Approx length: howlongtobeat.com says it takes ~25 hours to complete, but the game came out one week ago and that's based on only one report; I've played ~30 hours and have not unlocked all cutscenes with all characters, so I'd say that it depends on how efficient you are in achieving goals and how much of a completionist you are re: wanting to see all of the character interaction content.
Where to find it: the game is available on PC (steam), nintendo switch, playstation, and xbox. If there are lets plays and not just review videos, I don't know about them, since the game is soooooo new, but I do feel like this is the kind of game where, if you wouldn't enjoy playing it yourself, you wouldn't enjoy watching it played.
What is it, in summary?: Potion Permit is a lifestyle simulation game where you play as a chemist from the capital, come to the island of Moonbury to help a sick girl and to mend the relationship between the medical association in the capital and the distrustful townspeople who have been burnt by chemists and modern medicine in the past.
It's in a similar style to games like Story of Seasons/Harvest Moon, Stardew Valley, and Rune Factory, in that the mechanics revolve around using tools to harvest materials to make your potions, light action combat where you incapacitate monsters for materials, a constantly-advancing in-game clock that breaks your time into hours and days and where certain game events and game locations will only happen/be available on certain dates or at certain times, and simple puzzles used for diagnosing patients and creating potions. It's a cozy, light-hearted game that I would say is more about relaxing and immersing yourself in the cheerful game world than it is about seriously challenging yourself with complicated gameplay.
What do you love about it?: I am a long-time fan of the Story of Seasons/Harvest Moon franchise, so this sort of farming-adjacent lifestyle sim game is right up my alley. Part of what I love about Potion Permit in particular is that it is measurably simpler than Story of Seasons games, while mixing in some new mechanics -- the tetris-style potion creation and the little rhythm and memory games for diagnosis, as well as the part-time job minigames -- for some new flavor.
These types of games tend to have fairly simple, archetypal characters and when you first meet the Potion Permit cast, it'll really seem that way -- there's a literal pirate girl! A Mayor named Myer! A young blacksmith who is, you guessed it, a hothead! -- but I was especially charmed by how much care was clearly put into their friendship scenes. Even in the limited space each character is afforded, their personalities shine through, giving you just enough to ponder about their hopes, dreams, and individual histories, which is exactly the kind of approach that draws me into fandom. You're given just enough to spark your imagination, not enough to fully satisfy, and there's lots of space to explore further in transformative work. I also think this game spends a greater than usual amount of time than (for example) the SoS games on interweaving the character relationships. It really feels like everyone knows everyone and like this is a cosy, close-knit town, which I found to be a plus.
Overall, I really just want to rec this game as a game more than I want to rec it as a potential yuletide fandom. I nominated it and I will request from it, but it's a newly-launched little indie game and it really won me over, so I will be delighted simply if other people see the same charm that I did and decide to pick it up, whether or not anyone else is inspired to write fic or create art or anything.
What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: I nominated Xiao, Collin, Moira, and Helene for my character slots but I'm specifically planning to request Xiao, Collin, and Moira. What I want more than anything is OT3 fic, because the way Collin teases Moira and especially Xiao is incredibly my brand, and the way Collin and Moira each have a scene alone with the chemist where they talk about the other, really unlocked something in my OT3-loving brain. I'd also just love anything that plays with Collin and Moira more as characters, since we learn a lot over the course of the game story about how the chemists from the capital meddled in Moonbury but not very much about what the medical association does outside ill-fated experiments, so I think that would be a fun area to expand upon. This game really does give you only just enough building-blocks with characters to point you in a direction and set your imagination going, so what I want is to see them fleshed out and embraced.
Also, Helene as a concept is just SO fucking hot, I maybe will have to request her as well after all. She works at the arcade center and is into tarot cards and rare gems and really makes herself sound like a fucking jewel thief. She's beautiful and smart and not the least bit shy about embracing it, and definitely weaponizes it to make other characters do what she wants. I'm so amazingly sad she isn't a romance option. Helene is perfect.
Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?: I'd say that it's hard to consume the game in any other way than playing through it at whatever pace works for you, but two of the characters I'm most interested in, Moira and Collin, don't live in town and only show up in main story cutscenes. So if you were specifically interested in fulfilling my requests, you'd probably want to focus on completing the main story ASAP and leaving the relationship-building and side-stories by the wayside until later. That said... Unless rushing through the main story is the way you prefer to play games like this, I really wouldn't recommend it. This is a cozy, unwind-and-relax kind of game (for me, anyway), so I'd recommend playing it in whatever way will actually be fun for you!
Content warnings: Overall, this is a cute and cozy game and doesn't get into anything really graphic or triggering. The content it does touch on is also covered only in brief, because each individual character story consists of just a few cutscenes. That said, there is a character plotline addressing a character (Cassandra)'s anxiety and resulting (mild) marriage troubles, a plotline addressing a character's weight and over-eating (the chemist makes him an appetite suppressant and it's not... super explicitly about weight loss or body shaming but was certainly not my favorite plotline), and similar "mild" societal and interpersonal issues. It felt clear to me that the creators are trying to create a diverse cast with realistic problems and that those problems are handled as tastefully as the writers can, but I figured I would mention the anxiety, food issues, and the disabled character who uses a wheelchair, since it can be helpful to know those elements are included even when they aren't handled offensively, especially when you're consuming something billed as "soft."
