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Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator News

Patch 1.0.2.1

Hello Alchemists, we have just rolled out a small hotfix to address the missing save files from the 0.5.0 version.

If you previously played Potion Craft 0.5.0 and after updating to the 1.0 version, your save files don't appear automatically, you need to update the game. After restarting the game, the problem should be solved.

If the files still don't appear after updating, don't worry – your save files are not gone. You need to transfer them manually. Open a file explorer window and paste this path in the navigation bar:

%AppData%\..\LocalLow\niceplay games\Potion Craft

OR

C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\LocalLow\niceplay games\Potion Craft

That should take you to a folder with your save files. Copy the contents of the Saves folder into the SavesSteam folder, and then restart your game. If you still experience the issue, please let us know in the comments or on our Discord server – Discord.gg/PotionCraft.

Potion Craft 1.0 is HERE!

[h3]Greetings alchemists, old and new!

The wait is over, and we’re excited to announce that the full Potion Craft version is now available for you to play![/h3]

[h2]Watch the release trailer[/h2]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Whether you already have a potion shop or you're just opening up one, we’re excited for you to play Potion Craft 1.0 and master your alchemy skills, discover new ingredients and become the greatest alchemist ever known!

[h2]Release Notes for Potion Craft 1.0[/h2]
[h3]General[/h3]

  • 400 new unique potion orders (orders are different for different visitor classes). Most of the orders can be completed in several ways (for example, 'Explosion' or 'Strength').
  • 26 unique quests for Herbalist, Mushroomer, and Dwarf Miner that upgrade their assortment and develop relationships with them.
  • New Haggling topics – 17 ways to convince customers to pay even more! Chat with Herbalist about herbs! Show wizards that you know something about magic! Keep up the conversation with bandits by talking about assassination!
  • You can now roleplay a 'bad guy' – choose a dark path to serve rogues and evil wizards.
  • The Tutorial can now be skipped.
  • New customization icons: legendary substances and salts.
  • More relevant ingredients in additional quest requirements.
  • Some 'Evil' customers now look even grumpier than 'Good' ones.
  • All ingredients now have correct (and sometimes funny) descriptions.
  • Other small improvements.

[h3]Balance[/h3]

  • Haggling on Hard (4) and Very Hard (5) difficulties is now much easier.
  • More balanced reputation calculation. Now you need to choose who to serve, or you can lose your 'Good' or 'Evil' reputation pretty fast. Serving everyone will keep you near 0 reputation, serving only 'Evil' customers will bring you to -100 eventually, and serving 'Good' people will bring you to +100, but much slower than before. Every customer 'skip' will cost a lot of reputation now, so be prepared to serve every person if you want to keep moving towards 100.
  • You will now have 12 empty Recipe Book pages instead of 6 at the start. Old players will get 6 bonus ones as well.
  • Some old potion orders are now neutral (neither 'Evil' nor 'Good').
  • Ingredient prices are now higher (×2) for better experience.
  • You now need slightly more popularity per each popularity level.
  • You get significantly more (×2-2.5) salt from crafting it in the Alchemy Machine.
  • Small gold/popularity rebalance for some additional order requirements.

[h3]UI and UX[/h3]

  • New incredibly handy inventory sorting (Read the devlog here).
  • You can now quick-brew from the Recipe Book even if you are already brewing something in the cauldron.
  • Trading: if you have enough money only if you haggle well, you will now see what difficulty you need to haggle on.

[h3]Controls[/h3]

  • Toggle fullscreen/windowed mode with Alt+Enter.
  • Controller layout can now be changed to 'swapped' in 'Settings/Controls'.
  • Better controller controls.
  • Controller is now disabled by default. To enable it go to settings and turn it on (it's a temporary solution to prevent some weird bugs, which will be fixed later).

