On July 31, a rather peculiar free-to-play title landed on Steam. Titled 'Pot's On!', the game features a wizard who, having been defeated by a witch, finds themself transformed into a cooking pot, forced to fight back by filling their belly with monster parts. Its MS Paint-esque aesthetic and strangely charming monsters immediately caught our attention.

Having put some time into it, the 'Very Positive' (98% approval) rating on Steam is entirely deserved. I managed to track down Kim Woo-seong, team lead at NotDailyBuildStudio, to chat about the game's mechanics and design.

NotDailyBuildStudio consists of four developers—Kim Woo-seong, Yoo Yun-sang, Shin Sang-hyun, and Jung Chan-seo—who initially bonded during Krafton's 'Jungle Game Lab' indie development course. Kim, the team lead, handled project management, core development, art, and direction; Yoo took charge of design and combat systems; Shin managed tutorials and support tasks, while Jung focused on UI and localization.

The course originally encouraged students to 'build daily,' but the team struggled to keep up. Kim noted, "It took us forever to even name the team. We initially wanted to call ourselves 'DailyBuildStudio' to remind ourselves to push builds every day, but that name was already taken. So, we settled on 'NotDailyBuildStudio' as a bit of self-deprecating humour."

The four developers share a common penchant for paths less travelled. Most of them are versatile, handling duties well beyond their primary roles. As Kim put it, "We felt we had more to offer than just development, which is what drew us into indie game creation."

As mentioned, the journey wasn't exactly smooth. With only about 12 weeks provided by the Jungle Game Lab, the team spent a significant amount of time on proof-of-concept (PoC) to ensure their core ideas actually functioned. "Once the core systems were locked down, things accelerated," Kim explained. "We finished the game in about 6 to 7 weeks."

Pot's On! follows the journey of a pot with a destiny to defeat a witch. A powerful witch resides in a tower, and while the kingdom has sent countless raiding parties to stop them, all have failed. Our protagonist, a frontier wizard skilled in offensive magic, also met their match and was turned into a cooking pot.

The gameplay draws clear inspiration from 'Backpack Battles', focusing heavily on items and synergies. The 'pot' protagonist collects parts of fallen monsters to 'cook' them magically and lash out at foes. "We spent a lot of time debating the existence of the board and the motivation for combat," Kim said. "We considered standard RPG inventory systems, but decided that putting monsters into a pot felt more unique."

Items have magic stats, varied effects, and different trigger times. For example, the E-tier item 'Frost Goblin Ear' grants 7 armor every 5 seconds and provides 'Frost' and 'Goblin' synergies. Balancing offensive and defensive items is key, and each synergy makes the pot significantly stronger.

It is also worth noting that all monsters are female-coded. Early on, an NPC named 'Ladle' explains that the witch turns challengers into either objects or monsters who have lost their memories—an eerie detail. "The charming designs might just be a reflection of our personal tastes," Kim admitted. "We tried to ensure there is something for everyone to appreciate."

The heart of Pot's On! is 'synergy collection'. Gathering multiple items with the same synergy boosts their power and increases your 'Harmony' level. During combat, 'MSG'—a magical powder—drops into random slots every second, reducing item cooldowns by 1 second. As Harmony rises, the amount of MSG increases exponentially, meaning synergy building inherently boosts your attack, speed, and defense.

Synergies are divided into Traits (main) and Races (sub). It is recommended to focus on a main synergy for explosive power while using sub-synergies to maintain Harmony. "We wanted players to feel a massive sense of reward when completing a synergy," Kim shared. "We originally tried an item-strengthening mechanic using MSG, but it had structural limits, so we pivoted."

The dopamine hit of achieving these synergies kept me playing despite it being a short free game. For instance, the 'Abyss' synergy creates an 'Abyss Core' in the pot. Once combat starts, it begins to 'erode' the grid every second. Non-Abyss items lose their power and stop functioning, but Abyss items enter a 'berserk' state. My first clear was thanks to a fast build of Abyss items.

Other fun synergies include 'Slime', where collecting all variants fuses them into a 'King Slime', and 'Dragon', which hatches a powerful beast upon completion. The Dragon synergy, being difficult to complete, was a constant carrot on a stick. Kim noted, "Our focus was on creating a game that could be enjoyed casually."

Given the complex web of synergies and systems, development was anything but easy. "The core mechanics shifted so often that we scrapped and rebuilt the entire game about four times before finding the current version," Kim revealed.

The team also worked hard to simplify technical jargon. "Initially, the UI was cluttered with text about trigger times, mana, cooking times, and stats," Kim explained. "We wanted to avoid overwhelming players and ensure they didn't drop out early. We're grateful for the players who stuck with us."