Ye Old Alchemy Life

Tips and Tricks I learned about the game

Intro

I like these slice of life sims, this game is cute but rather simple Im afraid.
Still a little confusing, this game has potential, hope the dev doesnt give up on it.

The game has changed a lot over the years and some guides reference things no longer in game, it might be possible this guide will be obsolete in future changes but, well, here it is.

Thanks to borsdy for gifting me the game! :)

Alright, here we go.

Edit: Thanks for the awards! ✔✔✨🎂✔

Notes and Tips

Running and Jumping

It's free, run everywhere. Wish there was a sprint toggle key instead of having to hold down the button. Jump is barely useful.
Sometimes my energy goes down while running around, but it still better to run everywhere.

Harvest Places

Plants and Trees sprout randomly but always in the same areas, sometimes no plants sprout that day. If you do not harvest a wild plant that day, it will be gone by the next day.

Mining and Lumberjacking

Behind the house, past the river there is a cave with some rocks you can mine, most rocks cost 10 energy to mine and its not really very eficient, same goes with trees for wood.
Mine enough to keep your shop variety maxxed but dont use it to craft, buy tools and furniture instead, use the energy to plow and plant seeds instead. You will still need wood for the auto-alchemy devices though.

The Most important Tip

DO NOT unlock potion recipes with poison or aether plants early, these are hard plants to find and once you unlock the recipe customers wont shut up about them! The exception to this are the usuable pots to improve farming/energy, experiment and see if those are worth unlocking or not, once you have a steady supply of seeds and energy pots, you'll be fine.

Saving the Game

You'd think the game will only save after you go to bed, but no, it saves when you exit to desktop too but if you quit mid-day, it will be the next day, I usually quit right after waking up and it seems fine.
*Thank you Jigglebot for pointing the next day thing out! :)

Questing

In town, you will find the requets board, try to do these, skip the plant ones and only do the pot ones, good money.

Haggle

When a customer cannot find a potion that he wants, he will come to the counter and ask for it.
Sometimes, when you give the required potion she wants, he will haggle the price and a minigame will start.

20% Higher Prices

If you have both maxed store variety and 100% store integrity, you can sell your items up to 20% higher price.

Store Variety

To increase variety put at least 3 plants and 3 minerals for sale on the counters along with your potions. Having Max Variety will increase prices.

Customer Satisfaction

If a customer buys something, it goes up, if it leaves without buying anything, it goes down.
The more satisfaction, the more customers will come at once. Even if customers buy a stupid rock for 2 gold, that's a win for you. Put shelves or counters as close to the door as possible so they can buy stuff quick then leave.

Store Integrity

Try and check walls and floor on all 3 floors of your house and quickly repair them, having 100% integrity will give you a price bonus on your sales, walls look dirty and have a stain on the lower left corner (check the walls behind windows, stairs and even the front door!) Floors have noticeable scratches on it. The more expensive options are more durable but they still eventually break and have to be repaired.

High walls

Go into first person mode to repair high walls, in the swamp house, you'll need to jump on the 2nd floor rails in 3rd person mode first, then walk a bit then switch to first person, its really tricky and hopefully this will be easier in future updates.

Autobrew

Autobrew machines can tell you the brewing progress by looking at the little bars they have upfront.

Farming Tips

Buy seeds and copper hoes in town, each use of a hoe to dig the ground costs 2 energy.
Buyable seeds are limited but they refresh every Monday.
Tree seeds are not a good investment, skip.

I usually dig holes as close together as possible so I can water plants faster.

Invest in Iron Watercans, I carry 3 of them in my inventory, you can quickly refill all 3 standing inside water.

I recommend you focus on farming 1 specific plant of each category so you can have lots of seeds and change them at the seed vendor for exotic ones. Avoid mushrooms since they leave spores and not seeds, you can plant spores but not exchange them for exotic seeds in town.

Using planters does not waste energy to plant but its supper annoying and they are treated as wild plants when harvested, this means it does not have farming bonus yields when harvested.
Go into first person mode for quicker watering of these.

If you are having trouble with targeting a specific hole in the ground, go into first person mode and try then.

When you harvest a plant in the wild, you have a small chance to get a seed, if you planted that plant in your garden plot, the seed chance is almost guaruanteed.

Using both plant and seed potions on a plant before you harvest it will yield 2 seeds and 6 plants when plucked. Use these in Aether plants to quickly multiply your stock until there are no more issues.

I didnt observe any advantages on the different plots you can buy, in the river house or the swamp, dont buy them thinking they are better than the starting ones.

Jigglebot adds:
If you get a pond 'decorative item' from papa or elsewhere, you can fill the watering cans from it right next to your plots.

*Papa, I think, its the merchant that comes to town once a month, I havent tried it myself but it makes sense and its an awesome find!

Usable Pots!

Healing, Relaxing, Aromatic, Stimulant, Poisonous, Aether

You can use some of the potions you make for cool effects!
I totally recommend the energy potion for extra farming and the seed/plants potions.
Aether plants are rare and some of these should be used with care.

[S+S+A] Energy Potions = 35 Energy!
[H+Ar+A] Plant Multiplier = Applied to a plant, gives double harvest.
[S+Ar+A] Seed Multiplier = Applied to a plant, gives double seeds. (It says drink, but no.)
[A+A+S] Speed Potion = Faster movement for 10 minutes.

Full Botanica

I'll leave this here in case you are missing a plant and wanted to look at a full botanica, just pause the video to check it out.

Go to 00:35 to see the plant list, change the resolution in the settings(Youtube's video gear icon in the bottom right) to highest for easier reading.

https://youtu.be/ODjpQE9HKlc
Yeah, my house is a mess because I slept the entirety of spring and summer, haha!

