Among all aspects of fantasy magic, my favorite is probably alchemy. Maybe it is just my scientific brain tickling inside the concept of mixing things and seeing a potion explode (or transform someone in a chicken), but it's just a really cool idea that is often well translated into video games. The Magical Mixture Mill, that exited early access some weeks ago, is another try of putting on the player's hands the infinite possibilities of alchemy, mixing it with some exploration — and would have way more successful if you didn't have a little obstacle in the way.

You start your adventure on The Magical Mixture Mill as, of course, an amnesiac person. The only two things you know are: you can't actually drink mixtures or you pass out... and you are the new trainee in an old lady's potion shop! The job is simple: go out, get some ingredients (and other materials), make some potions and sell them to your clients. (when I say clients, there are only six people that buys your potions during the game, and this is just too funny to me)

Your game loop is made by two distinct but well-integrated parts: collecting and mixing. Your day will always start going outside to get ingredients for your mixtures, but also materials to create flasks and upgrade your potion machines. In my opinion, there isn't a lot of depth here, specially when you understand how powerful your special abilities are — my character was a wizard and I could use a big wave to fill my inventory using just one button. Unless you are exploring a new area, this become repetitive really fast.

But, in the other hand, mixing and experimenting with potions is really fun! The game has an interesting alchemy system that is way more complex that I expected. Each ingredient can give one of five types of essence, in a different potency and with a different flavor. To create the "optimal" potion of each type, you need to experiment mixing distinct essences in different ratios, and using other types of food (like fruits and insects) to flavorize them correctly. All of this are recorded in-game so you can keep learning whenever you unlock a new machine or ingredient.

On top of that, The Magical Mixture Mill also has a whole factory management puzzle, similar from what you would expect from games like Factorio. You don't create your potions by hand, you can create machine chains that will extract, distill, ferment, flavorize and bottle your mixtures. Once they are done (and with a little bit of goblin magic), they start working by themselves and all you need to do is provide the ingredients. Early in the game, you start also to get ways of creating your own flasks, charcoal and metal ingots to improve other parts of the workshop.

Yes, The Magical Mixture Mill have a lot of fun... if you have the time and patience to unlock them. You see, even if you collect a lot of resources, every small upgrade or discovery is locked behind Gold. The only way to get Gold, wherever, is to selling potions to those six clients every day (or completing quests, that doesn't happen a lot). But, because you are only paid at the end of a day, there were a lot of times that I just ignored 2 or 3 in-game days to get some cash and unlock the next upgrade.

I understand that the shop concept is the glue between the story and all the other mechanics, but just locking ALL steps of progress behind it totally took me away from the game. Even if I tried to just "use the time" to get resources, besides being an even more repetitive task, I just started to hoard wood, stone and ingredients at the point of discarding them. This "artificial" barrier was definitely a strange design choice and became the big challenge to overcome when trying to have fun in The Magical Mixture Mill.

One decision can change completely an experience and I think The Magical Mixture Mill is a good example of this. Collecting things in the woods is OK at best, but the whole idea of experimenting with the ingredients and creating your own alchemy machine chain is so fun and well-made. It's a shame that the pacing (with the gold unlocks), instead of creating a fun goal to achieve, just made the repetitive parts of the game even more tiring than they should be. If you are willing to go through this loop of monotony to find when this title really shines, I think I have a job for you in that old lady's potion shop...