Weekly progress #32

This is going to be a longer update than usual, so please take a seat!

TL;DR: There's a new crafting system, the old discovery system is gone, and it’s going to be awesome!

The Problem

As I mentioned a few posts earlier, I was quite unhappy with the crafting system; it felt too basic, too "déjà vu." I wanted more than the typical formula of selecting recipes from a list in workshops. At the same time, there was the "discovery system," where you had to complete tasks to unlock new recipes, items, and workshops. All of this had many issues:

• Having to perform tasks to unlock things feels like a disguised quest system.
• Unlocking recipes by completing tasks felt forced, pushing players through arbitrary challenges. I want players to experiment and create naturally, driven by curiosity rather than obligation.
• It costs a lot in terms of code and design to produce a tech tree and the associated scripts.

It became clear that things couldn’t stay that way. I was looking for a better system: one that was cheaper to produce as an indie dev but also more rewarding for players.

The Realization

Flash forward to a few weeks ago, when I was playing Dreamlight Valley with my eldest son. The game features a dynamic cooking system, like Zelda: BOTW. You put ingredients on a plate, and depending on what you use, you get a delicious meal or a suspicious one. For example, if you put apple and wheat together, you get an apple pie. As I watched my son take wheat and tomatoes and cook them, he burst into joy when it produced one of his favorite meals: Pasta.

And then it clicked for me. This was what I was looking for. But I didn’t just want this for cooking: I wanted it everywhere. I wanted players to experience the same feeling my son had when they realized that a stone combined with a stick makes a stone hammer. I want players to feel a sense of accomplishment when they creatively experiment with materials, rewarding their intuition with new discoveries.

It took a few days of deep thought before I even started writing down the design. How would it work in detail? Could I create a set of simple rules? What would the consequences be for the current code? Did it fit the vision for the game? Was there a risk it could be a dead end? How much time would it take? Was it even a good idea at all?

But the more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that I had something.

The New Crafting System

Now it’s time to explain how crafting will work in Greenfeet Haven.

• Each workshop or piece of furniture will provide an "action."
• You will be able to apply an "action" to an item.
• You won’t know in advance if an "action" + item will work.
• Once you discover a working "action" + item combination, it will be stored in a recipe book.

Here’s a concrete example:

• A campfire provides the "heat" action.
• The item "raw meat," combined with the "heat" action, yields "cooked meat."
• However, applying "heat" to a "rock" yields nothing.

Complex items can be created through a series of actions:

I’m really excited about the possibilities that this new system opens up.

How Does It Scale?

Greenfeet Haven is a colony sim. In the end, there will be dozens of things to produce, and I don’t want it to become a micromanagement nightmare. Luckily, the game has a zone system that allows for automated production. Any recipe the player discovers will be usable in the zone-based crafting system.

When Will It Be Ready?

The core implementation is done, and everything that broke in the game has been fixed. There is still work to do on the UI, and I have to produce more content: items and recipes mostly. I also want to explore how far I can feasibly go with this system. I already have many cool ideas!

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this new system! What kind of crafting discoveries would you be most excited to make?