Potionomics

***Potionomics*** is a RPG shop simulator developed by Voracious Games, a game developer Co-Founded by Indonesian developer Aryo Jati Pramono Darmawan. Takes place in fantasy world where potion is everything, Potionomics tells a story of becoming the master of potion brewing while paying off your uncle's legacy of debt.

The game was nominated during Independent Games Festival 2023 as part of Excellence in Visual Arts and won in Audience Award during Independent Games Festival 2023 .

## Story

After the mysterious death of Sylvia's uncle, Sylvia forced to run now abandoned potion shop with her "wise" owl. However what she did not realize is that her uncle left a huge debt to certain person and only Sylvia is able to pay all of them before time runs out. It takes many mastery in order to get her potion brewing set and as a challenge, the Owl asked Sylvia to participate in Potion brewing tournament and wins a lot of cash. There Sylvia met with many competitors such as Roxanne and Corsac who turned into Sylvia's closest friends. Not all competitors were get along with Sylvia such as Boss Finn or even Anubia.

Beating the competitors wasn't easy for her however as the last fight goes on she was approached by Robin, the jury of the contest to forfeit the competition. Sylvia hesitates to not back down with potion brewing contest and this creates tension with Robin. As it turns out Robin was being controlled by his lizard pet "Mae". Mae or Maven is The Witch Queen terrorize the town and sets into war.

As a last attempt to escape from the soldiers, Maven The Witch Queen turns herself into lizard and hypnotize a young boy to turn him into "Robin" the potion mastery. As an ace card in Sylvia's pocket, she brewed a potion turning cursed object into its former self. Mae was interested by the potion however as it turns out the potion quickly destroy as part of bargain between the stake of Sylvia and the townsfolk. While the recipe itself is rare Mae quickly destroy it and never seen to the light of the day. When the day comes its up to Sylvia to brew another potion that is useful for her own.

## Gameplay

Potionomics focused on business and brewing potion in specific order. In order to create a potion, players need to have certain ingredients that can be obtained through buying them on the market or asking one of the heroes to venture into the dungeon to obtain ingredients. The potion then can be sold through certain prices. Each prices can go higher depending on the quality results of the potion along with demand market. The way potion selling works is players can haggle the price with the customers through card mechanics.

### Cards

Card mechanic is one of crucial gameplay through selling the potions. Through this feature, the potion's value can be increased depending on which card players to choose. Furthermore by raising relationship with character, player can obtain more cards with unique ability. However player must also posses a way in order to defend themself from attack by the customers. Each attack can increase Sylvia's stress and causing to stack "Stress Cards".

### Adventure

In order to obtain ingredients, players can choose up to three heroes to set on adventures. Each adventures will reward players in ingredients and drop loot as customization. Prior to venture to the land, players can plan on how the adventure would go and if there's situation where in dire needed for potion then players can lend their potion to aid the heroes adventure.

### Potion Brewing

**Potion Brewing** is a way that player can utilize to brew multitude of potions with variations of effects. Each effects can be useful as selling value for the potion itself. Each potion quality can be vary and if the quality goes higher or better, it will take time to brew alongside with its value. It should be noted the value of potion can increase or decrease depends on the market throughout the day, for example the demand of "Healing Potion" is high thus the price of said potion increase 2 times.

## Characters

The characters in Potionomics play a crucial role in progressing the game. Most major characters exist as some kind of vendor, providing Sylvia with ingredients/items, new haggling strategies, and serving as possible love interests. Minor characters help to progress the story.