[h3]Bug fixes[/h3]

  • Fixed a bug that prevented some merchants (Alchemist, Dwarf Miner, Traveling Merchant) from coming to the shop.
  • Fixed a bug that caused customers to react incorrectly on completed additional potion requirements (weak potions etc.).
  • Fixed a bug that caused players to gain free XP near the edges of a map.
  • Fixed a bug that caused incorrect profit calculation when bartering (when there are items on both scales).
  • Localization fixes.
  • Fixed a lot of other not-so-interesting bugs.

[h3]Optimization[/h3]

  • The game now loads much faster and doesn't freeze on the loading screen.
  • The game will now require less RAM.
  • FPS should now be higher.
  • Less freezes during gameplay.
  • Other optimizations.

[h3]Steam Features[/h3]

  • 29 achievements.
  • Steam Cloud support.

[h2]Patch Notes for Potion Craft 0.5.0 (previous large update)[/h2]

  • Completely redesigned Water alchemy map
  • New Oil base and a dedicated map for it
  • New map mechanics: teleporting vortex, swamps, map borders, big experience books, etc.
  • New effects and quests for these effects
  • Special quest requirements (e.g. make a potion without using a specific ingredient or make it at least level 3)
  • New Salts: Moon Salt, Sun Salt, Philosopher's Salt
  • New Ingredients (Read the devlog here)
  • New customer classes with their own unique challenges and problems
  • Developing relationships with merchants
  • Reputation affecting which customers come to the shop
  • Improved haggling with difficulty choices (Read the devlog here)
  • Animated loading screen
  • Improved save and load system (Read the devlog here)
  • Accessibility options (Read the devlog here)
  • Inventory sorting by element
  • Full gamepad support (Xbox)
  • And much more

[hr][/hr]
We would like to thank all the players that followed and supported us throughout early access. Your valuable feedback allowed us to fine-tune our ideas and refine the player experience in Potion Craft. We hope you enjoy Potion Craft 1.0 and your journey as an alchemist!

Please continue to provide us with feedback so we can continue to improve the game and fix any issues you encounter.

Make sure to follow us on social media and Discord to keep up to date with the latest news, community events, and everything else Potion Craft related!

Thank you, and enjoy!

Potion Craft 1.0 Release Notes Sneak Peek

Hello Alchemists!

We just wanted to share a list of the most interesting features and fixes you can expect in the Potion Craft 1.0 release.

Please note that these changes are not live yet. You can discuss new stuff with other players and leave your feedback. Enjoy!



[h2]General[/h2]
  • 400 new unique potion orders (orders are different for different visitor classes). Most of the orders can be completed in several ways (for example, "Explosion" or "Strength").
  • 26 unique quests for Herbalist, Mushroomer, and Dwarf Miner that upgrade their assortment and develop relationships with them.
  • New Haggling topics – 17 ways to convince customers to pay even more! Chat with Herbalist about herbs! Show wizards that you know something about magic! Keep up the conversation with bandits by talking about assassination!
  • You can now roleplay a "bad guy" – choose a dark path to serve rogues and evil wizards.
  • The Tutorial can now be skipped.
  • New customization icons: legendary substances and salts.
  • More relevant ingredients in additional quest requirements.
  • Some "Evil" customers now look even grumpier than "Good" ones.
  • All ingredients now have correct (and sometimes funny) descriptions.
  • Other small improvements.


[h2]Balance[/h2]
  • Haggling on Hard (4) and Very Hard (5) difficulties is now much easier.
  • More balanced reputation calculation. Now you need to choose who to serve, or you can lose your "Good" or "Evil" reputation pretty fast. Serving everyone will keep you near 0 reputation, serving only "Evil" customers will bring you to -100 eventually, and serving "Good" people will bring you to +100, but much slower than before. Every customer "skip" will cost a lot of reputation now, so be prepared to serve every person if you want to keep moving towards 100.
  • You will now have 12 empty Recipe Book pages instead of 6 at the start. Old players will get 6 bonus ones as well.
  • Some old potion orders are now neutral (neither "Evil" nor "Good").
  • Ingredient prices are now higher (×2) for better experience.
  • You now need slightly more popularity per each popularity level.
  • You get significantly more (×2-2.5) salt from crafting it in the Alchemy Machine.
  • Small gold/popularity rebalance for some additional order requirements.

