Let's set aside how delightfully expressive the animations are. Let's set aside how delightfully engaging the characters are, even the jerks. Let's set aside how charming the setting is and the way the game manages to let you explore it it by giving you reasons to interact with a wide range of people involved with different parts of it as part of your efforts to get your business off the ground. Let's set aside the clever way the worldbuilding is integrated into your own personal narrative. Let's set all of that aside for a moment.

Potionomics is built on a solid and entertaining deckbuilding and resource management game that ramps up the pressure over five component difficulty curves, keeping things moving fast enough to keep the pressure on, then never overstaying its welcome. It's a finely crafted bit of game design, carefully calibrated to never become an obligatory slog you just have to do in order to keep enjoying the setting and the characters.

Potionomics isn't precisely my kind of game. There are other games that hit me better personally because they're more specifically for me. But you can feel the love poured into this game by its developers in almost every aspect of its design, and it charmed me completely, fully engaging me without having any kind of "home field advantage" in my gameplay tastes. It's a masterpiece, plain and simple.