Jun 8, 2022

Answering the most popular questions on Potion Craft Development

Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator - Xsarion

Greetings, alchemists!

We know that it's been quite some time since the last major update to the game and that you've been eagerly awaiting news on when we'll finally have something new for Potion Craft.

We read all of your posts here on Steam, on the Discord server and social media every day, and today we'd like to answer the most common community questions. We hope that after reading this you'll have a better understanding of how our development processes are structured, how resources are allocated within the team, and why it takes so long to work on updates. Grab yourself a nice cup of tea and settle in!

The game was released about 9 months ago. Why has it taken you so long to release any updates?

To answer this question comprehensively, we will break it down into several parts.

Approach to Potion Craft development

Game development is a complex and time consuming process. From the very beginning we chose the path of big but infrequent updates instead of frequent smaller ones. First of all, this is because releasing updates in big chunks is more convenient and efficient in terms of development and resource allocation within the team. Also, releasing individual small patches can lead to a lot of bugs and errors, as many game elements and mechanics are highly dependent on each other. We will talk more about this a little further below.

Our core team consists of only 5 people. If we tackle a major update and some individual small improvements at the same time, development will slow down a lot. Of course, this does not apply to hotfixes, which are aimed at fixing critical bugs players may encounter. After major releases, we always follow the feedback and try to fix the most annoying bugs as soon as possible.

We have a huge number of ideas and plans that we would like to implement, but it all takes time.

Linking features and mechanics to each other

Since the game's release in Early Access, we have been working on new features and content on a daily basis. During development it became clear that the upcoming update is growing and becoming bigger than we originally anticipated.

In Potion Craft, many gameplay elements are closely linked, so you can't just pick up and update one in isolation from the other. For starters, we need to rework the core systems.

For example, in our roadmap we mentioned the reputation system. This system is linked to visitor queue generation, which in turn is linked to the way quests work. Therefore it's impossible to release an update where we only include the updated reputation system and don't change the quest system - they are too interconnected. And there are plenty of examples of such new features. We'll share a few of them below.

Additional content and community management

Apart from development, we occasionally need to get involved in creating different promo materials for the game, which we use here in the news, social networks, Discord, and other communication channels. These include, for example, pictures, gifs, trailers, devlogs and more. Of course the team at tinyBuild helps us a lot, but it's a process in which both parties – the publisher and us – are equally involved.

We work daily with the Potion Craft community. Apart from the traditional interaction with players, this also includes collecting and processing feedback that we take into account when developing updates.

Current World Situation

The main part of the Potion Craft development team comes from Russia and, unfortunately, the recent world events have influenced us a lot. Not only the speed of development and the team's morale have been affected, but also many work processes, which we had to rearrange on-the-fly.

Apart from reduced working hours, we have encountered difficulties with the availability of the software, services and licenses required for the work.

At the moment, the team is already working more or less as usual. We still face some difficulties, but we are trying to adapt to them accordingly.

Why are you so meticulous about creating every game element?

Our ‘niceplay games’ studio has a certain quality standard that we are not prepared to go below when releasing a game or update. This is one of our main approaches to game development. We have set the bar high enough with the previously released Potion Craft versions that we don't want to make an update that is more bloated than the original version.

We love Potion Craft and want to make it as awesome as possible. Sometimes we spend a lot more time polishing individual elements than we expected, but often that polish is crucial. We believe that the success of Potion Craft lies in a lot of small but extremely well-crafted details, and many players share this vision with us.

Why can't you release updates to individual elements of the game? (new potions, ingredients, haggle, garden management, etc.)

In Potion Craft, many mechanics and game elements are highly dependent on each other. This is no exception for the upcoming update, which we are currently working on. Here are a few examples:

New maps

We need to develop new features that affect the balance of ingredients. We also need to consider the new element system, etc.

Potions effects

These can be found on the new maps and we need to come up with new quests for them.

Ingredients

The element system and old ingredients need to be reworked here. This also affects the design of the new maps and the location of the effects on them.

Reputation System

Because of the reputation system, the way queue generation works is completely changed, affecting the class system, which wasn't there before, and with it, the way quests work is also changed.

Unlocking content by chapter

Much of the content is locked into this system and because of this everything is tangled together - NPCs, merchants, ingredients, new maps, effects, quests and additional conditions for them, etc.

New save system

Affects literally everything.

Animated loading screen

Required a redesign of almost every element in the game as weird as it may sound.

We usually work on several features at the same time. However, developing some elements of the game simultaneously for immediate release and for a longer term (a bigger update) is not a comfortable working format for us which causes a lot of hassle and slows down development dramatically.

We agree that some individual features could indeed be made and released separately from others. We will try to do this in the future whenever possible.

Are you working on the features promised in the roadmap?

Yes, and most of them are already worked out in some form. Some things are already complete, some need to be refined and filled with content. Something is still on a concept or mock-up level. Much of what we have shown in the roadmap will appear in the next update.

What's coming in the next update?

Here are some of the things that are planned in the coming update:

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
And much more

Will the old save files be supported after the game update?

No, the save files from the current version of the game will not be compatible with the new update. This is primarily due to all of the above-mentioned new features and developmental tweaks. Some of the Potion Craft aspects, as well as content and balance, will change drastically, so players will need to start a new game.

Your old saves will remain and appear as "incompatible" in the load menu, however. You'll still be able to run them by rolling back to an earlier version of the game – this will be possible via the beta functionality on Steam.

Such a long pause between major updates to Potion Craft is also due to the fact that we didn't want to reset player progress too often. It was important to us to release a stable version of the game that we were confident in, and that players could comfortably play for as long as they wanted without having to start all over again.

You rarely release information on updates or devlogs, why is that?

We actually stopped posting devlogs and news frequently a while ago. The main reason is that we released the game in early access and were actively maintaining it in terms of hotfixes at first, and then started working on a major update. It seemed to us that the game itself was enough at that point, but that was wrong and we had already realized that.

We revised our approach to development coverage and decided to release devlogs more often (about 1 devlog every 2-3 weeks), and we'll try to keep this tradition going in the future.

We try to make each of our devlogs interesting and informative, so it takes the team a certain amount of time to create them. We don't have a dedicated person who writes the devlogs – there are different members of the team involved in the process. They each talk about what they specialize in. For example, if the devlog is about the graphical part of the game, our artist does that. If it's about some technical feature, it's better for the programmer who was working on the feature to talk about it. And when it comes down to the game design it is more logical to have a game designer sharing his thoughts in this article.

All of this takes some part of the game development time but it is important for us to involve players into the process of development too, and to have at least an approximate idea of where the project is heading. We read all the comments on devlogs and news articles and often even answer some questions straight away, so don't hesitate to give feedback - it helps us a lot.

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