Potion Tycoon is leaving Early Access TODAY!

Greetings, potion magnates!

It might feel like it was no longer than a fortnight, but it actually took us one and a half years to get to this point. And it was quite a journey, wasn’t it?! Bumpy at times—but hopefully not too much—for you, and a proper rollercoaster ride for us. But believe it or not, now it’s finally over!

Wrapped in a shiny version 1.0 vessel with a handful of fancy embellishments on top, and carrying our letter of love and gratitude inside, Potion Tycoon is set to sail off the Early Access dock into the vastness of the Full Release ocean today!

As for the newly equipped bells and whistles, we tried our best not to disappoint each and every recipient of our quaint brew—be they an ardent alchemy adept or an occasional passerby alike. Whoever removes the cork from the Potion Tycoon’s container, will first find a bunch of freshly overhauled “how-to” tutorials with animated video guidelines, and then will enjoy a greater variety of playable game content along with a large number of balance and quality improvements across the board. Ultimately, they will get to learn the complete, uncut story of a humble shopkeeper's ascent to the top, culminating in the engrossing and decisive Royal Race events. And to top it all off, should they fall in love with what Potion Tycoon has to offer them on the first run-through, they will now be able to relive their potion crafting adventure at a brand-new fictional location while using a custom assortment of tunable management conditions and setups in the Custom Scenario mode.

Please check out the exhaustive list of changes, refinements and fixes below for a more extensive coverage of the 1.0 update, and certainly let us know how you liked it at your own convenience. We do hope that this final Potion Tycoon update manages to bolster positive impressions amongst you, as it has been made—as well as all previous updates to date—with our players in mind and tailored to your wishes with utmost attention and respect!

Last but not least, please accept our heartfelt gratitude for coming all this way along with us and take care! Farewell, potion magnates!

Bewitchingly yours,
Snowhound Games and Daedalic Entertainment

Why don't you watch our 1.0 Release Trailer to get ready for the looooong list of additions below!

Headliner Content:

• End Game Content
  • End game story events (e.g. Royal Race) to play through
  • Ending scene reflecting the player’s specific story finale

• Replayability Update
  • Custom ‘New Game’ scenario with multiple gameplay options and difficulty settings to adjust
  • New starting location variation with a unique selection of parameters to play at

• Tutorial Update
  • Streamlined introductory sequence for faster new player’s onboarding
  • Multiple short tutorials on individual game aspects replayable at any time
  • Easy-to-understand tutorial videos demonstrating more complex mechanics and interactions in action
  • Overhauled texts and improved visual prompts across the board

• Ingredient Acquisition Update
  • Updated ingredient trader with expanded seeds offering, rebalanced prices, easier access, and improved usability
  • Additional ways to procure ingredients via Sales Office
  • 8 new ingredients to use in game and all existing ingredients reworked or updated
  • Steadier ingredient unlocks pacing throughout the game

• Balancing Updates
  • Additional ‘Master’ difficulty level
  • Multiple customer related adjustments including updated customer budgets, preferences, customer group distributions across different locations, etc.
  • Adjusted worker mood boosts and debuffs, e.g. from crew quarters equipment and worker seniority
  • Rebalanced appeal calculation for player-created potions from various factors

• Quality-of-life Improvements
  • Improved indication of ingredient and potion production/stock statuses throughout the game
  • Added potion filtering and sorting UI options
  • Improved and unified UI for processor queues
  • Reworked equipment overlay UI for improved readability, information and usability
  • Half-tile placement and decor item mirroring in Construction mode
  • Alchemy UI enhancements, e.g. ingredient processing in-cauldron preview, enhanced production/stock information in Recipes list

Changelog:

New:

• Story:
  • added endgame events which allow the player to finally become the Royal Potion House.

• Tutorial:
  • overhauled the tutorial completely to make it more concise, flexible and usable for the players;
  • divided it into independent modules, accessible and replayable at any time, in any order and at the player's pace;
  • complemented multiple tutorial barks with explanatory videos, which can be minimized or adjusted in size.

• Game Settings:
  • added custom scenario options that allow players to tune some of the game settings when starting a new game;
  • added a Master difficulty option;
  • added an alternative location option for both Mountains and Floodlands.

• Alchemy:
  • added 4 new herbs and 4 new shrooms;
  • a Void property, which drops the resulting recipe’s potency to zero, has been added to certain ingredients to make processing more valuable in some cases.

