Video Game / Potion Permit

Potion Permit is an open-ended potion crafting sim RPG, developed by MassHive Media and published by PQube on September 22, 2022 for the Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Nintendo Switch, Steam, Xbox One, and X Box Series X And S, and on Android and iOS on February 6, 2024. Take the potion crafting concepts of Potion Craft, mix in the day-to-day flow of Story of Seasons, and you get this game. Except in here, you're brewing potions as medicine to aid the residents.

You are a chemist from the capital, brought to the countryside town of Moonbury at the behest of its mayor, Myer, to aid his sick daughter Rue. However, the chemist is given a chilly reception upon their arrival, due to an incident with a past chemist severely damaging the town's local ecology. Since then, the town has relied on alternative medicine from the local witch doctor, Matheo, and are distrustful of chemists. With your skill in brewing potions, your goal is to brew and prescribe potions to the ailing townspeople, hoping to rebuild their trust in modern medicine again.

The game's core mechanic is the potion brewing system, which is a puzzle you need to fill in with ingredients you find out in the wild. Ingredients are divided into four core elements, Fire, Water, Wind, and Earth, and come in varying sizes to fill out the puzzle board to brew your potions. Some potions come with elemental requirements, encouraging you to go out and find a variety of ingredients to make what you need. These potions are used to cure sick patients, who you must also diagnose to learn what potion is needed to cure their symptoms and gain their trust. Should the patient not be cured in time, they'll be relocated out of your clinic to the witch doctor, lowering your reputation.

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Potion Permit provides examples of:

#-L

• 10-Minute Retirement: In Dean's second Friendship Event, he quits his job as police officer after failing Osman once more. He turns in his badge and runs away crying because he believes he can't match up to his twin brother Derrek. You and Derrek then follow him to his house and convince him to return to the job, and Derrek tells him that everyone makes mistakes, even Derrek himself, and despite his prickliness, he'll always be there for him.
• 100% Completion: Not only is there a progress tracker in your save file, there's also an achievement for getting all the other 37 achievements. You're also free to complete everyone's Friendship Events and fill in your journal after the credits roll.
• Abandoned Laboratory: There is one hidden in a cave in the Barren Wasteland, where Dr. Schemist's research team was stationed in. It's where they tested the cure for the poisoned Drake Aloe, but they were forced by the mayor to abandon the experiment for destroying the surrounding environment in the cave. The poor water management in the lab caused the pipe at the entrance to the Barren Wasteland to explode, destroying the bridge and burying the cave entrance in a landslide.
• Achievement Mockery: There are achievements for getting KO'd the first time, failing to cure a patient once, and failing to cure 10 patients.
• Aerith and Bob: Most of the Moonbury residents have ordinary names such as Cassandra, Laura, and Victor, some have names that are uncommon spellings such as Reyner, Matheo, and Helene, and then there are those with outright unusual names such as Yorn, Opalheart, and Bubble.
• Absurdly Elderly Mother: Rue and Runeheart look like they're the Chemist's age (roughly early 20s), yet their respective mothers Mariele and Opalheart have graying hair.
• Ambidextrous Sprite: Yorn's Rugged Scar on his right eye and his anchor tattoo on his lower left arm switch sides whenever he turns around. Ottmar's Rugged Scar on his left eye also switches sides depending on where he's facing.
• And Your Reward Is Edible: Clearing certain quests rewards you with food, usually Apple Juice from the Fair Trade quests at the town hall. Some villagers also give you the recipes for them so you can cook them yourself.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • A shopkeeper doesn't have to be present in their shop in order for you to buy items from them, as long as they're not sick (for those who build upgrades) and it's still business hours, as indicated by a lit-up cash register.
  • After feeding your dog new food, the food is marked with his emotion so you won't have to guess whether or not he likes it the next time you feed him.
  • If a quest requires your dog to dig for items, the map highlights the exact places where he needs to do so.