[h2]UI and UX[/h2]
  • New incredibly handy inventory sorting (Read the devlog here).
  • You can now quick-brew from the Recipe Book even if you are already brewing something in the cauldron.
  • Trading: if you have enough money only if you haggle well, you will now see what difficulty you need to haggle on.


[h2]Controls[/h2]
  • Toggle fullscreen/windowed mode with Alt+Enter.
  • Controller layout can now be changed to "swapped" in "Settings/Controls".
  • Better controller controls.
  • Controller is now disabled by default. To enable it go to settings and turn it on (it's a temporary solution to prevent some weird bugs, which will be fixed later).

[h2]Bug fixes[/h2]
  • Fixed a bug that prevented some merchants (Alchemist, Dwarf Miner, Traveling Merchant) from coming to the shop.
  • Fixed a bug that caused customers to react incorrectly on completed additional potion requirements (weak potions etc.).
  • Fixed a bug that caused players to gain free XP near the edges of a map.
  • Fixed a bug that caused incorrect profit calculation when bartering (when there are items on both scales).
  • Localization fixes.
  • Fixed a lot of other not-so-interesting bugs.

[h2]Optimization[/h2]
  • The game now loads much faster and doesn't freeze on the loading screen.
  • The game will now require less RAM.
  • FPS should now be higher.
  • Less freezes during gameplay.
  • Other optimizations.

[h2]Steam Features[/h2]
  • 29 achievements.
  • Steam Cloud support.



Follow our social media channels and join more than 28,000 alchemists on our Discord server to stay up to date with all things Potion Craft.

Update 0.5.0 is now available

Hello Alchemists!

Update 0.5.0, which we tested through the Steam beta functionality, is now available to all players!

Thank you for all the comments you send us! They really help us with the development of Potion Craft. If you'd like to share your feedback or suggestions with us, use the Steam forums or the #feedback and #bug-reports channels on our Discord server.

[h2]What’s new in the 0.5.0 update[/h2]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
  • Completely redesigned Water alchemy map
  • New Oil base and a dedicated map for it
  • New map mechanics: teleporting vortex, swamps, map borders, big experience books, etc.
  • New effects and quests for these effects
  • Special quest requirements (e.g. make a potion without using a specific ingredient or make it at least level 3)
  • New Salts: Moon Salt, Sun Salt, Philosopher's Salt
  • New Ingredients (Read the devlog here)
  • New customer classes with their own unique challenges and problems
  • Developing relationships with merchants
  • Reputation affecting which customers come to the shop
  • Improved haggling with difficulty choices (Read the devlog here)
  • Animated loading screen
  • Improved save and load system (Read the devlog here)
  • Accessibility options (Read the devlog here)
  • Inventory sorting by element
  • Full gamepad support (Xbox)
  • And much more
You may encounter a few templates and outright non-final content in this version. We are also aware of several bugs and instability. We are actively working on the release version of Potion Craft, and these issues will be fixed and improved as soon as possible.

[h2]What’s up with my save files?[/h2]
Previously, we've talked about why save files were incompatible with different versions and why we had to reset the alchemists' progress in the game. This time around, with update 0.5.0, we're going to do it one last time. This version will serve as the foundation for all future updates to the game, which means you will no longer have to start the whole game from the beginning after another major Potion Craft update.

