Potion Permit doesn’t seem to do anything in a hurry, and that’s because it’s a game that expects you to be with it for a long time to come. It’s a life simulation, really, dressed up as a potion making game. You’re a chemist sent to a town to brew potions, but here’s a house to decorate and machines to renovate, and here are townsfolk whose friendships you’ll have to earn before they – and the services they offer – open up. Oh, and they have daily rhythms you’ll have to adapt to and work around. Try and catch someone out of hours and they won’t want to know: you’ll have to wait until morning when they’re officially on duty again. It all takes time.
Potion Permit previewDeveloper: MassHive MediaPublisher: PQubePlatform: Played on PCAvailability: Out now on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch
The game unfolds mechanically in a very similar way, introducing new ideas slowly. After a couple of hours’ play, I’ve only seen a few of what I suspect will be many gameplay ideas overall, and most of them mini-games. But the core idea is resource-gathering and crafting.
When you’re in the wilds, Potion Permit feels like an old-school action RPG, in that you hit enemies with a button-press and then roll around to dodge their attacks. You don’t have to kill enemies – combat doesn’t seem to be the point of the game – but you’ll be attacked and enemies drop useful ingredients, so why not?
The other ingredients you need, you harvest, by equipping the appropriate tool – scythe, axe or hammer – and then mashing them on whatever node you need destroyed: plant, tree or stone.
But crafting works slightly differently. When you eventually unlock your cauldron, you’ll find a Tetris-like puzzle game that governs potion making. It allows you to use a variety of ingredients which, as long as they all fit inside a larger shape, and fill it completely up, will produce a potion. It’s a nice approach. And there’s an entire workshop of broken down machines to repair that presumably all have mini-games of their own.