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In Potionomics, you get a little more than you bargained for when you inherit your uncle’s potions shop. Turns out, you’re also liable for his massive debts!
To pay off the debt and make your shop a success, you’ll need to become an expert negotiator and potions master. While you’ve got plenty of friendly NPCs to help along the way, we’re here with a Potionomics walkthrough to help fill in the gaps!
**This guide is in progress. Last updated 11/10/2024**
Table of contents
- What is Potionomics About? Gameplay Overview
- What Platforms is Potionomics On?
- Potionomics Difficulty Levels
- Does Potionomics Have Romance?
- All Romanceable Characters in Potionomics
- Haggling System & Deck Building Overview
- How to Build Relationships & Earn Discounts on Goods and Services
- Where to View Upcoming Competition Potions
- Potionomics Expeditions Overview
- How to Get Better Cauldrons
- How to Make Space for Multiple Cauldrons
- Potionomics Competition Guide
What is Potionomics About? Gameplay Overview
In Potionomics, you play as the potions-maker in training, Sylvia. The game is fully voice-acted, making cutscenes a real treat as characters really come to life.
While you might expect a typical shopkeeping game in Potionomics, this one puts a bit of a twist on the genre. Yes, you’ll gather ingredients to create and sell potions, but there’s more!
To craft potions, you won’t just grow ingredients. You can befriend locals to help you gather the supplies you need. Befriend the local witch to get her wares at lower prices, or send adventurers on quests to bring back potion ingredients.
In addition to the potion-crafting elements, you use a deck-building mechanic to negotiate with your customers. Win the negotiation and they’ll pay a higher price, but if you get stressed out during their turn, you could lose the sale!
What Platforms is Potionomics On?
Potionomics initally released for PC, but the new and improved Potionomics: Masterwork Edition will be available on consoles. You can play the game on:
All improvements added for the Masterwork Edition will also be made available for the PC version upon release, meaning PC gamers can also enjoy the voiceover, difficulty levels, and more.
Potionomics Difficulty Levels
Good news for those who like their games extra cozy – or extra difficult. The Masterwork Edition of Potionomics adds the option to choose your challenge level. The three options are:
- Cozy – the easiest level, with fewer boss battles and restrictions
- Classic – the original difficulty, balanced for resource management and boss challenges
- Capitalism – the hardest level, with tougher bosses and more challenging potion requirements
Our guide was written with Classic difficulty in mind, so things may be less tricky if you’re playing on Cozy mode or a little harder if you’re on that Capitalism grind.
Does Potionomics Have Romance?
Yes! Not only does Potionomics have romanceable characters, it lets you pick your romance style.
At the start of the game, players can choose between two romance settings:
- One Love – monogamous romance storyline where you commit to romance with one character
- Free Love – polyamorous romance storyline where you can freely pursue romance with all available NPCs without consequences
As you talk to the different NPCs, you can usually tell which option is the flirty one. When you pick a flirty option, you’ll see a heart show up next to the character’s face when they react instead of friendly sparkles.
Once you flirt enough, you’ll be able to enter a relationship. If you do, all of your options for spending time with that NPC will take on a new, romantic undertone.
All Romanceable Characters in Potionomics
Most of the NPCs you can hang out with are also romance options, aside from Salt and Pepper the pirate cats. Here’s everyone I’ve seen a flirtatious option with in Potionomics.
Baptiste
Baptiste runs the local Hero’s Guild and, while he’s a bit naive and tends towards dramatics, he truly wants to make the heroes’ lives better.
Unlocking Baptiste will happen naturally in story progression early on, so no extra steps needed.
Boss Finn
Your opponent in the third Potions competition is the nefarious Boss Finn. After you beat him, this mob boss sets up shop as a life coach… but he could also be your romance coach, if you want.
Romancing Boss Finn only becomes available after winning the third potion competition.
Corsac
Another former potion oponent who just might be sweet on Sylvia is the adventurer Corsac. He’s got a rugged adventurer meets environmentalist vibe, not to mention a cool hat.