• Apocalyptic Log: You can find research logs scattered in the overworld detailing the accidents that destroyed Moonbury's environment, causing the residents to be distrustful of modern medicine.
• Arc Symbol: Crescent moons are the symbol of Moonbury. They can be found in the town's decor, Moon Cloves are traditional gifts, Moon Brooches are given to your partner when asking them out, and the Moon Stone is proudly on display in the town hall.
• Asteroids Monster: Green Blobs split into a few smaller versions when defeated.
• Bears Are Bad News: Honeypaws and Blackpaws are aggressive bearlike monsters that swipe their paws at you to attack.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: Crownmites, Goldenhorns, and Sandcrawls are beetles almost the size of the Chemist. They have tough exoskeletons only breakable by hammer, with the Goldenhorns' being much tougher. They flip over once their armor is destroyed, making them more vulnerable to attacks.
• The Blacksmith: Opalheart and her daughter Runeheart run the smithy in Moonbury Town. You can go there to upgrade your tools.
• Book Dumb:
  • Rue struggles with her lessons from her tutor Xiao, so he asks you for help in mentoring her.
  • Russo hates homework, so he sneaks out to play with Laura or at the arcade instead.
• Break the Haughty:
  • Beneath his serious demeanor, Matheo is so clumsy that he drops his notes when being chased by a bear. Instead of thanking you for returning his notes to him the first time, he gets mad that they weren't intact.
  • Underneath her uptightness for fashion and her bossiness towards Hannah, Nova deeply misses her husband, who died before the events of the game.
• Broken Bridge: There are some parts of the overworld blocked off by debris, broken transport, or a literal broken bridge, and you need to clear them by gathering enough materials and leveling up your badge.
• Brutish Bulls: Grandhorns are big buffalo-like monsters that charge at you with their big horns if provoked. They're worshipped by some Koblin tribes as one of their gods and protectors.
• Brutal Honesty: When Helene asks Reyner about the new furniture design she ordered, he dances around the fact that he requested it from Forrest instead but the delivery was delayed. Nova bluntly tells him that downplaying the problem doesn't make it go away and that the quality of the designs he's actually making speaks a lot about his character, to Reyner's embarrassment.
• Caring Gardener:
  • Rue is a sweet young lady with a passion for gardening, which she pursues after being cured by you.
  • Bubble is a gentle park ranger who catalogues all the seeds and flowers of Moonbury, inspired by her late mother. She also keeps a garden outside her and Forrest's house, where you can check your progress towards collecting seeds to grow at home.
• Color-Coded Elements: Potion ingredients are classified under the four classical elements: fire is red, water is blue, wind is green, and earth is brown.
• Comfort Food: Xiao used to like his grandmother's cooking as a child, but stopped eating it after he moved to Moonbury because he got busy with work. Dating him makes him remember how much he used to enjoy her cooking, so he makes it for you.
• Cooking Mechanics: You can cook various meals in the kitchen, which recover your HP and/or stamina.
• Creative Closing Credits: The credits sequence shows the Moonbury residents happily going by their day.
• Defeat Equals Explosion: Bomber Bees explode upon defeat, making collecting their parts as potion ingredients dangerous.
• Definitely Just a Cold: While Garret's family is fully aware of him being in a wheelchair after an accident, Garret refuses to accept that the injury is permanent and incurable. When the Chemist checks on him in his first Friendship Event, he tells them to tell his family that he's "fine", which they do despite knowing how grave his injury is. In reality, Garret had long accepted his injury and refuses to be 'cured', but he only plays along to Mercy's attempts to treat him so as not to hurt her feelings.
• Double Unlock: To unlock new areas, first you need to upgrade your badge by giving the mayor a letter of recommendation from the Medical Association, and then you need to gather the materials to clear the obstacles in the way.
• Downloadable Content: You can download extra furniture for your house. Some of them are free while others are sold at a low price in real money.
