So I am thinking what's the best direction to go with this game.

I mean, since Amber is an alchemist, it should be mostly doing potions, and a bit of other things.

I had the idea of alchemists using their knowledge to refine raw materials, or even gems. I made the ingots recipes, and also made all those skills.

I am unsure though if to keep going in this direction, or stick more into a classic alchemist recipes.

Of course any recipe I add is not wasted, since I'll be able to reuse it in Loren 2 or other future fantasy games. But in practice I'm thinking about what I should do to make this game in particular.



For example, should Amber be doing also jewelry? I could add the whole thing (I have already the ore -> ingot part), then I would need the gem->refined gems and put together. Though people might wonder: then an alchemist DOES EVERYTHING? (jewelry, armor/weaponsmith, etc). And it seems a bit unrealistic to be honest



My plan currently it's this:

1) Amber can do some basic "refinement" tasks: refine ore into ingots, gem nugget into pebble/crystals, and so on. I figure that even if a smith or jeweler could do those, an alchemist could still do them as well. Just not forge the actual weapon/armor or craft the jewel, otherwise we would again move into "I CRAFT EVERYTHING" dangerous territory

Those tasks are useful to make a bit of money during the dead periods of the game or while you wait for other ingredients to arrive, etc.

2) proper potion-making: this would be the main focus of this game, and would involve combining the most crazy ingredients into powerful potions

3) imbuing/enchanting items: this would also work, like wooden figurines, talismans, etc. I think an alchemist is the appropriate person to ask (well beside a witch but they're not allowed in Icesilia! )



I think with this plan, there should still be good variety of items, but without the need to go nuts. I would also limit Amber's skills into 5:

Metalworking (ore->ingot)

Gemcutting (nugget->pebble/crystal gems)

Woodworking (wood->planks->figurines, magic staves and other stuff)

Potionmaking (the classic ingredients->potions)

Enchanting (basically take any item like rings/earrings/pendants and imbue it. Like use liquid/oil/potions to give the item magical properties)



In summary, an alchemist would know a bit of metalworking, jewelcrafting and woodworking but not skilled enough to do weapons, jewelry, armor (otherwise the other professions would run out of business! ). They would have superior knowledge of making potions and enchanting items with the potions they made (this could be seen as last step, once the potion is done, there could be some process/ritual to use the potion on the item).



OK sorry for the long rant, hopes it makes sense!!

Not that there's anything wrong with an alchemist being able to craft jewels, weapons and armor, it could be more a matter of time and quality.

Jewels maybe, but weapons and armors would be a bit weird. Never seen in a RPG "this sword was crafted by a skilled alchemist" A ring, earring, etc instead could maybe work, even if alchemist usually means potions.

Anyway for now will start from the bottom, then if I have time and makes sense in the gameplay, I guess I could add jewels too.

Jewels maybe, but weapons and armors would be a bit weird. Never seen in a RPG "this sword was crafted by a skilled alchemist" A ring, earring, etc instead could maybe work, even if alchemist usually means potions.

Anyway for now will start from the bottom, then if I have time and makes sense in the gameplay, I guess I could add jewels too.

Well, at least a few games have them craft magical weapons (staves, wands, etc.) for casters, but it is uncommon. There are plenty of medicines and herbal remedies and such you could focus on instead.



Also, how is your crafting gameplay going to work? Do you just select the items and press "create"? Is the gameplay around gathering the items, discovering the recipes, or creating the item itself?

Also, how is your crafting gameplay going to work? Do you just select the items and press "create"? Is the gameplay around gathering the items, discovering the recipes, or creating the item itself?

Indeed, that brings up something I've wanted to know: at any point would the player be able to try out combining ingredients w/o anything set up prior, and see what comes out?

IRL Alchemists ware early scientist , in Fantasy RPGs they are usually treated as magical scientists or people who combine the two so I think anything really goes for them from potions to magical weapons and armor to wired inventions, while blacksmith creates large quantity of normal weapons and armor Alchemists makes a few magical ones.

Never seen in a RPG "this sword was crafted by a skilled alchemist"

Kamidori Alchemy Meister

Well, at least a few games have them craft magical weapons (staves, wands, etc.) for casters, but it is uncommon. There are plenty of medicines and herbal remedies and such you could focus on instead.

Yes staves and wands could be another good exception indeed. If I add jewelry I guess I could also add that.

Also, how is your crafting gameplay going to work? Do you just select the items and press "create"? Is the gameplay around gathering the items, discovering the recipes, or creating the item itself?

Currently you can buy recipes and then if you have the ingredients, craft it.



