll also meet some new merchants who are ready to sell you wondrous items and ingredients. There’s a lot to choose from!

[h3]New ingredient type: Teleporting Crystals[/h3]
We’re also introducing a new type of ingredient to the game that will allow you to discover new ways of brewing potions. Here’s a quick look at how it works!



[h3]More potion customization[/h3]
Experiment with a large number of forms for your flasks and labels to create your own unique potion collection. Change the shapes, colors and icons that represent your potions the best way!



Those were just a few examples of new features that await you in our newest Potion Craft Playtest. You can find the list of other changes and improvements below:

• A reworked Alchemist's Path with 6 story chapters
  
• Alchemy Machine and Legendary Recipes
  
• Teleporting Crystals: new ingredient type that teleports your potion instead of moving on the Alchemy Map
  
• Void Salt: new ingredient type that help you to adjust the potion’s path on the Alchemy Map
  
• Two new common ingredients
  
• New customers and Merchants
  
• New flasks skins, icons for stickers and other customization features
  
• Completely revamped talents window
  
• Reputation system rework
  
• Alchemy map optimization
  
• New "About full version" screen
  
• A redesigned right-hand side panel featuring new buttons, current day and other useful information
  
• General user experience improvements
  
• Players can now move items that they hold in hand between rooms by dragging them to the screen borders
  
• Danger Zones: we have adjusted the hitbox of Danger Zones making it a bit easier for players to create some potions
  
• Many other small changes and improvements
  

Please enjoy the playtest and let us know in the comments what you think of it! Make sure to follow our social media to stay up to date with all the important updates and join us in Discord to keep in touch with other players and the developers!

[h3]Join us on social media[/h3]

• Discord
• Twitter
• Reddit
• Instagram
• Facebook

[h3]Wishlist and follow the game[/h3]
Please consider Following and Wishlisting the game, so you won't miss the upcoming news, latest devlogs and sneak peeks!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1210320/Potion_Craft_Alchemist_Simulator/

New ingredients, game mechanics and alchemical tricks are important, but even more important are those for whom we brew our potions – your customers! That’s why we strive to keep creating new NPCs to make the Potion Craft world rich with characters and their stories.



If the Monster Hunter looks a bit familiar to you, rest assured it is a complete coincidence! When he was only a sketch, our white haired friend originally wanted to wear two swords. But in the end he came to his senses and now wears only one.



An interesting tidbit, each time a new NPC is created we have to divide their hair into layers so it will lie correctly against clothes and armor without clipping.



Some of you may remember the Master Alchemist from the very first playtest. Now he’s back and he will finally tell you how to manipulate the Alchemy Machine!



Who can guess what is going on inside the head of the Dwarf Miner when his face is reflecting such a range of emotions?



Whatever he was thinking about, we’ve asked him to keep his pickaxe put away just in case, it's not safe to swing sharp metal objects in such a crowded shop! He does not approve.



But it’s rogues who might really pose danger! While the night is dark and full of terrors, our Rogues’ appearance is full of variations.



They say any game is better if there’s a fishing mini-game in it. We don’t have such a game, but we do have a fisherman!



[h2]Stay tuned[/h2]

Tell us in the comments what new NPCs you’d like to see in the game! Follow our Steam Page and make sure to join our Discord, so you don't miss any upcoming devlogs!

In our previous devlog we told you how bellows animation was created, but there was another important aspect we needed to think over in order to make the usage of bellows really responsive, and that was the fire under the cauldron.



When the coals are heated they first turn hot and red, then begin to spark and glow.



Each coal can be animated separately as we wanted to imitate the response to a current of air from the bellows. If you never noticed it, please, take a closer look: they got hot from left to right!



Before settling on the current glow appearance, we tried other visuals, but they fit poorly with the game style and drew too much attention.



To gaze at fast intertwining spark tracers might be the most absorbing aspect of looking at fire. We wanted to catch this feeling with our sparks, but it was not so easy to find the right approach when it came time to animate it.





Finally, we created 5 spark trajectories for each of the three levels of coal heat intensity. Additionally, the pivot point and the angle of each spark is randomized, which makes each whirl of sparks unique.







[h2]Stay tuned[/h2]

While it is not easy to take your eyes off the fire, do not forget to grind, stir, brew and also follow our Steam Page and make sure to join our Discord, so you don't miss other upcoming devlogs!

It's sometimes tricky to create a smooth animation, but as smooth animations are totally our thing, we're ready to put in as much effort as it takes to create something truly magical (pun intended). To animate the bellows was one of such cases.

Bellows is one of the key laboratory gear items: you just can't create a potion without heating some coals with them, that's why we put so much focus and effort into them so it would be nice and handy to use.





We always aspire to make smooth animations. With the bellows, it was important to come out with a way to animate them so that with any speed of compression it looked good. At first, we tried to draw frame by frame, but this appeared too visually jarring and intense.



We increased the number of frames up to 65, but that didn't help either – the tremor was still too visible.



Almost all art in Potion Craft is executed in raster, but this time it seemed that just wouldn’t cut it, so we made the left bellows edge a vector line and animated it.



All that was left to do was to apply some filters to make it look rougher and voilà! The case was solved!



To achieve desired smoothness we rendered this animation in 130 frames with the angle changing for 0,16° per frame. Now next time you are firing up your coals you will know the story behind all the trial, error, and subsequent visual tricks used to create such a simple looking and smooth animation!



We'll also tell about sparks in some of the subsequent devlogs, so
[h2]Stay tuned[/h2]

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

All potion-making starts with a cauldron, a pestle and a mortar, the art of Potion Craft follows suit. And here's one of the first images created in the process of the game’s development (it's almost two years old already!):



We had been searching for the right visual style for the game on the main gear: an overall look and feel as well as smaller details such as paper roughness and rendering of shadows.





Sometimes you have to concoct the most strange and absurd variants to figure out the right way.





While searching for the bellows shape, we had to consider how historically accurate it is, how we are going to animate it, and how convenient it is to use it. The handles, for example, had to be quite large so the player could easily catch them in the heat of the Magnum opus.



Before we decided to use the ladle as a potion base container, we had been experimenting with a jar, but it proved to be not as practical as we wanted it to be, though you can still check out some tests we've made.





As you can see, we tried out quite an array of visuals before coming up with one you can see in the game now. There was still the challenge to animate the liquid pouring from it, but this is a story for another devlog.



And some old spoon visuals as a bonus (find the right one!).



[h2]Stay tuned[/h2]

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