Potion Commotion's first major content update is now LIVE, bringing a whole host of new features to explore, and friendly faces to meet on the brand new Eldershire City Street!!
So, come on down to join the fun, and check out what cool new things you can find!
And that's not all, there's been a plethora of new mechanics, improvements, and bug fixes to the game, making the whole experience even more epic!!
Let's get down to the details...
Tokens
After Coins and Elixir, Tokens are the latest currency in the Potion Commotion world, however, they are much rarer.
They can be used to purchase Potion Prestiges, multiply Task rewards, and instantly attain loyalty rewards.
They will also be the currency required to buy clothing articles for the residents of Eldershire in the upcoming Boutique update, so get saving!!
Unlike Coins and Elixir, Tokens will remain throughout Resets & Prestiging
The 'New' Fortune System
The Fortune System is unlocked after reaching Level 11, and provides you with a Fortune Rating that can be raised up to 100%, but is reset back to 0% every day.
Your Fortune Rating is directly linked to increased rewards from Bonuses, and bettering your chance at most luck-based mechanics (such as Wishes coming true or Helper Upgrades).
The Fortune Rating is split into 5 categories: Challenges, Items, Pests, Bonuses, & Potions. Each section is worth up to 20% of your total Rating, and there are many methods of how to increase each category.
But you are unable to increase your Fortune Rating AT ALL, without first getting your daily Card Reading from Olga, found on the City Street.
Olga, the Fortune Teller
A mysterious lady who offers three intriguing services inside her mystical tent...
Firstly, the Card Reading; this can be done once per day and you will pick 3 cards from a selection of 9. Each will contain either an Event or a Fortune Card. Event cards bring welcome opportunities, whereas the Fortune Cards can increase, or decrease your Fortune Rating's speed in various ways.
A Card Reading is also required to be able to increase your Fortune Rating at all.
Secondly, a daily Fortune Cookie, or rather, a Wisdom Cookie, can be broken open to reveal a sagacious message and if you're lucky, a Token or two.
And lastly, access to her Magical Horoscope Book, which gives a monthly prognostication for all 12 Signs of the Zodiac. Do you want to read yours? Then head to Olga's tent and click on the telescope today.
The Eldershire Bank
The Eldershire Bank is run by the quirky Bank Clerks, Meggie & Marge, rumoured to be the same person since they've never been seen together!
The Bank has both a Coin and an Elixir Vault, allowing you to store your resources there, preventing those pesky Goblins from stealing them.
Even better, after making a certain amount of Potions, you will earn interest on whatever you have saved in the bank.
Trevor the Tramp + Potion Promotions
A humble, homeless man named Trevor has fallen on hard times and needs your support. Found sitting on a City Bench, he will ask you for Coins, and if you are able to help him, he will return your kindness with Tokens.
Eventually, a 'rags to riches' story leads to the opening of Potion Promotions.
Previously an abandoned, run-down building for sale, it gets turned into a booming business, specialising in the art of Potion Prestiging, which allows you to 'upgrade' a Potion. Potion Upgrades, also known as Potion Prestiging, makes a Potion give higher rewards, but also require more ingredients. This will cost tokens, but you can change a Potions Level to any previous level (and back) for free.
The Potion Promotions shop is also where you can challenge the store owner, who's a familiar friend you've already met, to a Potion Duel, which works similarly to the Tasks, but is timed.
It costs Tokens to make the challenge, but if you win, you'll receive even more tokens. Good luck!!
Greatly Improved Loyalty Reward System
Replacing the old daily gift found in Wogglebogg's house is a Town Bulletin Board in the City, which contains three timers, whereupon reaching zero will give a unique reward.
The first-timer gives your daily stamp. Each month, you can collect up to 24 stamps, and for every 8 stamps you collect, you can get a prize!! This will be a costume piece for one of the characters of Eldershire, which can be obtained from Willy the Wardrobe.
If you don't have enough days left in the month to complete a row, or you want to skip ahead, you can instantly finish a row and unlock the next prize, for the cost of 10 Tokens per remaining stamp.
The second-timer is your standard Coin/Elixir Bonus that scales with your level.
And finally, the third and last timer gives you a token.
(The first-timer will also gift a token, instead of its usual Stamp, if you happen to have already collected 24 Stamps that month)
Willy the Wadrobe
As requested by many players, you can finally play around with Willy the Wardrobe. Entering the Wardrobe allows you to change characters into their unlocked & purchased outfits.
This feature is currently more of a sneak peek, as only Wogglebogg can be styled, and he has a small number of outfits available. However, once the Clothing Boutique update is released, there will be a lot more characters and clothes to access.
