Other potion game comparisons (Big Pharma, Potionomics... Skyrim)

[Pungent Bonfire]

When I think of automated medicaments, I think of Big Pharma, which has you mixing, removing, and changing the concentration of various elements with machines to sell pharmaceuticals on the market. There are some similarities and major differences with Big Pharma that set MMM apart, I just felt like bringing some games up for anybody that wants inspiration.

The biggest difference I personally find interesting is Big Pharma's use of machines to remove unwanted side-effects from their ingredients. That's a major thing I don't see in MMM, which has just one effect and taste. Even Potionomics and (gods forbid) Skyrim has more to juggle and balance than that.

Another aspect is the research portion. It's literally just a scratch off mechanic. It's not interesting, there's no real player interaction. Potionomics doesn't bother with it to my memory, I forget how Big Pharma handles it (maybe just accidenting on things?), and Skyrim barely touches it too, though it is interesting to have a character eat the ingredient to learn a bit about the first effect and have to skill up orexperimentally mix the ingredients to learn what their effects are. This goes hand-in-hand with having multiple effects on the ingredients.

No game I know of thus far has a proper researching mechanic that reflects how real life research is conducted (with a total lack of knowledge about its effects and no outside knowledge or recipes to rely on), so I find it really glaring when I see a mechanic that seems superficial.

So really what I feel this game could use is side effects on the ingredients, more ingredients (which honestly can just be generated recolors, possibly related to side effects), more mixing, and more experimentation. And definitely no extraneous mechanics... or feature creep.

[Glowlight]

Thanks for playing and giving a deep dive into your thoughts.

The demo probably should have given a better look into the more advanced aspects of making potions in TMMM - so let me try and do it here instead:

The simplified purpose in our game is to 1) Gather ingredients 2) Make potions 3) Profit.

This can be achieved in different ways depending on how you like to play.

In the beginning, you will probably focus on large scale production, in which case you just want to maximize how many potions to make. In that case, yes, the game is simple and it is all a matter of numbers. More ingredients. More workstations. More potions. More coin.

But as you progress, you might want to optimize your earnings by improving the quality of potions. There detailed overview of how one would do this is outlined in the bookshelf ingame (Griselda's Notes)

A potion's value is based on:

1) It's type (Healing, Mana, etc)
2) It's potency rating
3) The bottle it is in
4) If it has the Ideal Ratio of essences (only applicable in potions with more than one essence types in them, which means you need distillers)
5) If it is brewed on the Optimal Ingredient (Yes - a healing potion can be made from different ingredients, but only one of them will give it this tag)
6) If the flavors are balanced.
7) If you sell it in the shop or if you export it (these values are further enhanced by investments you make)

On top of this, there are things to look out for that will foil your plans. Stuff like reaching potencies >10, watching out for unstable ingredients, and not overdestilling.

So, what I read as your concern for not enough depth is probably more that our demo did not do a good enough job at giving a glimpse into the mid to late game challenges of perfecting potions.

Of course, if we get the feedback in early access that the game is too simple, we would be happy to throw more complexities at you :)

Again, thanks for playing!

[Pungent Bonfire]

Cool, even if it's a harder game mode, for those of us that have been into crafting (mini) games since UO and want to play with chemistry without all the expensive equipment, dangerous chemicals, and far far greater complexity found irl, it'd be great to see some thought into this even if it's something planned for post release.

[Halabec]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Glowlight:

1) It's type (Healing, Mana, etc)
2) It's potency rating
3) The bottle it is in

Did you write the text in the game too? I noticed "it's" is used everywhere incorrectly. The possessive form of "its" does not have an apostrophe, just like "her's" and "their's" don't. "It's" should only be used in contraction form as a shortened form of "it is".

Sorry to nitpick but it's all over the place incorrectly. lol

[HellSlayer]

Bro I didnt knew big pharma existed.. looks interesting!

[Swisspike]

Początkowo opublikowane przez HellSlayer:

Bro I didnt knew big pharma existed.. looks interesting!

Big Pharma is brilliant..one of my top ten Steam games, and I own hundreds.