• Education Mama:
  • Xiao used to go to the arcade as a kid, but his strict parents banned him from doing so and pressured him into studying.
  • In Lucke's second Friendship Event, his mother catches wind of his hidden intellect and applies him for a scholarship. However, he doesn't want to attend college at the capital because he's content with tending to his family farm.
• Effortless Achievement: There are achievements for starting the game for the first time and brewing your first potion, the latter which is done during the tutorial.
• Equipment Upgrade: You can upgrade your tools at Hearts and Sparks so they can do more damage to monsters and be faster at harvesting plants, chopping trees, and breaking rocks. The Mythril tools are the strongest.
• Everything Fades: Monsters vanish with a puff of smoke when defeated, randomly dropping loot such as potion ingredients and food items.
• Eyelid Pull Taunt: Resident prankster kid Russo does this in his album portrait.
• Failed a Spot Check:
  • Helene asks Reyner about her request for a new furniture design from him, but he tells her that it's delayed because he never heard from Forrest about it. It then turns out that Forrest wasn't able to build it because he didn't spot the note about its materials lying on the floor of the ranger post.
  • In Helene's second Friendship Event, she reads about an ancient stone that was found in the Barren Wasteland and asks you to find it for her. It turns out to be an ordinary rock, to Helene's dismay, and Mayor Myer shows her that the actual stone, the Moon Stone, was already unearthed 10 years ago and is on display at the town hall. Helene claims that she just happened to read an article about it and didn't dig through the archives at the police station, but she's happy to learn that the mayor is preserving the precious artifact the whole time.
• Family Business:
  • Garret and his family run the farm at the north of Moonbury.
  • Opalheart and her daughter Runeheart run Hearts and Sparks, with the former training the latter to be her successor.
  • Olive is the seventh generation of running Willow Waters Bathhouse, but she's tired of managing it and wishes to start over at the capital.
• Fishing Minigame: There are four fishing spots in all, three in Moonbury Town, and one hidden in Glaze Grotto, which is unlocked with a Level 2 badge and the highest fishing rod upgrade. Fishing involves casting your rod depending on how strong you throw it, and then waiting for the tug and reeling in your catch while the line is white and the catch is tired. If the line turns red and the catch gets angry, stop reeling, otherwise the line will snap and you'll have to start over. There are different kinds of fish you can catch (and even treasure if you're lucky) depending on the fishing spot, and you can try beating your record of the weight of your catch.
• Flipping Helpless: Some monsters such as Pangols and Crownmites flip over when their armor is destroyed, making them more vulnerable to attacks.
• Florence Nightingale Effect: Your first patient, Rue, is one of the eight Love Interests in the game.
• Flowers of Romance: On their first date, Osman gave Cassandra a bouquet of jasmines and lavender because roses were too ordinary for her.
• Friendly Pirate:
  • Captain Leano and First Mate Ottmar are retired pirates who settled down in Moonbury to run Primerose Sail and the beachside café, respectively.
  • Dev's alter Dan is a boisterous pirate wannabe who just wants to have fun away from Dev's "boring" job as a postman.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: A patient always says, "my [body part] feels weird" during diagnosis, even if they don't normally speak that way like Ottmar.
• Gay Option: All the romance options are open regardless of your gender, meaning that you can date Matheo, Reyner, Xiao, Victor, or Lucke if you're a boy and Leano, Martha, Rue, Helene, or Runeheart if you're a girl.
• Gender-Inclusive Writing: Regardless of the Chemist's gender, they're always referred to with "they/them" pronouns and gender-neutral titles such as "sibling".
• Generation Xerox:
  • Runeheart is just as hotheaded as her mother Opalheart was when she was her age, and also hates feminine clothes just like her.
  • Lucke takes his stubbornness from Garret, like when the former insists on fixing the latter's wheelchair, who in turn insists that it's "okay" and it doesn't need fixing.