Rec: Potion Permit (Videogame)
Title: Potion Permit
Media: Videogame
Approx length: howlongtobeat.com says it takes ~25 hours to complete, but the game came out one week ago and that's based on only one report; I've played ~30 hours and have not unlocked all cutscenes with all characters, so I'd say that it depends on how efficient you are in achieving goals and how much of a completionist you are re: wanting to see all of the character interaction content.
Where to find it: the game is available on PC (steam), nintendo switch, playstation, and xbox. If there are lets plays and not just review videos, I don't know about them, since the game is soooooo new, but I do feel like this is the kind of game where, if you wouldn't enjoy playing it yourself, you wouldn't enjoy watching it played.
What is it, in summary?: Potion Permit is a lifestyle simulation game where you play as a chemist from the capital, come to the island of Moonbury to help a sick girl and to mend the relationship between the medical association in the capital and the distrustful townspeople who have been burnt by chemists and modern medicine in the past.
It's in a similar style to games like Story of Seasons/Harvest Moon, Stardew Valley, and Rune Factory, in that the mechanics revolve around using tools to harvest materials to make your potions, light action combat where you incapacitate monsters for materials, a constantly-advancing in-game clock that breaks your time into hours and days and where certain game events and game locations will only happen/be available on certain dates or at certain times, and simple puzzles used for diagnosing patients and creating potions. It's a cozy, light-hearted game that I would say is more about relaxing and immersing yourself in the cheerful game world than it is about seriously challenging yourself with complicated gameplay.
What do you love about it?: I am a long-time fan of the Story of Seasons/Harvest Moon franchise, so this sort of farming-adjacent lifestyle sim game is right up my alley. Part of what I love about Potion Permit in particular is that it is measurably simpler than Story of Seasons games, while mixing in some new mechanics -- the tetris-style potion creation and the little rhythm and memory games for diagnosis, as well as the part-time job minigames -- for some new flavor.
These types of games tend to have fairly simple, archetypal characters and when you first meet the Potion Permit cast, it'll really seem that way -- there's a literal pirate girl! A Mayor named Myer! A young blacksmith who is, you guessed it, a hothead! -- but I was especially charmed by how much care was clearly put into their friendship scenes. Even in the limited space each character is afforded, their personalities shine through, giving you just enough to ponder about their hopes, dreams, and individual histories, which is exactly the kind of approach that draws me into fandom. You're given just enough to spark your imagination, not enough to fully satisfy, and there's lots of space to explore further in transformative work. I also think this game spends a greater than usual amount of time than (for example) the SoS games on interweaving the character relationships. It really feels like everyone knows everyone and like this is a cosy, close-knit town, which I found to be a plus.
Overall, I really just want to rec this game as a game more than I want to rec it as a potential yuletide fandom. I nominated it and I will request from it, but it's a newly-launched little indie game and it really won me over, so I will be delighted simply if other people see the same charm that I did and decide to pick it up, whether or not anyone else is inspired to write fic or create art or anything.
What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: I nominated Xiao, Collin, Moira, and Helene for my character slots but I'm specifically planning to request Xiao, Collin, and Moira. What I want more than anything is OT3 fic, because the way Collin teases Moira and especially Xiao is incredibly my brand, and the way Collin and Moira each have a scene alone with the chemist where they talk about the other, really unlocked something in my OT3-loving brain. I'd also just love anything that plays with Collin and Moira more as characters, since we learn a lot over the course of the game story about how the chemists from the capital meddled in Moonbury but not very much about what the medical association does outside ill-fated experiments, so I think that would be a fun area to expand upon. This game really does give you only just enough building-blocks with characters to point you in a direction and set your imagination going, so what I want is to see them fleshed out and embraced.
Also, Helene as a concept is just SO fucking hot, I maybe will have to request her as well after all. She works at the arcade center and is into tarot cards and rare gems and really makes herself sound like a fucking jewel thief. She's beautiful and smart and not the least bit shy about embracing it, and definitely weaponizes it to make other characters do what she wants. I'm so amazingly sad she isn't a romance option. Helene is perfect.
Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?: I'd say that it's hard to consume the game in any other way than playing through it at whatever pace works for you, but two of the characters I'm most interested in, Moira and Collin, don't live in town and only show up in main story cutscenes. So if you were specifically interested in fulfilling my requests, you'd probably want to focus on completing the main story ASAP and leaving the relationship-building and side-stories by the wayside until later. That said... Unless rushing through the main story is the way you prefer to play games like this, I really wouldn't recommend it. This is a cozy, unwind-and-relax kind of game (for me, anyway), so I'd recommend playing it in whatever way will actually be fun for you!
Content warnings: Overall, this is a cute and cozy game and doesn't get into anything really graphic or triggering. The content it does touch on is also covered only in brief, because each individual character story consists of just a few cutscenes. That said, there is a character plotline addressing a character (Cassandra)'s anxiety and resulting (mild) marriage troubles, a plotline addressing a character's weight and over-eating (the chemist makes him an appetite suppressant and it's not... super explicitly about weight loss or body shaming but was certainly not my favorite plotline), and similar "mild" societal and interpersonal issues. It felt clear to me that the creators are trying to create a diverse cast with realistic problems and that those problems are handled as tastefully as the writers can, but I figured I would mention the anxiety, food issues, and the disabled character who uses a wheelchair, since it can be helpful to know those elements are included even when they aren't handled offensively, especially when you're consuming something billed as "soft."