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STEAM BACKLOG - POTION CRAFT & CAPTAIN FOREVER REMIX

Potion craft is a neat little game that i do enjoy, but i can tell it lacks substance. The recipe book is a disaster to actually use, and i find that getting grade 3 potions is way too finnicky, although that may be related to the lower potionmaking level i had at the time. The game is rather strain inducing and i don't know why their accessibility settings werent just the default controls, on top of adding MORE accessibility by reducing certain motions or whatever. Also, your mouse doesn't lock into the game! that's weird, for a game where wildly swinging your mouse around to do things is necessary. The in-game cursor is wildly out of sync with your actual cursor.

The game is fun, but not 20$ fun. Its pretty shallow and I feel like I have experienced 80% of the game within the first two hours, which looking at the steam reviews seems to be true. The haggling mechanic is a complete joke with no way to fail it unless you're intentionally doing so. I recommend this game mostly as just a brief "passing time" thing or when im inside a voice call and need something to stimulate the brain.

I love the original captain forever, though it is difficult to learn to play well. Despite that, I really loved the gritty aesthetic of it, it was very cool. Remix goes against the philosophy of difficult and edgy, and bloats the game with a lot of things that really aren't interesting to play with. The game gives a vague "story" that im not particularly fond of the theming of, straying away from the old gritty style. Now, i did say it goes against the philosophy of difficult, but thats a little bit of a lie. While it does have a lot of the typical captain forever difficulty, its only within the core game mechanics that already existed. Which is the ship building and combat. However, Remix removes a lot of classic captain forever difficulty too. There is no longer a "bounty" system, where killing ships increases your bounty rating and causes more difficult ships to spawn and hunt you down.

Remix bloats a simple game by adding "stages" you traverse through and "quests", where each stage demands you kill an enemy of a certain level to be able to progress. If you do not want to progress in the stage, you are forced to avoid attacking a ship of that level at any cost, which is bothersome as said ships also often have stronger parts- meaning you are limited in being able to take a risk of grinding up high-quality parts from difficult ships. The second that ship detonates, all enemy AI stops being aggressive, and you get 50 seconds to change the build of your ship. Additionally, ships now come with "modifier" parts that add status effects, which i feel are just too gimmicky for something that already had a solid gameplay loop.

Ultimately I'd say that you should just get the captain forever trilogy instead, and play captain successor for the best captain forever experience.