This is just...not very fun

Every time you pick up a new bottle, you have to open the encyclopedia to read the description and figure out where to put it. Now that's fine, if a bit slow, but here's the problem.

You unlock two (and probably the third) other rooms by finding potions to place on stands. Potions that look just like every other potion on the damn ground

And once you filled up the available shelves with potions, which happens FAST considering there's more potion varieties than shelves to put them. This means you'll have a lot sitting on the floor awaiting you to unlock a section they can even be placed.

This violates the core gameplay loop of tidy up games. Which is find item, return item. There's no returning in this, there's no sound file playing to say "good job!" no glimmer saying you got the right spot. There IS, if you put the item on the shelf , but when you are just doing that to verify it's where they go and then taking them off and putting them on the ground that reward feedback is useless or outright detrimental. Cause now any reward feedback is almost mocking, "here's what you'd get if you actually put it away", it seems to say.

For me at least, I found the potion to unlock the basement first. Meaning that I could at least place all the poisons correctly, but that's it. It took me until three hoursish to find the one unlocking the floor above, so for all that time the reward feedback was entirely annoying, and honestly got to the point of it being a problem for me.

This wouldn't be a problem if the game kept the amount minimal. Maybe 50-60 potions total on the first floor, with both basement and first floor unlock potions among them, then far more in the unlocked areas. It's be a manageable amount and you'd find them easily, but there's like two hunded in the first room and more in the basement leading to just a slog to get through them and find the unlock potions which don't really stand out among the others.

To say nothing of the fact the ability unlock potion in the main room and basement is Flight, an ability honestly *useless* in the cramped area you find yourself in. It'd be *far* more useful to find the Highlight potion so you can work out easier where sets of potions are, thus letting you get through the horde sooner. This one isn't found until the basement, and there's seemingly no upgrades to it so you have to sit through that cooldown every single time.

I got everything off the floor in the main room (at least in regards to having it be unsorted, it's still on the floor just next to the corresponding shelves), and did the same for the basement before I figured out which potion unlocked the second floor. I went up there, saw hundreds more potions and promptly just left.

The core gameplay loop of a Tidy Up requires game to player feedback that isn't present here. The requirement to find the unlocking potions to actually sort things properly, while not having those potions be easily distinguishable leads to the feedback loop breaking, and the experience being unfun. Tidy Up game players are also almost trained to go room by room when cleaning which here is entirely punished.

Either nix the unlock potions idea entirely, or have it be so the first room you enter has only enough items to fit on the shelves within that room. Or make ability and room unlock potions exceedingly prominent through having them be decently larger and fancier than normal potions so we are instinctively drawn towards them.

You have a great idea here, the puzzle of working out which potion goes where is an interesting twist on the core formula, and the names and descriptions are fun. You just need to adapt the starting room to player habits and better feed that idea into the gameplay loop. As is, the broken feedback and inability to easily find the room unlock potions while the cramped main area becomes more cramped through piles of sorted potions just makes this a really unfun experience.

A surprising little gem in the tidy up games space. While most others seem to go for getting things done as quickly and efficiently as possible, Potions Galore takes a step back and wants you to just enjoy the process of storing individual potions, reading descriptions and feeling accomplished for each one correctly placed. And it works out pretty well.

Visually the game is probably one of the best looking ones of the genre. There's clearly been a lot of love put into the level art and it shows.

Gameplay wise, there are some small puzzles to solve to unlock progression, but nothing too complicated and mostly tied into the potion storing mechanic. Oh and there's a bucket which you can use if you want to make grandma sad plus some other things that you unlock as you progress, but I won't spoil them.

Since I mentioned grandma, the game also has a charming sense of humor about it if you want to spend some time reading all the potion descriptions. Not the kind that makes you laugh out loud, more like the kind that makes you smile.

Last but not least, the music is great. Fits the setting perfectly. One of the few games where you can alt-tab and it might take a while to notice that it's still playing in the background.

No magic and small hands make Amy a happy girl.

This game invests in making your life difficult, by having you put the bottles away one bottle at a time (or 9 using a basket, if you’re lame) in categories you have to look up in an encyclopaedia. No magic, no upgrades, just raw tidying up just like grandma used to do it. Amazingly cosy and a lot of lore!