• Giant Enemy Crab: Sunclaws are crablike monsters that reach up to the Chemist's waist. Their giant pincers, which they use to fight one-on-one to the death, are used as potion ingredients.
• Gilded Cage: Olive wishes to go out of Moonbury to explore the outside world because she finds her town boring, but she can't leave her job as the sole owner of the fancy bathhouse. She eventually realizes how much the other residents rely on the bathhouse and are grateful for it, and she learns to be more thankful for the community for it and decides to stay after all.
• Green Aesop: The Medical Association's research teams realized too late that they carelessly destroyed Moonbury's environment when they studied it to improve their medicine. They left behind recipes for potions that can remove the toxic waste they made, and it's your job to brew them so you can restore Moonbury's natural areas. In truth, they had good intentions in their experiments since, for example, they were trying to save the Drake Aloe from a severe plant disease by treating its contaminated water source, only for it to get worse. The mayor, believing that they maliciously destroyed the environment, forced them out of Moonbury before they could find the cure, and the poor water management caused the pipe at the entrance to the Barren Wasteland to explode, destroying the bridge and burying the lab entrance in a landslide.
• Happily Married: Despite their personal issues that they trust the Chemist to solve, Myer and Mariele, Garret and Mercy, and Cassandra and Osman all have loving marriages and cherish each other dearly.
• Healing Herb: Various plants that are used as potion ingredients can be found in the overworld and are marked on the map when you first encounter them. They're harvested using a scythe.
• Healing Spring: Cassandra and her friend Olive run the bathhouse in the north of Moonbury Town. You can rest there to recover your HP and stamina.
• Heavily Armored Mook: Some monsters are protected with armor, and you need to break them with your hammer.
• Hello, [Insert Name Here]: Not only can you name the chemist, you can pick a name for your dog too. The default names for the chemist and their dog are Logan and Noxe, respectively.
• Hidden Depths:
  • The diligent, hardworking farmer Lucke has a deep, secret passion for books. He wishes to visit the capital's library someday and is amazed when you let him have your copy of The Principle of Life. He also likes playing chess in his head. He rarely shows this side of himself, but he opens up to the Chemist about his geekiness as they bond with him and becomes willing to learn from them.
  • Sister Socellia, the vicar of the monastery, secretly likes to sing, but isn't confident in her voice. She secretly practices on the cliff by Moonbury, but her sessions give rise to a scary urban legend.
  • The flirtatious Helene of the Arcade Centre is interested in collecting artifacts because of their historical value, but Dean's worried about her because she wants to venture out to the Barren Wasteland, where powerful monsters reside. That's why she tasks you in collecting the artifacts for her.
  • Dev's alter Dan may seem like a boisterous, childish pirate wannabe on the surface, but deep down, he actually cares for his other half. Dan comes out whenever Dev gets exhausted so he can pull him off from his stressful job as a postman.
  • The creepy, mysterious Victor is a kindhearted man deep down, and is genuinely touched when the Chemist gives him a Grilled Tenderloin in his third Friendship Event. He also reveals that his communication with spirits isn't an act, but rather him just "being himself".
• Homeschooled Kids: There's no school in Moonbury, so the children are educated by their parents or guardians instead.
• Hope Sprouts Eternal: After you remove the toxic waste from Moonbury's natural areas, a new flower species grows in its place, bringing hope to the residents that you'll be able to save their home.
• An Interior Designer Is You: You can buy furniture at Bulk and Build and decorate your house to your heart's content, as long as you don't block the path between the bed and the doorway.
• In-Universe Game Clock: One in-game day lasts from 6AM to 2AM, and some shops are closed on certain days and times. You must go to bed before 2AM or else you collapse from exhaustion and start the next day at 12PM instead.
• Item Caddy: Your dog can sniff out items buried in mounds if you bond with him well enough.
• Jabba Table Manners: According to Mercy, her children eat like "ravenous beasts" at the dinner table.
