The Road to the Trilogy - Crafting Mechanics

 Hello. C J here. This is my second post that I have planned for today. This post is about the crafting mechanics that I have planned for Absolute. Crafting will be an instrumental part of the game. There’s no levelling up so that you, the player, never have to track levels or experience points. I’m simplifying the whole fantasy RPG genre down to it’s core. And that core is crafting, not experience point counting. Levelling up was done properly by Skyrim and as Skyrim typically does to things it uses it used it up. I’m not competing with that game’s perfect absolutely beautiful skill perks system.

You gain power and upgrade your stats, called Attributes in the game, by crafting new equipment. This is part of why the game is divided into four tiers of ten worlds each. Each tier of worlds offers more useful and more powerful crafting ingredients that can be used to make more powerful and more useful gear. Crafting itself is done only at the team’s campsite. Every time you find a campfire pit in the wilderness or go into a player owned house you will have the option of going to your campsite. This is also how you save. You end a day and only then does the game save your progress. Make it back alive or your day is lost.

The campsite is persistent and stores all of your crafting tools and ingredients. You, the player, don’t have an inventory. All of your gear is stored here. The crafting tools are physical locations that you can walk between that never move. As you progress through the game you can unlock more of them as well. The ingredients are stored in a pantry, in wagons, or in tents around the campsite. Interact with one of the piles of food, raw minerals, fabric, wood, or monster hide to pick one of it up. Interact with one of the crafting locations while holding it to craft it into something.

The top right of the screen during gameplay contains the social combat buttons. I’m planning a square that can contain an image of the person you are talking to as well as three buttons beneath it that do social combat attacks. While crafting the image is instead of the ingredient you are holding. Using this ingredient on a crafting location alters it in some way. Using an apple on the prep table makes apple slices. Using a potato on the stewpot starts the process of making potato stew. Using a slice of red meat on the oven makes roast beef. The same logic applies to all of the other crafting skills. Some recipes require combinations of ingredients that have already been crafted into something new, like a pie takes apple slices and not whole apples.

There is an armour stand to change what armour you are wearing, a weapons rack to change your weapon and a spellbook stand to pick your active spells. All of these equipment options cannot be changed while out in a city or in the wilderness without ending your day. You can also unlock nation or culture specific crafting recipes by gaining a high enough rank in a nation or culture by doing quests there. These allow you to make the clothing, armour and weapons found on NPCs in the main storyline. So on Earth you can walk like an Egyptian. In Absolute you can dress like an Ascalan.

C J Mcpherson