Corsac is unlocked by beating him in the potions competition. Afterwards, he sets up shop at the heroes guild where you can send him on adventures… including the quest to steal your heart.
Luna
Like a moth to the flame, marketing whiz Luna is drawn to your growing potions shop around midgame. After she stops by the first time to introduce herself, you can take advantage of her marketing campaigns to sell your wares.
Luna is naturally unlocked as part of progressing through the Potionomics story. Once you’ve met her, you can visit – and flirt with – her whenever you please.
Mint
One of the first characters you meet is the cheerful, eager adventurer Mint. She’s new to town like you are, and she wants to earn her place among her childhood heroes.
Mint is one of the first characters you unlock, giving you ample time to build that deep romantic bond if you like.
Muktuk
Just as you start to outgrow your wooden potion bucket, you’ll meet the passionate artist Muktuk. He gifts you a nice new cauldron and sets up shop in town, where you can buy new cauldrons and upgrades.
Like many romanceable characters, Muktuk will naturally be unlocked as you follow the story, and you can flirt with him right away.
Roxanne
Your first potion competition opponent sets up shop in your basement after her defeat. This charming demon is charismatic to the point of giving off charlatan vibes, but she’s yours for the dating if you wish.
Roxanne moves in a day or two after the first potions competition. Once you can visit her on the travel map, you can flirt away.
Saffron
Forest witch Saffron is at one with nature, bringing a calm vibe to her work as a carpenter. You can buy fuel from her and stoke the flames of a budding relationship, as well.
Saffron is unlocked through the course of the main story.
Quinn
Quinn is all too happy to eat your spare ingredients to fuel their clairvoyance. Their operation might be a little on the shady side, but Quinn can be a lot of fun when you get to know them.
This ingredient witch is one of the first people you meet, and while they can be a tough nut to crack, there’s romance there if you want it.
Xidriel aka Xid
Our last romanceable character is the pop star going undercover as an adventurer, Xidriel. She stops by your shop to ask for a special potion order, all mystery and charm. Once Sylvia suggests she take up adventuring as a side gig, Xid hangs out around the heroes guild.
To unlock Xid, you’ll need to complete her special order request for a mana potion. Once you do, you can send her on hero expeditions and build your relationship rapport, if you like.
Haggling System & Deck Building Overview
When you open your shop, you’ll need to haggle with customers to sell at the highest possible price.
Haggling follows a card-based system, where you can choose actions based on the cards in your deck. Your goal is to increase customer interest by playing cards that make your potions seem valuable – the customer’s goal is to stress you out to keep the price low.
Customer Interest & Turns
You can see the customer’s current interest level at the bottom left of the screen during haggling. Higher interest means a better price – but be mindful of patience as well! If their patience runs out before you close, you’ll lose the sale altogether.
A thought bubble next to customer helps you predict their first move on their turn, so you can plan ahead. If they’re going hard to stress Syvlia out, you might want to put up your guard.
Getting New Cards & Editing Your Deck
At first, you’ll start with a few basic strategies in your deck. But as you meet and build relationships with NPCs, they’ll teach you new negotiation strategies that add new cards to your pool.
Head to the Deck Builder menu to check out your new cards and build up a strategy that helps you increase customer interest in your potions.
It’s a good idea to have a few cards that will let Sylvia draw new ones, as well as some defensive ones, rather than going all-out on the offensive.
The number of cards in your deck is limited to 20 total action points, so you’ll need to choose wisely!
How to Build Relationships & Earn Discounts on Goods and Services
When you visit friends to view their goods or services, you should dedicate some time to hang out, too. Doing this costs time, but it builds your relationship. It also reduces Sylvia’s stress levels, so it’s a good idea to do this routinely after tough haggling sessions.
Eventually, you’ll be able to rank up relationships to gain additional perks and coupons for discounts on goods and services. So, it’s worth putting in the time even if you’re not focused on chasing romance.
Where to View Upcoming Competition Potions
You’ll see the required potions for your next competition on the end-of-day screen when you call it for the day.
However, if you want more details or a refresher when you’re brewing, you can review the recommended competition potions from the cauldron.
