Review: Potions: A Curious Tale is a nostalgically simple but effective game that deserves a place on your cozy game shelf

Potions: A Curious Tale is a weird one for me only because I’ve been aware of this game for several years. My husband is fortunate enough to be friendly with the developer, Renee Gittins. So, we’ve been keeping up with the journey. 

While I never knew the specifics of the story before, I’ve been waiting a long time to dive into Luna’s story and to learn more about the world that Renee has been putting years of work into. 

Gameplay

Potions: A Curious Tale is aptly named, we follow a 12-year-old witch named Luna who is finally old enough to learn the art of magic and potion making. And, who better to teach us than our own Granny who lives in Old Haven. 

Unfortunately, the best way to get there is by boat and, naturally, it’s being attacked by a Kraken. This scene is important because it sets up a theme for how the story can be played. Potions: A Curious Tale can be played in two ways: you can stock up on potions and use them to defeat enemies or you can just be passively creative. 

The Kraken is a scenario where you’re enticing the beast to flip its tentacles down onto weapon racks, into oil, and then fire to set it ablaze. At no point did you need to attack, the Kraken took care of itself. Likewise, when I later came across a rat, I could kite it into a nearby fire without ever touching it.

You’ll find that there are elements everywhere that let you be passive whether it’s open flame, falling rocks, or even using poison area-of-effect attacks that the monsters spit against them by guiding them through the poison. 

Getting to Old Haven, you’ll meet the villagers and soon learn that a lot of NPCs are based on fairytales. The boat that you rode in on was captained by Sinbad, and Prince Charming is running around sticking his snobby nose where it doesn’t belong. You’ll be met with a lot of characters who are at least loosely based on stories. 

When you get to Granny, you learn more about how potions are made. There are two ways to brew potions: by ingredient type or by mana type. Sometimes, potions want very specific ingredients like ash, mushrooms, and a feather to create a blasting potion. However, each of those ingredients has a mana attached to it: air, water, fire, earth, etc. As you can imagine, adding in three fire ingredients will create a fire-based potion. But, depending on the ingredients you chose, it could be several different types of fire-based potions. 

If I’m honest, these potions can be used against monsters, but they’re most useful environmentally. There will be things frozen in ice or paths blocked by fire that you need to use your potions to get past. 

You’ll learn early on that Potions: A Curious Tale is basically a fetch quest game, which is great for me. You run around the map trying to find things for certain potions or ingredient requests from other people and get to really delve into the areas. 

The map opens up slowly, but you start with “Farm and Desert” and the “Deep Dark Forest.” Early on, you’ll notice that there are open crevices in some areas that block you off. You won’t be able to access them until you get your broom and, let me tell you, once you get that broom, you won’t ever get off it. The broom really brings that passive playstyle into… well, play. 

You are faster than all creatures and, on your broom, you can glide over things that would poison or make you slow. You can even access those places divided by crevices. 

Here’s where my magpie brain gets really engaged. At the first crevice I noticed, there was a floating card on the other side. Obviously, I needed this card with every fiber of my being and, once I had it, I needed more. Scattered through the land, usually behind obstacles needing a broom or potion to access, you can find cards made of bronze, silver, and gold all depicting some sort of mythological creature. 

These cards are important because there are gates scattered about in silver, gold, and bronze, all with numbers on them ranging from 1, 3, and 5. They correlate with how many cards of a certain metal you’ve found. So, collecting them is important to open these gates. 

If you’re familiar with my reviews, you probably know that I’m a big lover of fetch quest-based games. I enjoy being able to explore the land for hidden objects and so I found that Potions: A Curious Tale really delivered on that.

Art and Sound

The art in Potions: A Curious Tale is a lovely blend of 2D characters in 3D spaces. I felt that the designs for the characters were varied and interesting – especially Helios, our little familiar we find fairly early on in the game. 

There’s something about this style that feels nostalgic. It almost feels like a few different art styles are homogenizing to create something fun and special. 

While I loved the art, I wasn’t such a fan of the music. There’s nothing wrong with it, really, I’m just a picky person. I usually have to drop most games down to 20% volume to hear myself think, but this one still managed to be distracting. 

That being said, I did like all of the atmospheric sounds. My only qualm is that her footsteps sound the same no matter which terrain she’s on. So, when it sounds like she’s walking on something crunchy even indoors or inside dungeons, it was a bit distracting. But, that’s a minimal thing, all things considered. 

Editor’s Note 3-6-2024: An update has been made to final 1.0 release that addresses the crunchy footsteps I mentioned. Per Renee Gittins, the steps will sound different on different terrain now. So, yay! 🙂

Coziness and Cons

Truly, there’s a lot of cozy going on here. Not only do you get to collect items, but you don’t even really have to fight. Two items in this game make things incredibly easy: your broom which lets you zoom far faster than walking speed and the Stone of Recall, which lets you teleport back to Granny’s potion shop. 

Once you’re in the potion shop, you automatically bank all of your supplies, so that if you do manage to die, you don’t lose all of your items. These functions definitely lend to the cozy factor and away from themes that are usually frustrating. 

In terms of cons, it’s all personal preference in regards to the music and feeling like I was playing a game from a different era in gaming history. It’s not a bad thing, necessarily, since it evokes some feelings of nostalgia. But, there just wasn’t anything that felt modern in it. 

Honestly, I know this game has been in active development for nearly a decade so that probably lends itself to this feeling. 

Potions: A Curious Tale Verdict

If you love fetch quest-based games, you’re going to love Potions: A Curious Tale. I had a lot of fun exploring the maps and finding the items scattered around that were requested of me. 

In this way, I’m almost reminded of point-and-click games in how you have to do a little back and forth, but it’s far more engaging. I’d definitely recommend this game to anyone looking for a cozy time with a splash of adventure thrown in. It’s a fairly chill game, even with the monsters running around. 

Potions: A Curious Tale is available on Steam tomorrow (March 7th, 2024)  and you can grab it for $19.99. It will have a 15% discount at launch.

We did an interview with Renee Gittins, the developer of Potions: A Curious Tale, last week. It goes more into the game and gives more information about her journey in development.