Patchwork Potions
A downloadable game
Patchwork Potions is a solo journaling game about accepting a role as village witch in a cozy rural community. You will craft potions, explore the wilds, form relationships, and investigate mysteries. Play at your own pace and comfort!
The game includes a colorfully unique grid system which acts as both a record of your past and an oracle of your future. Starting with a blank page, you will gradually fill in grid spaces with colors corresponding to the themes in your journal. As you play, your individual arrangement of colored spaces will help you determine further writing prompts. No two stories will have the same pattern of colors and themes, leaving you with a unique visual representation of your journal when the game is over.
Patchwork Potions can be played by itself or as an encounter generator to another game of your choice--particularly Apothecaria by Anna Blackwell, the inspiration for this game.
This edition is a preview created in November 2022 for the TTRPGs for Trans Rights in Florida bundle. I intended to kickstart a fully laid out edition in early 2023, but that project has been paused. Please enjoy the plain text version with lovely cover art by @hellewoods!
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I’m always on the hunt for cozy solo journaling TTRPGs, and this was the perfect fantasy—it feels guided enough to spark creativity but still open-ended enough to let yourself run free with it. The grid system is extremely neat and very fun to color in! Was even able to play this with my mom and she enjoyed it a lot <3
I just finished a playthrough of Patchwork Potions and absolutely loved it! I haven't busted out the colored pencils in ages, and the journaling prompts were really easy and cozy. I was worried it would be more complicated, like Apothecaria, but it's really simple and has the same vibe, which is really nice. I can also see how it would pair nicely with the downtime in Apothecaria to fill out a witch's journal.
Just read through the rules last night and I'm going to be playing it today - I'm so looking forward to it.
I noticed you don't have a licensing up about whether it's ok for others to create using your system. I'm in an rpg writing class (it will be my first time writing something) and am thinking about how to make a solo game that works for kids and wondered if you'd be ok if I worked with your system (with full accreditation obviously) as it seems like something that would work for littles. Of course, I understand if that's not something you are comfy with just figured I'd reach out and ask.
Yes, please feel free to adapt this system! I'd love to see what you do with it. :)
I would like to make more games with this mechanic and actually originally intended to write instructions for others to adapt it as you describe. But it felt presumptuous to license The Official Patchwork Potions SRD when I couldn't even get past "draft" stage on the first iteration.
It's such a great system and so unique, it definitely feels worth you licensing (that's about the *idea* after all, not the iteration of it). It will find its way out of draft I'm sure, it's worth that too!
A truly cozy game with a very clever mechanic! I ended up writing over 20 pages when I played. I do think a bit of balancing is necessary though. I got into a Hearth-Old Witch-Familiar cycle of doom, and it became difficult as the game went on to find prompts I hadn't done already. I think a good place to start would be excluding the overarching category from the three-letter code. For example, Witchery has WRH, HWO, RRW, and XWR. That's four of six prompts that add another witchery patch to the grid, on top of the one that already exists! Removing the Ws from the Witchery category would provide some better balance. That's really my only complaint, I thought the prompts were fantastic and the experience was delightful. Thank you!
I'm glad you liked the game! Thanks for the kind words and the balance notes. My goal was to weight the prompts slightly toward the themes you are already focusing on so the grid doesn't end up being completely random noise, but the feedback loop may be a little too strong.
Oh for sure, I totally get where you're coming from. Thanks for responding! If you ever need a playtester for future versions, just let me know!
I've been playing this alongside Apothecaria and it's already spawned some of my favorite character moments :) I really like the method of generating prompts and it keeps me writing even in a slump. The cover art is beautiful, so I hope this gets a full-color expansion some day! <3
Thank you Romelia! I'm glad you are having so much fun with the game. A full release with color and layout isn't off the table but it's not my top priority right now. In the background I'm also noodling around some other games that use the same color-grid engine for generating prompts. I hope to share them someday!
I love this game so much! The prompt system is so unique, and I love how I end up with such a cool, fully-colored game sheet afterward, plus a unique story and a sigil! It's also fantastic that there are no limits on what players do, like I never just fail to do something or get forced to do something I wouldn't want to! 🧡
- ✨Beth