They appear as a small bar just above your ingredients.
Hover over a specific potion to see its name and level – i.e. Standard Health Potion. This can help you make sure you’re brewing what you need to win the competition and pay down those debts!
Potionomics Expeditions Overview
To get new and rare ingredients, you can send heroes on expeditions by visiting the Adventurer’s Guild. There are two main ways to set up these expeditions – send a specific adventurer on a quest or invest in one of Baptiste’s larger expeditions. Here’s how each option works.
Send a Hero on an Expedition
When you meet specific heroes, like the eager Mint, you can send them on expeditions for you! To do so, travel to their face on the map and select “Adventure.”
You’ll need to provide potions for their journey and pay a fee in gold. You can see the cost for the expedition and how long it will take from the expedition screen.
Before you can send them along, you’ll need to run a test to see how far they can get. This lets you adjust your potions strategy, giving them more or less depending on your desired outcome.
If they’re totally crushing it, you can give them fewer potions and still get the goods. If they’re not getting very far, you may need to up their supplies. When you’re satisfied, hit “Embark” and they’re off. Return after the allotted time to collect your ingredients.
Invest in Baptiste’s Adventure Expeditions
While you’ll get fewer ingredients from these expeditions, you also won’t need to front any potions. You can invest gold to get a specific rare ingredient – but watch out for the environmental impact!
To invest in an adventure expedition, click Baptiste’s face on the map. Then, hit “Invest.”
When you invest, you’ll see how much of the item you will earn for your investment, plus the environmental impact.
To claim your spoils, head back to see Baptiste the next day.
Investing in these expeditions is a great way to get less common ingredients, but it won’t fill your potions coffers. Best to mix it in with sending specific heroes and buying supplies from Quinn.
How to Get Better Cauldrons
To make space for more ingredients and a higher amount of magimins, you’ll need better cauldrons. A few days into your new life as a potions witch, you’ll meet Muktuk. He gives you a slightly better cauldron for free and sets up shop in town.
Visit him to buy improved cauldrons and unlock the ability to upgrade them. Buying new cauldrons just costs gold, but upgrades require both gold and certain materials. That means you’ll need a robust stock of ingredients to improve your cauldrons.
There’s only space for one cauldron in your shop at first, so don’t go nuts buying everything he has in stock like I did. Save your coins for upgrades and ingredients until you have space for a second cauldron.
How to Make Space for Multiple Cauldrons
A few days from your first competition, Owl suggests you fly out to meet Saffron. She’s a carpentry witch who can help you expand your shop. Head to her face on the map to introduce yourself and get acquainted with her services.
Saffron can expand your shop to make room for more cauldrons and more shelves. Each expansion costs gold and specific supplies.
She also sells fuel, which can help you brew potions more quickly – great for those approaching competition deadlines.
Potionomics Competition Guide
While your day-to-day tasks involve getting ingredients, crafting potions, and haggling with customers, you’ve got larger goals on the horizon. In order to pay off your debt, you’ll need to win three competitions and take home the hefty cash prizes.
If you need a little help with those Potionomics competitions, we’ve got you covered.
How Competitions Work
Ahead of each competition, you’ll see the list of potions you need to make. Your goal is to gather the right ingredients to craft the required recipes at the correct quality.
During the contest itself, you’ll need to haggle like you would with customers. You’ll be able to adjust your deck before each round if needed, so adapt your Round 2 strategy if the first round didn’t go your way.
Your opponent in the competition will try to distract you and put you off your game, acting as the “customer” round in contests. In order to win the round, you need to haggle your way to a higher value than your opponent’s potion.
Competition 1 – Required Potions & Tips
You’ll have about 10 days to prep for the first competition. In that time, you’ll need to gather high enough quality ingredients to make the following:
| Potion | Quality | Magimins Needed |
|---|---|---|
| Common Health Potion | 3 Star | A B (Equal Balance) |
| Common Mana Potion | 3 Star | B C (Equal Balance) |
| Common Fire Tonic | 3 Star | A C (Equal Balance) |
While you’ll start the game with access to some low-level ingredients that provide Magimins A, B, and C, these won’t do for the contest. You’ll need higher-level ingredients from expeditions to reach the quality you need.