• Laxative Prank: In Russo's first Friendship Event, he requests the Chemist to brew a purgative potion for his guardian, Sister Socellia, claiming that she has stomach problems. The following day after they give the potion to him, the Chemist visits the church to check on Socellia, only to find Mayor Myer complaining that Russo slipped the potion into his tea, making him constantly answer "business calls".
• Leave the Two Lovebirds Alone: In Reyner's third Friendship Event, Runeheart finds out that he's crushing on the Chemist and says that he claimed that he was sick just so the Chemist can see him again. Runeheart then laughs and teases him that she'll leave the two of them alone.
• Long Hair Is Feminine: Several young female characters such as Rue, Laura, and Hannah have waist-length hair, highlighting their femininity.
• Lore Codex: Your journal tracks every task, person, potion, ingredient, food, fish, and monster encountered in the game.
• Luck-Based Mission: Fishing for several units of white or pink meat for Sidequests takes up a lot of time since fishing takes up one in-game hour on average and the kind of meat you harvest from fish is random.

M-Z

• Minigame: Diagnosing patients, researching new potion recipes, and doing part-time work involve playing minigames. Your performance in them determines your patient's satisfaction and if you succeed in research or part-time work.
• Minigame Zone: The Arcade Centre in Lazy Bowl Tavern has playable arcade machines such as a Whack-a-Monster minigame.
• Mistaken for Suicidal: In Martha's third Friendship Event, the Chemist finds her standing near the edge of the cliff and tells her not to jump. She quickly corrects them that she wasn't going to, just that she needed to be alone after hearing that the Chemist is leaving Moonbury the following day, but that isn't the case because it was just a false rumor Russo told her as a prank.
• Mole Monster: Spook Diggers are mole-like monsters that burrow underground and ambush you by throwing Quality Nuts at you. They're featured the Whack-a-Monster minigame at the Arcade Centre.
• Moving-Away Ending: In Leano's third Friendship Event, she decides to go back to being a full-time pirate because she misses her adventures at sea, so she asks the Chemist to make her some gunpowder to finish her packing for the trip. However, she changes her mind the next day because she realizes that Moonbury already opens up new adventure opportunities for her, and she considers everyone, including the Chemist, as part of her crew.
• Nature Lover: Forest rangers Forrest and Bubble are in-tune with nature and ensure that Moonbury's environment is being taken care of. Bubble also tends to her garden and gives you seeds for your Grow Box.
• Nice Guy:
  • Reyner's a kind young man who chats casually with the Chemist and does his best to fulfill his customers' orders.
  • Martha the sweet, gentle waitress of Lazy Bowl Tavern who shows kindness to her customers and bakes her signature cookies for them.
• No Antagonist: While some of the residents are cold towards you and are slower to warm up to you than the others, there are no villainous characters in the game. The main conflict is the Chemist trying to rebuild Moonbury's trust with the Medical Association after the latter unintentionally caused environmental damage to the island when they studied the local flora to improve their medicine.
• Noble Wolf: Elder Wolves are ancient wolves who live in Glaze Iceberg and are seen as a symbol of loyalty. They have mystical howls and are great hunters thanks to their strong jaws and agility.
• Notice This: Resources that can be gathered or harvested sparkle.
• NPC Boom Village: As you help the residents of Moonbury, the town's condition will improve. Some facilities get repaired, which benefits you and the community.
• NPC Scheduling: The residents of Moonbury Town all have their own schedules, and your dog can track them down if they're going around town, which is helpful if you need to fulfill their quest or start their Friendship Event with them. If a villager gets sick, their schedule will be interrupted and you won't be able to socialize with them until the day after you cure them.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Olive normally eats whatever Cassandra cooks without comment, so when she asks her to make her sausage rolls, Cassandra find it suspicious. Olive then lies that it's either "her time of the month" or she's got a bad headache and can't cook the sausages herself, when she actually wants them to prepare Osman's surprise anniversary date for Cassandra.
