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Potion Tales is a creepy magical puzzle game with no wrong answersThe freeze potion is also good for making iced coffee
The freeze potion is also good for making iced coffee
I hesitate to callPotion Talesa shop sim or retailmanagement game, because the economics of running a figuratively and literally underground magic potion shop seems a secondary concern next to making the potions and deciding whether you want to screw people over or not. If the answer to that last part is yes, you need to move on to the question ofhow.
Potion Tales TrailerPotion Tales has great sound design tooWatch on YouTube
Potion Tales Trailer
Ingredients must be thrown in your cauldron in the right order, and the recipe will specify if something needs to be chopped, crushed or liquified. Some items make a noise when you hold them as well - the aforementioned avalanche claws sound like a chilly wind. The fire under your cauldron crackles in a very cosy way for what is essentially an unlicensed drugstore in a dungeon, and the sploosh as you toss things in is brilliant.
The more fun, but arguably trickier puzzle is the first part. Your patrons are pretty happy to trust your judgement on what potion will fit their predicament best, and thus will accept whatever they give you. In that sense, there are no wrong answers, and they will usually return to you to tell you what happened. The tutorial potion is a fire spirit who has accidentally set a furry golem on fire. The first time I played the demo I went for a health potion, which I was told just healed the golem’s wounds and kept him burning potentially for ever; the second time I got a potion that worked wonders, although I will avoid spoiling the end result.
My second commission was a potion to kill a gladiator and make it look like an accident, so the first time I chose one that turned him into an animal, for a laugh, and in short order I had to come up withanotherpotion to halt the magical autopsy that would uncover my foul play (I decided to turn him into metal). I had so much fun with the demo, because while there is a right answer, so to speak, the other answers won’t throw a girder in front of your progress and tell you off for having fun. That’s so refreshing in a puzzle game like this, and combined with the tactile, methodical experience of sorting through my ingredients, I was only disappointed that the demo ended as soon as it did. That’s the point of demo’s though, I suppose. I really want to play it again and see what effect herbal tea has, in every situation.