Music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D94yoe5MmKI&list=RDD94yoe5MmKI

Bugs and Suggestions

Wishlist

• Co-OP! Maybe split screen so you can play on the couch with a loved one or a friend.
  
• A sort button for inventory and chests.
  
• Being able to buy backpacks to get a little more extra inventory space.
  
• A snap to grid option when putting down items.
  
• Sell All button would be nice to put all my 64 items for sale instead of clicking the + sign 63 times. OR make it so if we keep pressing down the + button it quickly adds the number until max.
  
• Also a restock option, I dont like having to remove the remaining 2 potions on that counter so I can add the new 10 potions of that type I just brewed, and then having to click 12 times to sell them >.<
  
• A minimap.
  
• An item or a pet that highlights or points to harvestable plants (not trees).
  
• A pet or an employee that runs the store while im out OR/AND goes out to bring me back a few plants.
  
• Big strong oaks or big trees should give at least twice as much wood as a small tree, if you want to keep it balanced, make it spend 15 energy for 10 wood, small trees are like 10 energy for 5.
  
• We need better hoes that can make multiple holes at once, better quality should give you a better energy-to-hole ratio.
  
• A harvesting tool (like s sickle) with the same idea as above, multiple harvest at a lesser energy cost but the tool price is higher.
  
• Sprinklers or a expensive Rain Making Potion.
  
• In a lot of farming games I've played, there are automation options in the endgame which makes it really satisfying to finally being able to purchase/use. Automation should be one of the end goals.
  
• Co-Op
  
• A decoration system that affects sales prices, the current integrity system is fine but to make it more interesting the decoration system should take into account furniture sets (aesthetics) and placement (dont put a weird ass garden chair next to satanic witchy tables).
  
• Also, make the clothes we can buy have some effects, like.. more wizard customers if Im wearing wizard robes or something, a 10% bonus chance to nget extra plant if Im wearing a farmer's set of clothes.
  
• Make switching clothes easier, be able to save/load clothing sets.
  
• Make a toggle key or option for sprinting, I want to run everywhere.
  
• I want to be able to sell my unused tools or furniture, in town or in my shop.
  
• Make the planters look different when already watered (like how you can see a hole is already watered or not).
  
• The auto-brewing station should show the potion's components BEFORE you activate it, not after. This will let you know which components will be used, since its hard to remember.
  
• A system (or an inventory/store management screen) that lets you know how many potions of what kind are you selling and alerts you when a potion type runs out. This way, you can go ahead and make more of a certain type of potion when its running low.
  
• Make a potion filter in the alchemy tables, to find potions easier, its super bad having to scroll around so much trying to find a potion that you want to make. Filter by warrior only or.. a favorites tab (I would favorite plant/seed potions).
  
• Make some plots special (maybe extra chance of Aromatic harvest/seed), etc to make us want to buy more plots, same goes with new houses/areas, let us know the advantages of moving or buying them.
  
• Make NPC conversation text bigger and darker for us with bad vision, I couldnt read them easily.
  
• Some more sales charts or info would be neat, like.. most popular potion or how many potions were sold in the day grouped by name and/or type (not just a list like we currently have), i guess the goal is to feel like a master salesman, check data and then decide on a marketing strategy, haha.

Annoyances/Bugs

• Item descriptions often makes you unable to click things because they are infront of them (it happens often when using a controller)
  
• There is a health autumn/winter mushroom that never spawns making two achievements unobtainable.
  
• Its very hard to use tabs in shops with a controller.
  
• We need furniture collision so things cant be put INSIDE walls.
  
• If you have 2 or more furniture items equipped, you install 2 of the same furniture in the same space, for example, if I have 4 planters in my hotkeys, when I try and place 1 down, I place 2 of them down instead.
  
• I have been able to dig 2 holes in the same place.
  
• I sometimes get stuck inside a customer if Im standing infront of the sales book and they walk into me to ask for a potion.
  
• The Seed Multiplicator potion reads Drink Potion instead of Apply to Plant.
  
• Some customers ask for a Potion, but several potions look the same.
  
• Potion of Sleep and Plant Multiplicator Potion looks the same.
  
• Potion of Vision and Seed Multiplier looks the same.
  
• Potion of Strength and Potion of Energy looks the same.
  
• Speed Potion and Mana Potion looks the same.
  
• Cant move alchemy tables.
  
• Blue Lagoon is labeled as common in botanica but as exotic in the seed description and can be traded for using seed exchanges,

Outro

Cant find the last plant for 100% achievos :(
Its a mushroom that grows in autumn/winter from the health category.

Edit: I found the seeds just as Dale suggested (Thanks Dale!)

Alchemy Garden Achievements, 100% complete! yay!

Anyway, here's a bonus video!
https://youtu.be/vliMkKcbPu4

And for you alchemy enthusiasts out there:
https://youtu.be/K0sIBsp-d6A

[Shindragan]

Thanks Jigglebot, edited the guide with your suggestions! <3

[Jigglebot]

I feel these are worth noting:

-When returning to the game after quitting, it will be the next day.
-If you get a pond 'decorative item' from papa or elsewhere, you can fill the watering cans from it right next to your plots.
-As long as you have 1 energy, you can water and plant as much as you want.
-I misunderstood that mushroom spores cannot be traded for exotic seeds, thinking you were saying mushrooms didn't give spores at all. when I saw that they did, I saved them and tried to trade them in.

[Shindragan]

@hey Tomi, hank you :)

[TOMI1985]

[Shindragan]

@ant Thanks! yeah, I feel the same way, I can see this be fun with co-op too! I see the dev is still around so maybe if the game gets popular it will get worked on more. Ty for the comment!

[ant]

Great guide, i also really hope the dev expanses on the game a bit more because this game has potential to be like Stardew valley