  • In Martha's third Friendship Event, she gets uncharacteristically mad at you and storms out of Lazy Bowl Tavern. It's because she believes that you're leaving Moonbury the following day and didn't bother to try her latest batch of cookies. It then turns out that she fell for Russo's prank, and she profusely apologizes for the misunderstanding.
  • According to Myer, Matheo is a stubborn and proud Witch Doctor who sees you as his rival for curing people faster with your potions. He's also normally punctual, but in his third Friendship Event, he turns up late for his own meeting with you and the mayor because he had been compiling his notes about the new disease infecting the plants of Moonbury, which is too strong for his natural medicine to cure. So, he reluctantly turns to you to find the cure for it.
• Our Kobolds Are Different: Koblins are wolflike kobolds who reside in the remote areas of Moonbury. They form tribes and worship other monsters as deities, fight intruders with weapons such as swords, clubs, and magic, and drop shards and crystals when defeated.
• Patchwork Map: Moonbury Island has Meadow Range to the east, Glaze Iceberg directly north of it, and the Barren Wasteland directly south of the Range.
• Performance Anxiety: In Socellia's second Friendship Event, she runs out of the church after her failed recital. She asks the Chemist to check her throat, but while they don't find anything wrong with it, they still make a potion that they believe will improve her next performance. This time, her recital is well-received and she thanks the Chemist for it, but they tell her that it was just warm water (regardless of the ingredients you put in), and that she just needed to be more self-confident in her talent.
• Pictorial Speech-Bubble: A character's facial expression is shown as an emoticon in a speech bubble, a chicken drumstick is used to represent hunger, and a Frustrated Overhead Scribble is used whenever someone's upset.
• Posthumous Character: Osman's father Oswald died before the events of the game, but the documents scattered across Glaze Iceberg and the one locked in Osman's office reveal his involvement in the research accident. He evacuated the research team out of Glaze Iceberg, but he wasn't able to rescue his best friend Dr. Lewis. Although Oswald was hailed a hero, he still felt guilty for losing Lewis because the latter took all the blame for the accident. Oswald planned to clear Lewis's name by publishing the latter's research logs, but he passed away before he could do so.
• Potion-Brewing Mechanic: The very heart of the game. Your brewing cauldron is presented like a puzzle, and the puzzle pieces are the ingredients you find in the wild, from herbs to monster parts. The cauldron has an ingredient limit you must work with to complete the recipe, and some potions have element restrictions you must follow to make them. After crafting the potion enough times, you can auto-craft and mass-produce it with a saved recipe, skipping the puzzle segment.
• Promoted to Love Interest: The v1.3 update made Victor and Helene romanceable characters, followed by Lucke and Runeheart in v1.4, adding extra Friendship Events for them.
• Puppy Love: Laura wishes to marry her best friend Russo when she grows up.
• Rainbow Speak: Character names are highlighted in teal, body parts during diagnosis in dark purple, and quest items in the task menu in light purple.
• Real-Time Weapon Change: You can cycle between the scythe, axe, and hammer to seamlessly switch between harvesting plants, chopping trees, and breaking rocks.
• Relationship Values: As you slowly gain the trust of the villagers with your skills as a Chemist, you can track your friendships with them in the task menu's Social tab. You can bond with them a little by talking to them once per in-game day and giving them Moon Cloves as gifts for a big boost. Once you max out their friendship meters and complete their Friendship Events, you unlock more details in their profiles, with the romanceable characters having one extra page than the others. Reaching Level 2 with a villager unlocks their portrait in your album.
• Rolling Attack: Pangols roll themselves up into indestructible balls when they chase you.
• Romance Sidequest: There are 10 love interests to pursue, each of them having an extra Friendship Event than the other characters. After completing all three Friendship Events of one love interest, you can confess your love to them by offering them a Moon Brooch.
