Potion Party is a new local and online couch co-op party game where you and up to three friends run an alchemy shop. Defend your shop from ghosts, thieves, little guys that look like gumdrops, and more. Overcome challenges throughout the game to earn money and upgrade your shop and characters. Potion Party was developed and published by RPGames and released on April 8, 2021 for PC, Nintendo Switch, and PS4.

GRAPHICS 9/10

Potion Party welcomes you to its world with cutesy and colorful stylized pixel graphics.

Potion Party’s graphics are beautiful in their simplicity. You can see the passion behind each pixel in the game’s cute and colorful atmosphere. Everything from the characters to the items in the shop is well-drawn and appealing to the eye. Whether playing solo or with friends, you will never get distracted from what’s on the screen.

SOUND QUALITY 7/10

The game’s atmosphere, sounds, and music are very pleasant. The atmosphere truly fits the aesthetic of Potion Party, but it can also be a little repetitive since there seems to only be one song playing throughout each section. However, the game’s constant hustle and bustle meant the music (at least for me) was more of an afterthought to what I needed to do to progress to the next round.

GAMEPLAY 8/10

Time flies when you play Potion Party.

Potion Party is very reminiscent of other fast-paced games like Ghost Town Games’ Overcooked and the classic Diner Dash, but instead of making food or trying to find seating for your customers, you are mixing up potions. When you enter stage one, you are met with instructions that, while minimal, get the job done explaining how things work in this game, which is set to “GO” from the very start. There is always something to do in each round, from watering your plants and making sure you have enough materials to brewing potions for your customers and shooing away would-be thieves. For this reason, time flies when you play Potion Party. One of the later rounds is fifteen minutes long, but it feels like nothing because of everything that needs to be done within the allotted time. Each round also has a monetary goal that needs to be met to move on to the next round, but you can still keep all your earnings even if you fall short of the required amount. The game supports local and online co-op as well. You can set up a remote play through Steam, which allows other players to join the game. The host can even choose which player will have what set of buttons.

I played Potion Party on the PC through Steam by myself and with friends over on our Twitch (shameless plug is shameless). The Steam page states that it fully supports controllers, but I never could get mine to work. Playing by yourself also makes it almost impossible to succeed in the later stages without purchasing the upgradable items: the number of enemies and time limit don't seem to adjust to the number of people playing.

CHARACTERS 8/10

The characters in Potion Party are very well designed.

You start the game with Abel, who, sadly, has no powers. Luckily, the other ten characters do! New characters can be unlocked by buying them from the shop with in-game currency (no microtransactions here). Each new character has a special skill, like increasing the amount of gold you can earn or allowing the player to move faster. Having a character with a special skill is a must in the later parts of the game, as the difficulty increases with each round.

OVERALL 8/10

Potion Party keeps you fully engaged with its fast-paced gameplay and challenging modes. Like any game, Potion Party does have a few flaws, but they don’t take anything away from the overall experience. Whether you are setting up a potion shop alone or going into business with some friends, Potion Party will have you coming back to enjoy it time and time again.

Potion Party was released on April 8, 2021. Version 1.0.0 was launched on April 7, 2021, and is available now on Steam, PS4, and Nintendo Switch. The version of Potion Party reviewed was 1.0.0. The reviewer purchased the game at full retail price.