Hugo's Clothing Boutique (coming soon)
Though currently present in the City, Hugo's Boutique is still waiting for its grand opening debut, where many fun new outfits for Eldershire's residents will be sold in exchange for Tokens. Stay tuned!
The Unending Elixir Jug
Move aside Infinite Coin Bag, because now there is an Elixir equivalent in Wogglebogg's abode.
After reaching Level 13, you can start collecting lots of Elixir from this magical jug, which makes stacking up on the Green Stuff much easier.
General Improvements:
- In addition to Alexa's Elixir collection, a player's fortune rating will increase at twice the speed during her visit.
- Bonuses now all give significantly higher resources than previously, as well as the chance to give even more, with a higher fortune rating.
- Prestiging now gives a permanently added 10 Inventory slots for all your ingredients.
- The game now figures out how many seconds you were off-line, rather than the number of minutes.
- One Sweet Tree, Two Magic Beanstalks & a Three-Eyed Sheep will be placed into the garden at the start of the game. - The Phonebox & Wishing Well have been moved to the City Street... - ...In their place, a new Tree Space & 2 New Plant Spaces have been introduced. - For balance, one extra creature is permitted in the garden at all times. - The Task System is now accessible via a Mailbox in the City. - Initial Stats + Tutorial have been slightly adjusted to adapt to these changes.
- The cost of the first 2 garden expansions have been reduced to 5 coins each.
- The Unity Version of the game has been Updated (2019.4.11f1).
- Game Sliders can now be directly interacted with by Controllers.
- The Splash Screen is now Skippable (by left-clicking).
- Players can now move slightly further, on either side of the house, and item positions have been subtly adjusted on the east side, to accommodate the Unending Elixir Jug.
- Tasks now reward double what they did previously...
- ...Furthermore, the player may spend a Token to double the rewards of any task.
- Adjusted the Level Bar Collider Box so it perfectly fits the sprite.
- The 'Seven Days a week' Achievement is renamed to 'Eight Days a Week', and the requirement is now to unlock one of the monthly prizes from the Bulletin Board.
- Your Coin Inventory will now begin the game with 200 coins.
- The Co-Op Button now indicates that Player 2 must use a Controller to play.
- Credits have been updated to reflect new characters.
- Coin Bag Rework: - Its Text now indicates how many Coins can be taken before a cooldown. - The Number of Coins received per click is now based on Level (significantly increased). - For balance, the Coin Bag cooldown now lasts 60 minutes. - 'Number of Coins collected from Coin Bag' stat changed to 'Number of Clicks on Coin Bag'.
Bug Fixes:
- Reindeer now play sounds, that were previously missing, while in the garden.
- Fixed the layer misplacement causing Special Helpers to be incorrectly labeled as Skeletons when hovered over in Design Mode.
- The Cursor now stays in place during the transition from the Phonebox UI to the Helper Confirm UI.
- Shortened an Audio File of the Elf Twins, that played two takes by accident.
- Stopped the Item Displays appearing above the Brightness Panel.
- An extremely slight misplacement of the 5th Potion Icon on a Six-Potion Task has been rectified.
- Each tutorial stage will ensure the player has the appropriate amount of Coins to progress, should any unforeseen bugs prevent it.
- Wednesday Frog's Special Day audio clips on Christmas, Boxing Day & New Year's Eve now play as intended.
- Task Completion now gives XP rewards properly.
- A minor bug that prevented a variation of the Coin Collection Sound Effect from being played in a session, has been fixed.
- The game now adds to the 'Number of Clicks' stat while using Touch support.
Developer Message:
Hey all, thank you so much for reading this and taking an interest in my game.
Whether you're a new player or you've been a Potion Maker since the release, I am truly grateful for your time and support.
Since first bringing it out, I've wanted to add a substantial amount of content to Potion Commotion, and I'm very happy to have done that with the addition of the City. I think this not only improves the base game but also adds lots of fun, fresh features for you all.
I spend considerable time reflecting on this project, so I love any feedback, and feel it has definitely helped shape this update; so cheers to all who gave it.
The two main criticisms about this game are ones I believe I have addressed with the new changes, these are:
1. A lack of content.
2. The game is a little too 'grindy' towards the end.
I've done my best to add lots of extra things to do in this update, as well as plenty of opportunities for faster progress. And I want to go even further on the former, by committing to future content updates too.
I have big ideas for the introduction of new Potions, a greater developed Prestige System, and more!!
So keep on the lookout for upcoming news!
Once again, thanks very much for being such a fantastic community, I feel very privileged to have so many people trying out my creation, and following my game dev journey, I hope I can deliver more for you going forward.
Kind regards,
Luke of NerdyBird Studios.
Join the NerdyBird Studios Discord, I'd love to hear from you: https://discord.gg/ByNsGUC