The interesting part of Potion Craft is a crafting system that turns crafting into the exploration of a map. So you have a map with a "fog of war", and by using a given ingredient, you are moving over that map on a path that isn't straight in a certain direction. You have a certain control, like how much you want to grind your ingredient before adding it, and then you can stir the pot to move along that path. Besides uncovering the fog of war, your goal is to land on spots that give the potion a certain effect, let's say healing. The effects come in 3 levels, from weak if you just barely touch the spot, to strong, where you are on the spot in a nearly pixel-perfect way. Besides the effect spots there are "dead zones" on the map, touching which will kill your potion, whirlpools that move you around, and xp spots (with a system that makes some of those respawn).

The overall game consists of checking with your customers what potions they need, using the alchemy map to make those potions, selling the potions, and using the money to buy more ingredients, pages for your recipe book, or parts for an alchemical machine. As I said, it is fun for several hours. And then, while I was crafting a particularly difficult potion which necessitated some very fine controls, I realized that I was playing a puzzle game. Like a jig saw puzzle, there was exactly one correct solution to get a perfect potion of that type with no more than 3 basic ingredients. Once I had that perfect solution, I could save it, and just make new perfect potions out of those 3 basic ingredients with a simple click of a button. Yes, I could sell less perfect potions or use more ingredients, but there was one most efficient solution. The more of those most efficient solutions I found, the less there was to do for me. Sure, there are customers who sometimes want very specific potions, like ones having two different effects, where you then have to solve a new puzzle. But is solving a jig saw puzzle actually a game?

At the very least, I wouldn't want to start a new game of Potion Craft. The map and the paths for the ingredients are fixed, thus the solution for the same problem, e.g. a perfect healing potion, is always the same. And just like there are general strategies that can be applied to solving any jig saw puzzle, there are general strategies that can be used to brew any potion in Potion Craft. At some point you leave the domain of exploration and discovery, and are just stuck with the execution. Your mileage may vary, but I am not entertained long by trying to perfect my execution. For me, the learning of the game is the interesting part. I can replay frequently games like Against the Storm, where the random modifiers and conditions of each map create a fresh and slightly different experience to solve every time. But I didn't get that feeling in Potion Craft. So it was more like "5 hours played, it was interesting, and I'm done".

P.S. Please note that the Game Pass version of Potion Craft I played for some unknown reason is only version 1.0.1, while the Steam version is 1.0.5, which has some additional features.