I also suggest buying a better cauldron from Muktuk, as this will allow you more space for ingredients and higher magimin content. I went with the Glass Cauldron, upgraded once.
While there are likely a few combinations of ingredients that will get you the balance and quality you need, here are our suggestions for brewing each potion for the first competition.
Common Health Potion
For this recipe, we used:
- 1 Fairy Flower Bud
- 1 Feyberry
- 1 Golemite
- 1 Leech Snail’s Shell
- 1 Miasma Spore
All of these ingredients, except the Feyberry, required Expeditions from Mint or Baptiste, so be sure to send them out early and often.
Common Mana Potion
For this recipe, we used:
- 1 Golem’s-Eye Diamond
- 1 Manwyrm Root
- 2 Rotfly Cocoon
- 2 Serpent’s Slippery Tongue
These ingredients all came from expeditions.
Common Fire Tonic
To craft this higher quality common fire tonic, we used:
- 2 Ghostlight Bloom
- 1 Mud Shrimp
- 1 River-Pixie’s Shell
- 3 Rotfly Cocoon
As long as you bring in potions with the required 3-Star Quality, this contest isn’t too tough to win. Just make sure you bring your value up over your opponent’s through haggling, and you’re all set.
Competition 2 – Required Potions & Tips
When you finish the first contest, you’ll earn a new stamp on your potionmaking license and be able to brew new potions. That means more options for selling your wares and your heroes, but it also means tougher expectations for the second round of competition.
You will once again have 10 days to prepare to face your next opponent. Here are the required brews for the second Potionomics competition:
| Potion | Quality | Magimins Needed |
|---|---|---|
| Greater Ice Tonic | 3 Star | A D (Equal Balance) |
| Greater Speed Potion | 3 Star | C D (Equal Balance) |
| Greater Sight Enhancer | 3 Star | A C (Equal Balance) B (Slightly More) |
To brew potions at this level, you’ll need to buy a better cauldron from Muktuk. That’s the only way you can get the magimin level required. I went with the Ocean Cauldron, which costs 225 gold.
You’ll also need to equip Mint for tougher expeditions to find those higher magimin ingredients, and it doesn’t hurt to invest with Baptiste as well. I suggest feeding one of everything you can to Quinn as well, so it can be added to the regular stock. That makes it easier to experiment with potions of higher value for earning gold without worrying you’ll run out of what you need for the competition brews.
Once again, many possible combinations will get you the required magimin balances for this contest. Here’s what we made, if you’re looking for some more explicit guidance.
Greater Ice Tonic
To craft this concoction, we used:
- 1 Dropspider’s Shadow
- 2 Dwarf Kraken
- 1 Fairy Flower Bud
- 3 Glass Ore
- 1 Moss Berries
This will result in a brew with unstable magimins, but because it starts at 4-star quality, you’ll still be okay even if it does lose a star in the process.
Greater Speed Potion
To make this potion, we used:
- 1 Dropspider Shadow
- 3 Glass Ore
- 1 Hallucinatory Shroom
- 2 Moss Berries
- 1 Qilins Tri Horn
For this brew, we didn’t have any major issues with stability or quality. Head into the competition with a decent haggling strategy, and you’ll be just fine.
Greater Sight Enhancer
For the Greater Sight Enhancer potion, we combined:
- 2 Dwarf Kraken
- 1 Nessie Pheromones
- 1 Phantom Pomme
- 1 Reef Radish
- 1 Spider’s-Bait Diamond
While this did meet the competition requirements, it does result in a brew with some negative traits. You’ll need to work a little harder to sell it to the judge if you want to beat your opponent.
Competition 3 – Required Potions & Tips
In the third round of competition, you’re up against the dastardly shark man, Boss Finn. He doesn’t make life easy for you, and you’ll be unable to sell certain types of potions each day leading up to the contest.