• Sand Worm: While not worms, Ironfins are long sand dragons that live in the Barren Wasteland. They burrow underground to ambush you by lunging.
• Shaped Like What It Sells:
  • Your house, which was previously owned by the last Chemist before they moved out, is shaped like a potion bottle.
  • Bulk & Build (the renovation and furniture store) has a roof shaped like a hammer.
  • The Willow Waters Bathhouse has a giant ewer of water sticking out of the roof to pour a constant stream into a water feature on the side of the building!
• Shield-Bearing Mook: Some monsters carry shields with them, and you need to break them with your axe.
• Shirtless Scene: Osman remembers the time when he accidentally spilled root beer on his uniform, so Cassandra had to take him home so she could wash it. He was "shocked" when she told him to take his shirt off, but going by his smug expression and her embarrassment in the present, Osman actually enjoyed showing himself off that day.
• Shoulders-Up Nudity: Anyone relaxing at Willow Waters Bathhouse is shown only from the shoulders-up, regardless of gender.
• Sidequest: Besides the major story tasks and Friendship Events, you can take requests from the Community Board in the Town Hall. Any required materials are dropped off at its postbox, and any incomplete requests are abandoned by the following Monday.
• "Simon Says" Mini-Game: One of the minigames during diagnosis has you repeating the order which the arrows light up.
• Sweet Baker: Martha and Mariele are kind ladies who like baking cookies for the other residents of Moonbury.
• Sprint Meter: You have a stamina meter that's separate from your HP meter, which tells you how much energy you have left to use your tools. It can be recovered by eating food, sleeping, or relaxing at the bathhouse. Unlike with HP, running out of stamina will not instantly make you faint, although your running speed will be decreased.
• Starting a New Life: After her husband's death, Nova moved from the capital to Moonbury to start her tailor shop to let go of the past. Beneath her haughtiness, she dearly misses him and prays for him in church.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Lucke and Laura both inherit their mother's dark skin and hair and light blue eyes.
• Supreme Chef:
  • According to Osman, Cassandra used to deliver her cooking to her father before working at the bathhouse. Her meals became so popular with the other residents, she started cooking regularly for them.
  • Yorn the bartender cooks the finest meals in Lazy Bowl Tavern, contrasting his waitress Martha, who's trying to improve her cookie recipes after the other residents didn't like her first batch.
• Surprise Party: You and Socellia throw one for Russo during his second Friendship Event to cheer him up and assure him that despite his parents abandoning him as a baby, he still has people who love him such as Socellia.
• Take Your Time: You can take as long as you want in completing the main quests and Friendship Events, which leads to some oddities such as Osman and Cassandra's anniversary date happening several weeks later despite it supposedly "coming up soon".
• Tastes Like Friendship: Moon Cloves are traditionally given to Moonbury residents as gifts, and they provide a big boost to their friendship meters. They're given to you as rewards for completing certain quests and treating patients, and you can give them to villagers once an in-game day.
• Teen Genius: Lucke mentions that the author of The Magic of Engineering designed a car when she was 15.
• Through His Stomach:
  • Xiao cooks his favorite childhood dish, which was passed down from his grandma, for you if you start dating him.
  • This is how Cassandra and Osman first met. Cassandra used to deliver her cooking to her father at the police station and saw Osman on duty every workday. She then decided to cook for everyone in Moonbury as an excuse to feed Osman, which she admitted to him after he asked her out.
• Title Drop: Dr. Nestor presents you the eponymous Potion Permit after you pass the final exam and win the hearts of the Moonbury residents by clearing up a long-held misunderstanding between them and the Medical Association.
• Tough Love:
  • Mercy seems to be a stern, no-nonsense housewife at first, but her strict discipline on her children comes from her genuine love for them.
  • Opalheart is as tough towards her daughter as she is in her own blacksmithing. They may argue with each other a lot, but Opalheart still cares deeply about Runeheart.
