Will Arcen ever make a Crafting/Building game?

[mrhanman]

You never know if perhaps that name won't stick, it is long.  But I'm fond of it.

I really like the name.  Kinda makes me think of a Miyazaki film for some reason.

In this particular case, the general idea is that I want to create basically the game that I hoped Don't Starve Together would be, but (for me) wasn't.  In some respects, the 2D expression of 7 Days To Die, but not really.  A bit of SPAZ inspiration, I'd say.  A whole lot of new.

I liked Don't Starve quite a bit, but it never clicked as well with me as I had hoped.  I was never able to really put my finger on why, though.  I've nearly bought 7 Days To Die a couple times, but was afraid to pull the trigger.  If you've put 70 hours into it, then I think I might give it a shot in the near future.  SPAZ was awesome.  It got repetitive toward the end, but there was a lot to like.

I always look forward to Arcen's next title, but these little tid-bits have really piqued my interest.

[TheVampire100]

I'm currently checking my list of games for crafting to see what I have and what I like.

Don't Starve, well, I have it, obviously and i liked the game really much. The crafting system was not very unique but if you find a rare item and craft an even rarer item from it, you get the feeling of doing soemthing great. What me bugged was the very small inventory. Especially in crafting games you want to pick a huge amount of items up, DS forces you to drop everything at your base because you cannot walkt two miles without getting a full backpack.

Terraria: I don't know what you didn't like about it, it's one of my favourite games. it has more or less a "story-like" approach on the genre because you have your goals that you have to fulfill if you want all the good stuff. However, the crafting system, while easy and more confortable to use as in Minecraft, was horrible managed. You got lost really fast in the long list of craftable items.

Miencraft: obvious the one that threw the first stone. It wasn't the first game with crafting but it was one of the first that has mastered it. The 3x3 combination grid is featured in similiar games but what I don't like is that soem crafting recipes make no sense and you have to look them uo before you get what you want. Trial and error may help in some cases but the combinations are just topo much to remember or find out them all.

Gemcraft: Recently bought but already played like mad on the internet. The game is not the typical craftigng game, but since it has the word in it's name it deserves the spot. You can basicly modify your own towers like you want, there are 9 different gems in the game that have different abilities and you can mix them like you want, creating the towers you need. That's alot of possibilites and customization.

Skyrim: You can make your own items in the game. You have to follow basic recipes but the output depends on your skills, so there is at least some varity in it.

Plague Inc: Actually not my game, the game of my girlfriend. The game is basically about crafting your own disease. You can choose from different traits and abilities. Don't like the options that are in the game? Create your own.

Stranded Deep. A game that is in an very unfinished state but I wanted it even before it got into Early Access. the crafting system works different here, you have directly in the world crafting, you don't do stuff in a sperate menu. You put the materials together and then craft it. Ths is currently still very simple but the developer said that in the future you will have the option to create different parts for tools and other craftings that you can then put together like you want. The tool will then have attributes depending on the parts used. This gives the game a lot of customization in the future but I have to wait if it's done good or bad because this is a difficult task.

Also, on PS 2, in the broadest Sense Yugioh Capsule Colloseum. It is not really a crafting recipe but you could merge or evolve owned monsters/capsules depending on the situation. Finding out the the fusions and evolutions was a bif appeal of the game for me. You use some monsters just because you want to find out if they improve and you get a new combination, even if this would cost you the victory. Nice idea in my opinion.

[Pumpkin]

About Terraria and Minecraft, which is the best about crafting is a matter of taste (2D/3D is also a question of taste).
However, compared to Minecraft, I vastly prefer Terraria for two things: content and action.

On the chapter of content, let's play a little game. Count and compare the number of recipes, weapons, enemies and bosses. On every topic and for sheer quantity, Terraria outweigh Minecraft by a factor between 10 and 100. The progression in Minecraft is long because things are hard to find; I never get to the ender world because ender pearls are just ridiculously rare and you need a ridiculous amount of them. The progression in Terraria is, IMO, much more fun because there is always a new thing to do (until the last stage, which is the winter event, IIRC): a new boss to beat, a new biome to explore, a new weapon/armor set to craft... In Minecraft, once you get diamond, you can't have anything better in term of power.

Also, Terraria plays like an action platformer. There is so many different weapons, armors, bonuses, ... players can specialize between fighter, archer and wizard, each with a tons of different styles. With Minecraft, you can get a sword, a bow and... that's it. Displacement is also very rich in Terraria: the first hook is an enormous step in exploration ability, and the first wings and the ability to fly is again an enormous step. I find there is no interesting action/fighting with Minecraft.