You’ll have 10 days to prepare, and you’ll need them, as this third level of competition requires more advanced potions. To brew the Grand potions required, you’ll once again need a new, bigger cauldron from Muktuk. Take advantage of the newly opened adventure areas as well, to help stock up on higher quality ingredients with the required magimins.
For the third competition, you’ll need to make:
| Potion | Quality | Magimins Needed |
|---|---|---|
| Grand Poison Cure | 3 Star | A (2x) C D (Equal Balance) |
| Grand Stamina Potion | 3 Star | A E (Equal Balance) |
| Grand Thunder Tonic | 3 Star | C D (Equal Balance) |
If you’re looking for some tips on ingredients to hunt down and include, here’s what we used for each potion this round.
Grand Poison Cure
To make the Grand Poison Cure, we used:
- 1 Crocodile Tooth
- 1 Charredonnay
- 2 Dwarf Kraken
- 2 Lustrous Pearl
- 1 Silver Stag Antler
If you have time, I suggest aging these in the barrels from Muktuk to further increase their value.
Grand Stamina Potion
For our 3-star Grand Stamina Potion, we used:
- 1 Crag Crab
- 4 Dwarf Kraken
- 3 Owlbear Pheremones
If you’re lucky, this stable mix will gain another star when brewed, increasing its value even more.
Grand Thunder Tonic
To craft the Grand Thunder Tonic, we used…
- 2 Mandrake Root
- 1 Pegasus Mite
- 2 Reef Raddish
- 3 Rottermelon
This produced a nicely high-quality potion despite the unstable magimin balance. Place it in the aging barrel for additional value if you have time.
Boss Finn is a tough one to beat, as he’s adept at stressing Sylvia out. Aim to keep calm and carry on with cards that build interest and combat stress (Saffron’s cards do well here).
Competition 4 – Required Potions & Tips
Your fourth competition finds you facing off against the all-powerful Anubia, and she is your most formidable opponent yet. She uses her magic to make swift deliveries around town, cutting into your profits as you work to craft the potions you’ll need.
For the fourth competition, you will need to craft Superior potions. The three you need to make are:
| Potion | Quality | Magimins Needed |
|---|---|---|
| Superior Silence Cure | 3 Star | B (2x) E |
| Superior Tolerance Potion | 3 Star | D E (Equal Balance) |
| Superior Insight Enhancer | 3 Star | A (Slightly More) B E (Equal Balance) |
If you need help finding the right mixtures to beat Anubia, here’s what we used. I also suggest getting plenty of fuel to reduce the lengthy brew times. You can also age them in barrels for that extra dash of value.
Superior Silence Cure
To create a 4-star Superior Silence Cure, we combined:
- 1 Courtier’s Orchid
- 1 Medusa Spore
- 2 Owlbear Pheremones
- 2 Reef Radish
- 2 Scimitar Crab’s Shell
- 2 Weeping Metal Ore
Once barrel-aged, this produced a slightly higher than required potion that led to a relatively smooth victory.
Superior Tolerance Potion
This 4-star Superior Tolerance Potion uses the following ingredients:
- 1 Dragonegg Citris
- 2 Feathered Gelatin
- 1 Jeweled Scarab
- 3 Owlbear Pheremones
- 3 Rottermelon
This potion on its own comes quite close to Anubia’s appraised value, making a great foundation before you head into haggling.
Superior Insight Enhancer
This is the third potion in the competition, so as long as one and two go well, you won’t need it. Nevertheless, best to come prepared. Here’s how we made the Superior Insight Enhancer.
- 2 Amethyst Ore
- 1 Bramble-Rose
- 2 Dragonegg Citris
- 2 Dwarf Kraken
Like Boss Finn, Anubia’s primary strategy is to quickly increase Sylvia’s stress, making it harder to play good haggle cards. Thankfully, if you go in with well-made potions of 3 stars or higher, you don’t need to haggle too much to beat her appraised prices. Work with cards that quickly increase the price so you can beat her before she stresses you out.
We’ll keep updating as we complete more competitions, so check back soon for help with your next Potionomics contest!
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