Hello, alchemists!

Steam Next Fest is here, and Potion-making: Path of the Alchemist is part of it!

From October 19–26, Steam is celebrating upcoming games, and we're excited to join the festival with our demo.

If you haven't tried Potion-making yet, now's the perfect time. Brew potions, combine recipes, cast spells, and race your opponents to three Places of Power. Play solo against AI or invite your friends for some online alchemical chaos.

Our demo is free to play on Steam, so jump in and give it a try! And don't forget to wishlist the game ahead of its November 10 release.

See you at the table!

Hello, alchemists!

Did you know that Potion-making: Path of the Alchemist started as a tabletop game more than 20 years ago? Today, we'd like to tell you a little about its history, how we brought it to PC, and what makes the digital version special.

The story began in 2005, when game designer Sergey Machin created Potion-Making: Practice, a card game about combining magical ingredients to brew potions, elixirs, and other alchemical creations.

The game became a tabletop classic in Eastern Europe, received several awards, and sold over 300,000 copies. You can still find the original game on BoardGameGeek[boardgamegeek.com].

In 2024, an updated version called Potion-making: Path of the Alchemist was released, designed by Sergey Machin, German Tikhomirov, and Yury Yamshchikov. It expanded the original formula with new mechanics, a Travel Board, and a race to reach three Places of Power. You can check out the new edition on BoardGameGeek[boardgamegeek.com], too!

We're longtime board game fans at Oduvan Games, and we'd known Potion-making for years. After playing the new edition together, we just couldn’t resist bringing it to PC.

Our starting point was simple: the digital version should feel like the same board game, not a completely different game inspired by it. So our main goal was to preserve what made the tabletop game fun in the first place.

You still collect ingredients, brew potions, combine them into more complex recipes, cast spells, use talismans, and race your opponents to three Places of Power.

The recipe system remains at the heart of the experience. Simple potions become ingredients for elixirs, essences, powders, and even magical creatures. You can build entire chains of recipes, turning a handful of basic ingredients into powerful creations.

And we couldn't leave out one of our favorite mechanics: everyone shares the same table.

Your carefully brewed potion might become the missing ingredient in your opponent's next recipe. And yes, you can do exactly the same to them. It's a system that rewards clever planning, but also leads to plenty of unexpected twists.

We wanted all of that to feel just as satisfying on PC as it does around a physical table.

Anyone who's played a complex board game knows that sometimes the hardest part isn't winning. It's keeping track of everything. And with Potion-making, there's quite a bit to manage: ingredients, recipes, card interactions, spells, talismans, movement tokens, and scoring.

In the digital version, the game handles this automatically. It checks recipe combinations, applies effects, and keeps track of rewards, so you can focus on your next move instead of double-checking the rules.

We also added an interactive tutorial that introduces the mechanics step by step. You don't need to study a rulebook before your first match.

And, of course, there's no need to unpack the box, arrange the cards, or sort through hundreds of tokens. Just launch the game and start brewing.

The Travel Board is an important part of Path of the Alchemist. Every completed recipe earns you Power Tokens, which you use to move across the map toward Places of Power.

We kept the original movement mechanics, including their unusual rules. Instead of simply moving a certain number of steps, you use numbered tokens to reach the nearest available space with the corresponding value.

Different locations also cange how you approach the race.

The Library of Five Worlds follows the basic movement rules, while the Floating Islands introduce treasure chests containing magical talismans. Other locations bring new challenges, such as thickets in the Great Forest, ice in the Snow Realm, and bubbles in the Underwater World.

The digital version takes care of the movement rules, but choosing how to use your tokens and which route to follow is still up to you.

There's something satisfying about putting the right cards together on a physical table. But in the digital version, we had a chance to take that feeling a little further.

Now, when you brew a potion, ingredients come together in an alchemical vessel. Spells have their own visual effects, magical portals open, and the world responds to your actions.

We wanted the game to feel like a board game brought to life, rather than just cards moving around on a screen.

And finally, there's one advantage of the digital format that we're particularly happy about: you don't have to gather everyone around the same table.

Finding an evening when all your friends are free can be harder than brewing the perfect elixir. And if someone lives in another city or country, gathering around the same table becomes even more complicated.

With online multiplayer, you can invite friends from anywhere and enjoy the same competitive alchemical chaos together.

And if your friends aren't available, you can play against AI opponents instead. It's a great way to practice recipes, experiment with strategies, or simply enjoy a match at your own pace.

We're not trying to replace the tabletop experience. There's still something special about sitting around a table with friends, holding real cards, and watching everyone's reactions to a particularly sneaky move.

What we wanted was to offer another way to enjoy the same game: with fewer preparations, easier access to the rules, online multiplayer, and a magical world that comes alive on screen.

The demo of Potion-making: Path of the Alchemist is available on Steam now! Try it solo or invite your friends, and see how the tabletop classic plays in digital form.

And don't forget to wishlist the game ahead of its November 10 release!