• Tragic Keepsake: Nova keeps her late husband's plain brown wedding suit in her cabinet, which she repairs with the Chemist's help in her second Friendship Event.
• True Blue Femininity:
  • Laura is an innocent little girl in a long blue dress.
  • Hannah, a fashion designer, wears blue makeup and has blue streaks in her hair.
• Unfinished Business: In Victor's second Friendship Event, he claims that his ghost friend Amadeus found Matilda hiding under a bench because she's struggling to move on to the afterlife. Victor tried telling Socellia about it, but she didn't believe him, so he asks you to make an aromatic candle to calm Matilda down.
• Untrusting Community: Moonbury's townfolk don't trust chemists from the capital after an accident nearly destroyed the local wildlife, and they certainty wouldn't trust you with medicine because of it. It's your goal to undo this, as Matheo's traditional methods can only do so much.
• Variable Mix: The overworld theme transitions to its night variant at 6PM and slowly fades out towards midnight.
• Video Game Caring Potential: Your main goal is to cure patients and gain their trust by talking to them every day and helping them out with their problems. Victor even wonders if you're being kind because you're a Chemist or if that's what you really are.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: There's an achievement for failing to cure 10 patients, which requires you to deliberately neglect them for several days until Matheo has no choice but to treat them himself. It's one thing to forget to cure one patient when you have other tasks to juggle like gathering ingredients and tending to the other residents, but it takes a special kind of evil to neglect 10.
• Warp Whistle: There are red banners that function as teleporters once you unfurl them in the overworld. You can teleport to them from anywhere except inside buildings.
• Weight Woe:
  • In Mercy's first Friendship Event, she asks you to make a Weight Enhancer for Lucke because she believes he's too skinny to get a date. Upon giving it to her, you tell her that while it'll help him gain weight, he still needs to eat healthy, which she accepts.
  • Dean has binge eating disorder and is struggling to lose weight for his job as a police officer, so he asks the Chemist to make a weight loss potion for him. The Chemist also advises him to watch his diet and exercise regularly, and while there doesn't seem to be much progress, he slowly feels motivated to attain a healthy weight.
• White Bunny: Bubble has a pet white rabbit named Cotton, and she gets worried when the latter gets sick because there aren't many rabbits like her on Moonbury Island due to habitat destruction. Bubble used to have another white rabbit as a kid, which was a gift from her mother before she passed away. Conserving Cotton's species is what inspired Bubble to become a ranger.
• Workaholic: Several Moonbury residents are so hardworking, they often forget to take care of themselves. This is where you step in to help them take care of their health.
  • Reyner is so dedicated to his carpentry that he pushes his strength to its limits just to perfect his woodwork. He ends up injuring himself in his Friendship Events and asks you to brew healing potions for him.
  • Xiao is always busy with his job as town treasurer that he barely has time for himself. You can help ease off his workload by bonding with him.
  • Osman is such a hardworking officer that he never takes a break from police duty. This ends up stressing him so much that he blows up in front of Dean and Derrek, prompting Cassandra to ask you to request the mayor to give Osman a day-off. Mayor Myer then realizes that he's been overworking Osman, so he reallocates some of his duties to Dean and Derrek so that Osman can have more time to relax.
  • Although Martha is kind towards her customers, she often neglects her health. Yorn urges her to get some rest when she gets a headache in her second Friendship Event.
  • Moira takes her job as assistant at the Medical Association so seriously, she works tirelessly for weeks and is determined to finish whatever projects she's started. As a result, Collin decides to tour Moonbury to encourage her to take a break with him, which Dr. Nestor agrees with.
• Wormsign: Spook Diggers and Ironfins leave mound trails when they burrow underground to ambush you.
• You Lose at Zero Trust: If you fail to treat a villager's illness, they'll be sent to Matheo and lose trust in you. They'll refuse to talk to you and you can't activate any town events.

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