• Miscellaneous:
  • added 8 new artifacts: 4 as random rewards or purchasable from the Artifact Trader, 2 as rewards for completing Inventor and Philanthropist goals, 1 for helping Guards win the Shieldbreakers Bowl, and 1 for winning the Royal Race;
  • a random starting bonus of either an additional random ingredient seed, a random artifact or extra 500c is now granted upon a new game start (with custom scenario options you can choose any specific one to start the game with).

• Achievements:
  • added 11 new achievements;
  • most achievements can now also be unlocked on the Novice difficulty.

Changes:

• Trader updates:
  • up to 3 seeds can now be purchased from the Ingredient Trader at any time should the player have sufficient funds;
  • both Ingredient and Artifact Traders can now be delayed for up to 2 days, giving the player more time for their purchase decision ("Let Me Think" option can still be used after that to evaluate the situation and accept or decline the offer to continue the game);
  • increased the Ingredient Trader's seed prices—the more recipes an ingredient seed unlocks, the more expensive its seed;
  • changed Ingredient Trader to visit every 5 days instead of every 3 days;
  • all Artifact Trader’s prices got increased by 2-7 times (while prices of a minor fraction of less useful artifacts remain roughly at pre-change levels);
  • delayed the first occurrence of Artifact Trader to the 10th day with follow-up visits set to recur every 7 days;
  • items can no longer be purchased from traders when the player has insufficient funds.

• Customer updates:
  • overhauled looks of customers from different customer groups, so bulk, regular and premium customers now all have unique appearances;
  • different customer groups now have varying distributions across the bulk/regular/premium price segments;
  • adjusted maximum sizes of different customer groups and tipped the general balance of customer distributions towards higher number of bulk customers;
  • made certain customer groups more prevalent in certain location, e.g. more premium customers in the Mountains, but fewer in the Floodlands;
  • reduced customer budget bonuses from goal rewards;
  • Bulk and Premium customers are not interested in Premium- or Bulk-priced potions respectively, unless such potion is hot;
  • reduced the impact of Bulk, Regular and Premium branding on the customer base size/distributions from 10%-50% to 5%-33%;
  • reduced the customer wealth bonus, which can be gained for aiding a faction during their faction event;
  • reduced overall customer budgets.

• Balancing:
  • performed a sweeping economy overhaul with the aim to create a more fun and fair player experience, resulting in:
    • significantly less costly worker promotions;
    • far more expensive advanced container types;
    • adjusted potion price points across the board;

  • longer cabinet inspection times for customers, raising the importance of more careful planning of the shop interior;
    
  • comprehensive adjustments to room rating values and other stats of various in-house equipment and artifacts;
    
  • increased Grandiose launch marketing campaign cost from 350c to 500c;
    
  • the potency tag appeal bonus is now capped at 20%;
    
  • increased durations of various product tags across all levels of launch marketing success and made 4-star product reviews spawn the Hyped tag;
    
  • reduced the strength of Catalyst properties;
    
  • increased the number of ingredients allowed in the Autolab from 3 to 4;
    
  • increased standard workloads/task lengths for basic Mortar and Bottling Machine, as well as Extractor;
    
  • Whippers can now be placed in rooms of any type/purpose;
    
  • increased the total number of creatures that can spawn during invasions;
    
  • perk and equipment bonuses affecting crop sizes now have a 50% chance of yielding an extra barrel instead of 100%;
    
  • increased seniority-driven mood penalties on promoted workers;
    
  • increased fame boost duration and money amounts offered as rewards for completing VIP requests;
    
  • made rivals slightly easier on Novice difficulty;
    
  • significantly increased duration of the Hyped tag rewarded for VIP requests’ completion;
    
  • tripled ingredient planting and harvesting task workloads to make ingredient cultivation cycles take longer overall while making various growth speed bonuses and improvements more impactful;
    
  • made extensive changes to ingredients’ composition:
    • all ingredients now contain either 1 main effect or 1 elemental effect, or none of them;
    • equalized the frequencies of various properties’ (e.g. taste, Toxin and Anti-toxin) appearance in various ingredients;
    • created new starting ingredient sets and balanced them so that the achievable recipes for each set would be closer to each other base appeal-wise;
    • new starting recipes receive the High Demand tag and should thus result in products of decent appeal with the aid of some processing.