I realize I didn't talked about crafting, which is the core of the debate. To flush this topic, I see no difference in the pure crafting mechanic, unless Terraria has a builtin reminder of the recipes you can make (while you have the ingredients) and Minecraft doesn't. Difference is 2D/3D and action/no-action. As 2D/3D is a matter of taste, lack of action is for me too boring past some times playing. (Don't get me wrong: I played a lot on Minecraft, really more times than I can count, because 3D building is fun, but I had sooo much fun with Terraria.)

But this is not the core of what I wanted to say (sorry, I get to it a bit late).
TL;DR:
Crafting and building is fin as long as:
- it's done well (Minecraft, Terraria, Don't Starve, ... have good crafting/building)
- there is not only this (Terraria has action, Don't Starve has survival, Minecraft has nothing)
What I wanted to say to Arcen... first I thrust you all for making awesome games, no doubt about this, but about this topic: don't make a game only about crafting and building. Please, don't be an empty-shell-Minecraft.

Remember this is an opinion; I would be glad to hear why you people disagree.

[Draco18s]

However, compared to Minecraft, I vastly prefer Terraria for two things: content and action.

Kind of why I made a point of talking about its crafting system, not the rest of the games.

Anyway, the reason I like Minecraft is the 2x2/3x3 grid that has recipes that are largely logical and straight forward (some mods aside).  But the lack of an in-game lexicon for those recipes does severely hamper it.  Which is why I want something in between Terraria (only uses a lexicon, much scrolling required, hides anything you can't make so if you're lacking some resource you need to remember what) and Minecraft (only uses the grid).

NEI comes really darn close to tweaking Minecraft in the right direction.  You can look up any object by name, you can look at what the recipe for an object is, as well as what recipes use it.  It's a very powerful lexicon.  It does, however, make it very easy to cheat.

The other thing that Minecraft did well, and which many mods don't, is insuring that every item you can craft has some value other than as a crafting ingredient.  Vanilla has no recipes that I can think of that exist solely to make the end result more expensive (rare mob drops--like the nether star--don't count, those are "base materials").

[TheVampire100]

However, compared to Minecraft, I vastly prefer Terraria for two things: content and action.

Kind of why I made a point of talking about its crafting system, not the rest of the games.

Anyway, the reason I like Minecraft is the 2x2/3x3 grid that has recipes that are largely logical and straight forward (some mods aside).  But the lack of an in-game lexicon for those recipes does severely hamper it.  Which is why I want something in between Terraria (only uses a lexicon, much scrolling required, hides anything you can't make so if you're lacking some resource you need to remember what) and Minecraft (only uses the grid).

NEI comes really darn close to tweaking Minecraft in the right direction.  You can look up any object by name, you can look at what the recipe for an object is, as well as what recipes use it.  It's a very powerful lexicon.  It does, however, make it very easy to cheat.

The other thing that Minecraft did well, and which many mods don't, is insuring that every item you can craft has some value other than as a crafting ingredient.  Vanilla has no recipes that I can think of that exist solely to make the end result more expensive (rare mob drops--like the nether star--don't count, those are "base materials").

Draco, what you are looking for is "Junk jack". This game will come to this this year (hopefully) and is already aviable at the iTunes store since some years. This game is frigging awesome and it is precisely what you described: a combination of minecrafts grid system with an ingame lexicon to search for the recipes. Best thing is, you don't have to find out the recipes through trial and error, blocks that you destroy in the game have a fair chance to drop a lexicon page that unlocks one or multiple recipes. And if you don't find these pages you can go the traditional way: Use the grid and find out what builds what. If you find out soemthing new it is immidatly written down in the crafting book.

I should be ashamed that I've totally forgotten about those game. It's my favourite craftong game of all times. It is also in other aspects close to minecraft and terraria and features the best of both. There was soem stuff I missed in terraria and stuff I missed in minecraft.
Junk Jack features multiple "planets/worlds" to unlock which have different themes, their own biomes, enemies, loot and so on. To get to the enxt planet you have to find three portal pieces on the planet before. The first one is Terra (earth) and after taht you get to Seth (desert/egyptian world). The different planets are unique in their appearance and if you are searchign for specific items you have to look on the right planet.
It also features encrusting of equipment (you can find gems and socket them into your tools for special bonuses), alchemy (you can mix 3 ingridents together and find out potions, works similiar as in TES games), a LOT of decoration, farmign (that's what I really missed in Terraria), COOKING (missed this in both Terraria AND Minecraft, Minecraft had some basic recipes but nothing special) and much more.
Also you can toggle ALWAYS between peaceful and survival mode in your world instead of creating different worlds or characters that ae specialized. You can use your character and everything he carries in other worlds you create (Terraria).