* **Sylvia** is a witch that inherited her Uncle Oswald's potion business as part of completing all debts from her uncle.
* **Owl** is a mysterious Owl that helps Sylvia throughout the potion brewing.
* **Quinn** is a merchant selling ingredients for Sylvia.
* **Mint** is a budding hero that aids Sylvia to find ingredients and prove she can be real hero to Rafta's Heroes Guild.
* **Baptiste** is Guildmaster of Rafta's Heroes Guild coming as a noble from the mainland.
* **Muktuk** is a Blacksmith aiding Sylvia in upgrading her brewing tools.
* **Saffron** is a Fey carpenter lives on Rafta's enchanced forest, seeking peaceful life that she always wanted.
* **Roxanne** is an opponent in Potion Brewing Tournament, she do whatever it takes to become a winner.
* **Xidriel** is bardic hero notably known as popular hero in the mainland, she goes undercover to help Sylvia in gathering ingredients.
* **Salt & Pepper** is cat pirates providing Sylvia with treasure chests.
* **Corsac** is an opponent in Potion Brewing Tournament, although he is an introvert he focus on creating his own potion through his own ingredients.
* **Luna** is a moth maven specialize in marketing Sylvia's potion. She runs successful marketing business and met Sylvia after taking interest in potion market.
* **Helene** is debt-collector witch seeking for paying Oswald's debt.
* **Boss Finn** is a business-shark known for shady usage of his own business.
* **Anubia** is a rival in Tournament notorious for ruling an empire over the mainland.
* **Robin** is "Celebrity Judge" moderating the Tournament and also seeking for undiscovered potion.

## Development

Potionomics starts an idea inspired on a game developed by EasyGameStation called Recettear. Aryo Jati Pramono Darmawan stated the aesthetics and gameplay of Recettear is what he love and would like to capture the similiar feeling of brutal capitalism . Originally the game focused on haggling mechanic resembling to Recettear formula however the team wanted to expand the game mechanic more by adding cards as a representation of negotiation tactics through customers. On 12th September 2016 the game was announced on Twitter and Tumblr, garnering for thousands of interest as how smooth the animation similiar to Pixar or Disney animation. According to technical animator Voracious Games Anguel Bogoev the animation have special treatment as it needed signals or cue to keep the animation track and smooth based on more than 30 animations in order to make it fully animated. Furthermore Co-founder of Voracious Games Aryo Jati Pramono Darmawan stated the protagonist of the game contains more than 100 animations in order to make the character move smooth .

The development took four years in order to perfecting the game and on 14th June 2020 the game showcased during PC Gamer The PC Gaming Show 2020. At that time the event was during COVID-19 Outbreak however that did not stop Voracious Games to showcase their game and approached by XSEED Games as part of publisher interested in the game. This creates huge steps for the team and needing more budget, the teaser was soon released on XSEED Games YouTube channel . On 17th October 2022 the game was released to public  and receiving overwhelming positive reaction from audience due to its gameplay and animation that compares to Pixar or Disney.

## Trivia

* According to Co-founder of Voracious Games Aryo Jati Pramono Darmawan, the game heavily inspired by Recettear.
* A concept art of unnamed character is highly likely a first iteration to the character of Salt & Pepper as both has distinctive to cats.

## Official Links

* Potionomics Steam Page
* Potionomics Official Website
* Potionomics Official Twitter
* Potionomics Official Facebook
* Potionomics Official Instagram
* Voracious Games Twitter
* Voracious Games YouTube

## Gallery

Artwork of PotionomicsSylvia showing her potion during competitionSylvia and Owl brewing a potion
## References

1. ↑ [1] IGF.com article "...IGF 2023 Nominations" written by anonymous.
2. ↑ [2] Gamerant.com article "Potionomics Interview: Voracious Games Discuss Humor, Creating a World with Personality" written by Chris Torossian.
3. ↑ [3] PCGamer.com article "Potionomics is brewing up Pixar-quality art and animation" written by Lauren Morton.
4. ↑ [4] Gamespot.com article "Potionomics, A Management Sim From XSEED Games, Revealed At PC Gaming Show" written by Ginny Woo.
5. ↑ [5] Siliconera.com article "Potionomics Potion Shop Management Sim Released for PC" written by Josh Tolentino.