However, you will always be able to go back to the previous game versions via the Steam beta functionality. If you wish to continue playing the game with your current save files, you can select version 0.4.7 in the game's Steam settings via the beta functionality.
  • Saves from version 0.4.7 are incompatible with 0.5.0, but all future updates will be backward compatible with saves from 0.5.0 and above.
  • If you want to play the actual game version, you'll have to start over – we recommend you do so because the game now offers many new features and content.
  • The saves from version 0.4.7 will not be gone; they will be displayed as incompatible with the current version of the game.
  • If you're not ready to start the game all over again now, you can roll back to 0.4.7 and play your old saves.
[h2]How to roll back to version 0.4.7[/h2]
If you are not ready to start a new game now, you can continue the old game, but to do this you will have to roll the game back to version 0.4.7. This is done through the game settings in Steam:
  • Right-click Potion Craft in your Steam Library.
  • Click Properties.
  • Click the Betas tab.
  • Select a version from the dropdown menu.
To return to the stable version of the game - select "None" in the Beta settings. The save files of the stable and beta versions (up until version 0.5.0) are incompatible with each other but will not be lost when switching versions.

[h2]What if I was in the beta branch?[/h2]
If you have already played 0.5.0 via the Steam Beta branch, nothing will change for you. The Beta branch will no longer be available and the main branch will be 0.5.0.

As mentioned above, bugs, instability, and poor optimization in version 0.5.0 will be present in the game for a while, but we will be releasing an update very soon which will fix and improve everything. It won't be long now!

[h2]The game won't start after an update / works poorly. What to do?[/h2]
The new version of the game is heavier and not optimized yet, so it may take a very long time to load, and on some computers, it may not run at all (even if it worked fine before). We are aware of this and will fix most of the issues in the upcoming update. Here's what you can do now:
  • If the game takes a long time to load, give it some time (don't click on the screen, just wait for the loading screen to pass). It can take up to 10 minutes to load on some computers.
  • If you get a message that the software is not responding - this is normal, just wait for the app to load.
  • If the game crashes, it is likely that your computer is not powerful enough or you have too many other applications running. Try closing all other applications.
  • If you have strange bugs and you installed any mods previously, please delete them. If you don’t know how to delete mods, uninstall the game and re-install it again. Your saves will not be deleted as they are in a folder that is not associated with the game's install/uninstall process.
  • If your FPS is low, try zooming in on the map in the lab as much as possible. This will improve the FPS.
  • If you still can't launch the new version of the game for some reason, you can roll back to the old version 0.4.7, and play it (instructions above).
When the optimization update comes out, try running the game again - most of the issues should be solved by then.

[h2]What’s next?[/h2]
We can't wait for the doors to the world of Potion Craft to open and for you to try out all the new features we've been working on! We will be sure to bring you more details when the time comes. For now, update to version 0.5.0 and start stocking up on materials and gold for when all the locals flood into your shop looking for that very special potion!

Follow our social media channels and join more than 28,000 alchemists on our Discord server to stay up to date with all things Potion Craft.

Devlog #20. Treasury (Work-in-Progress)

While working hard on the release version of Potion Craft, we also developed new mechanics and content to appear in the game in later updates. Today we would like to show you the new room – treasury! You can share your thoughts on it with us and maybe even influence the development process!



Picky clients, lack of ingredients, a blank recipe book – these are problems any amateur alchemist has to deal with. But hard work and diligence pay off eventually as the shop’s popularity increases and clients come more often who are willing to pay handsomely. With a copious amount of customers comes an abundance of ingredients and potions that need to be stored somewhere! Therefore, a successful alchemist might want to expand the shop and arrange a treasury for storing the most precious ingredients and trophies!



Chests and cases, boxes and cabinets, baskets and pockets of all sizes are essential for a decorous treasury!



As well as some shelves to feast an alchemist’s eyes on fruits of one’s labours.



Now it’s time to arrange everything as desired and bask in one’s success surrounded by treasures and trophies! But wait, what’s that sound? – Is someone knocking on the shop door again? It is unseemly to keep clients waiting! Bathing in treasures can wait until the end of the working day.



We’re also working on container inventories to achieve easy and handy storing and sorting of items.



As always, there were a lot of rejected variants on the way to the right visuals for this room.



The treasury is still in progress, but hard work and patience always pay off. While you wait, please, share what other rooms you would like to see in the shop! Stay tuned and follow our Steam Page. Also, make sure to join our Discord so you don't miss other upcoming devlogs!