Stuff that isn't in it: Bosses. There are some harder neemies that you could count as mini bosses but besides that there are no big bosses like in Terraria or Minecraft and it does not seem that anything is planned like that.
Logic circuits. They are planned for the Steam version but ae not in the iOS version.
NPCs. If you do not count animals or Monsters to them of course.
Long term goal. Minecraft had one, terraria had one. Junk Jack has only the goal to find all portal pieces and unlock all planets, afterwards it's up to you. You can try to find rare loot or create the strongest equipment, eat all the cooking recipes... But because of the above points of not having NPCs or Bosses you will come to an end at some point.

The building style is more similiar to minecraft in the way that you have blocks and not the tiny pseudo-blocks in Terraria. The whole game has because of this a blocky appearance but players have shown really crazy stuff that you can make with this.

[Draco18s]

Neat
I'd prefer Minecraft's FP perspective than Terraria's side-scrolling 2D, but we can't have everything (and I recognize that a 2D game is easier to make).

[TheVampire100]

3D games on iOS are difficult to make and that's what the game was launched on. The Steam version is an extra that was wished long for by fans and is finally being developed.
And I cannot say that I prefer 2D or 3D. it depends on the game. And the 3D controls of Minecrafta re ANNOYNING in iOS, so I'm more happy that it's 2D.
Also, the game is only dione by two guys, one for the code and graphics, the other for the sound. Les speople as on Minecraft and Terraria.

[x4000]

It's honestly one of those "x factor" things for both my wife and I.  We started playing, and weren't really feeling connected to anything for whatever reason.  We didn't know fully what we were doing, and didn't feel super inspired to find out or to go exploring.  It's really pretty much as simple as that -- we had other games that were more interesting to us personally, so we played those.  It's nothing against the game, it just didn't click with us and so we moved on.  I still plan to go back to that game, and I tried to get my son to watch it with me, but he thought it was boring.  It's a game I think I would like if I got to play it more steadily.

But there are a lot of games where we just have this instant "click" connection with in some fashion, and since there were enough of those, they won out over Terraria at the time.

[ptarth]

When you have a spare 20 hours, you should watch TB & Jesse attempt to play Terraria.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89fW4MTJvRs&list=PL56B73C4D478D9A49

[Draco18s]

We didn't know fully what we were doing, and didn't feel super inspired to find out or to go exploring.  It's really pretty much as simple as that -- we had other games that were more interesting to us personally, so we played those.

That's exactly how I felt about Starbound.  The "tutorial" quests only take you up to "killing the UFO" and not beyond that (so I never figured out how to power my own space ship and go to other planets) and I felt no drive to explore.

[TheVampire100]

We didn't know fully what we were doing, and didn't feel super inspired to find out or to go exploring.  It's really pretty much as simple as that -- we had other games that were more interesting to us personally, so we played those.

That's exactly how I felt about Starbound.  The "tutorial" quests only take you up to "killing the UFO" and not beyond that (so I never figured out how to power my own space ship and go to other planets) and I felt no drive to explore.

Have you played the new update? They imrpoved the game a lot with a big quest chain, new bosses (the first boss is not the UFO anymore, teh UFO is now the second Boss), dungeons (you cannot destroy blocks in there), overhauled a lot of the systems like the energy system, food system and many more, you can now capture animals and much more.
The game feels a lot more entertaining than before, but is still unfinished and you will eventually come to an end. But you have now a lot more to go as before.

[Draco18s]

No, and frankly, "meh."

I might take a peek in the Far Future, but not right now.

[TheVampire100]

Okay, I won't try to convince you. Since you said you prefer the 3D style over 2D it might not be the right game for you.

[Draco18s]

Okay, I won't try to convince you. Since you said you prefer the 3D style over 2D it might not be the right game for you.

Possible.  Not that I have anything against 2D games, I just think that it doesn't suit the exploration genre that well.

(By "exploration genre" I mean games that are more focused on exploring than on aspect.  Rogue Legacy is primarily a side-scrolling platformer combat game, so while there is exploration involved, the bulk of the gameplay centers on the combat).

Speaking of combat, I really dislike Terraria/Starbound's combat.  And I have no idea why.

[TheVampire100]

Maybe because it is simply and still entertaining. I mean, you don't do much more as spamming the attack buton, but you have to evade attacks, jump around... it feels a lot like the Mega Man X games in that way.

3D exploration/crafting games have the reputation of not getting properly finished. Starforge was a huge disaster and the developers try the exact same thing with their new game. They don't learn it soemhow.

Fortress Craft has soem nice ideas like modular machines that you can customize like you want, creating crazy machien set ups, but curently it is mostly designed around mining and there is a huge lack of updates. Also they don't seem to have an actual goal what to add, they add stuff totally randomly and it does not make any sense. Also, looking after your temperature all the time is annoying as hell.

There might be better ones (except Minecraft) but I cannot think of one.