  Improvements:

  • The right mouse button can now also be used for panning the view, in addition to the middle button.
  • Goals that require keeping up product departments for a specific duration of time now roll back the time rapidly when their criteria are no longer met, instead of immediately resetting progress towards the goal.
  • The camera now zooms in when a monster is spawned to make it more noticeable.
  • Added tooltips for launch marketing strategies and campaigns.
  • Added localized worker names. Names in existing games are not updated.
  • Launch marketing options now have cooldowns.
  • The ‘Pay Loans’ button in Ledger/Revenues now pays off the oldest loan instead of all current loans at once.
  • Simplified the room visit AP cost calculation for customers to be the room’s width minus the room’s rating.
  • Production panels now show the "Choose Ingredient/Product" button at the top of the queue, and already produced items are sorted to the bottom.
  • Show equipment usage stats when hovering over the equipment status line in the machine overlay UIs.
  • Construction Mode now uses a finer grid, allowing for more precise placement.
  • Hovering over processed ingredients in the Alchemy UI now shows the full unprocessed ingredient.
  • Added filtering and sorting options to various product and ingredient UIs.
  • Added stock and production status indicators for products and ingredients in the Ledger and some other UIs.
  • Delivery tasks are now assigned to the worker closest to the item that needs to be delivered.
  • Added some clarification to the Potency breakdown tooltip on how traits are calculated into the total Potency of a recipe.
  • Improved efficiency of processing loaded saves, leading to slightly faster loading times overall.
  • Various small performance improvements to fame, mood and other calculations.
  • Updated progress bars to properly show discounted or supplemented work blocks.
  • Some Crew Quarters equipment now gives a temporary mood boost modifier to workers after resting.
  • Ingredients that are already in a processor queue are now skipped in the Add Ingredient menu.
  • Most decor items and artifacts can now be flipped using the rotate key in Construction Mode.
  • Added a hover-on tooltip to the Recipes list’s entries in the Alchemy view that shows which products use the recipe.

Fixes:

• Fixed lanterns getting slightly misplaced when moving the containing room in Construction Mode.
• Fixed room resize handles disappearing when switching to another group of items in Construction Mode.
• Added the name and result of the "Check the Papers" marketing action to the notification letter to make it a bit more descriptive.
• Prevent Spore Finger and Green Thumb perks from appearing on Novice Greasers as their starting perk.
• Made the customers a bit smarter about walking straight to the end of the queue instead of first stopping at the Cash Register.
• Fixed Catalyst property’s multiplier and additive Potency bonus getting mixed up in the Potency breakdown.
• Fixed Forager perk affecting the first growing phase on cultivators (should only apply to the planting/harvesting phase).
• Fixed Forager perk affecting work blocks even when not active.
• Prevented building Marketing and Sales Desks underground.
• Fixed some potential delivery task delays when multiple items are being produced at once.
• Fixed worker name in the worker pop-up not getting updated after customizing the worker.
• Prevented Toxins from applying Potency bonuses if there's an equal or higher amount of Anti-toxins in the recipe.
• Added missing sales action success chance modifiers to the list pop-up (the bonuses were working but not displayed).
• Fixed error when running out of perk options on promoting a worker.
• Fixed an issue where tall room content could be built in rooms with not enough vertical space.
• Fixed the Construction menu not updating the artifact selection after some artifacts have been deconstructed.
• Fixed an issue where workers could get stuck when operating Sales Booths.
• The “Place To Be” branding subgoal now also triggers with specialization actions instead of only branding actions.
• Fixed an issue where duplicate articles could appear in the same newspaper.
• Gaps between house tiles should not be visible anymore.
• Added missing Gardening skill pay rate modifier for worker wages; also added missing Gardener information to Ledger/Wages.
• ESC now closes the Recipes list in the Recipe Creation (if opened) instead of the whole Alchemy UI view.
• Fixed Product Creation UI not properly updating launch marketing options upon making bottle or price changes.
• Ledger/Revenues now always opens with the previously selected filter (daily/weekly/yearly).
• Changed “Bad Taste” launch strategy tags to Foul and Icky.
• Fixed an issue where some Ledger/Factions elements weren't properly reset when switching factions.
• Fixed an issue where Ledger/Revenues didn't display correct weekly or yearly values for the Construction category.
• Fixed Sales Desks not showing success chance modifiers for the “Check the Papers” action.
• Fixed issues where Ledger/Segments displayed player and rival rankings incorrectly.
• Fixed the Tab key being active while picking potions for quest delivery.
• Fixed wrong placement hints for Crown Of Rebirth, Fertility Icon, Moonlight Amulet and Solar Crystal.
• Fixed errors with the banish potion picker.
• Fixed tutorials unpausing the game while in the Alchemy view or other paused UIs.
• Fixed the equipment status screen-edge indicator potentially staying on the screen if the status was cleared immediately.
• Fixed sales campaigns’ report letters not being restored after loading a save.
• Fixed sales campaigns’ data getting deleted immediately when the letter is opened after the cooldown time.