I should talk about Anima about adding "discoverable recipes", since that would be something very different from how the system works now. It could be fun though, so if it's possible, I'd like to try adding it

The gameplay would consist of:

- get ingredients (gathering, buying them)

- get recipes (buying, maybe if it gets implemented with "discovery")

- craft items

- put them on sale in your shop

This part would be very similar to Recettear, for those who played it. Apart that of course in this game there's no dungeon/combat.



Sometimes the items could sell quickly (depending on price, demand, etc) while other times could take a lot of time. A feature already implemented is "salvaging". You can salvage an item to retrieve some materials, so if you craft something that doesn't sell you can salvage it and reuse some of the materials to produce something new.



Then, there would be the "commissions/orders" (I'll need to find the right word). In practice people ask you to craft item X in Y days for a big reward (much more than the usual sell price) and fulfilling these "orders" would also increase your overall fame, unlocking more recipes and stuff.



It's also a sort of test for a possible implementation of crafting in future RPGs

Most games I know have crafting where you select recipes and then click a button and watch a progress bar. But FFXIV treats it pretty much like an http://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Crafting#Crafting_Basics. You have one set of abilities that attempt to increase the quality of an item, where the higher the quality the higher the chance for a high-qualty item (better stats, can sell for 2x-3x more). The other set increases the "crafting progress" where you need 100% progress to finish the item or the craft fails. Each action you take reduces the item's durability, but there are a number of other special actions you can use to reduce durability loss, repair the loss, or augment your synthesis/quality abilities. (And of course, your gear contains crafting stats to increase the attributes used for synthesis or quality or action points.)



It turns crafting essentially into a 30-60 second minigame if you're aiming for a high-quality item. Or if you don't care, you can skip all the quality stuff and craft a normal item in about five seconds. But it's a lot more involved than watching a progress bar.



On the other hand, I know games like the Atelier series are more focused on resource gathering and (I think) recipe experimentation. So a completely different type of crafting gameplay. I have also seen a few games here and there that have small minigames to craft where say, ingredient sequence is important and you're trying not to overheat your mixture by throwing everything in at once.



But that's why I was asking what you meant by "crafting".

Yes I know there are some games with crafting minigames. I never played FFXIV, but I played Everquest 2 which has something similar too, while crafting you must click some icons/skills that would change the result.



I thought about a system like this, though for now Amber it's more about resource gathering and buying/selling at the right price. Each recipe has a time to make, so for the commission/orders you'll be running against time (not real-time, but in-game turns). Also we don't have the durability stat in the game (but of course could be added).



Not saying that I couldn't use such system, but in practice:

1) worse case, I could always add it as last thing, once everything works. Since it would only impact the quality and durability of item, everything else beside the minigame would work the same

2) my players usually don't like real-time stuff so I am not sure if they would like something like that.

So it's more of an economic simulation? Will have to see when the demo comes out, since it's a bit hard to grasp.



(Also, the crafting systems I mentioned are all turn-based once you get to the crafting screen. No need for real-time crafting.)

Yes it's a mix of crafting (obviously) but also economic simulation, running the shop, buying the ingredients at best price, etc. (there will be random events that alter the prices dramatically for example).

It's hard for me to see the big picture as well, because I'm adding features as I go. With a RPG is easier, you know what you need to put to make it fun. With this game is definitely harder!

So that's why I said that if in the end with just the automatic crafting the game is not fun/interesting enough, I could do the minigame, turn-based (the one I played in EQ2 was semi-realtime).

I'm thinking that once I got the basic gameplay done, I'll put out a beta demo. Without story, just the gameplay, to see if it could work/people like it, and then go from there. Adding the story as last thing will be easier once gameplay works

buying the ingredients at best price

Will there be any points in which we can forage for ingredients? In the map posted a while back for instance, there were 2 forest areas, as well as a marsh.



I could see berries, roots, barks, leaves, and stones coming from the former; and brackish water (maybe for imbuing something w/ stillness? [a potion to promote sleep to someone w/ frequent nightmares, for instance]), reeds, and maybe even marsh gas being harvested from the latter.

Yes I need to add that. To be honest this part is quite hard for me because of language barrier I think will ask the help of some writers or people here.

To me, crafting is more interesting when it gives you some flexibility or creativity in synthesizing your items.



Skyrim's smithing was not much more than combining specific materials. It's alchemy system, on the other hand, allowed the player to experiment with different ingredients to create unique potions or poisons.



In Atelier Ayesha (I'm unsure about the rest of the Atelier series), you needed to acquire a recipe. Some recipes require a specific a item, but usually you have at least one choice of ingredient with a given category (fruit, ore, etc.) The quality and properties can change depending on the ingredient chosen.



That being said, this may not work in the context of a business simulation, where you are responding to the market rather than what you personally use. In that case, you use incorporate time management. Will you sell cheap trinkets that can be cranked in a few hours, or spend a couple of days carefully crafting a special item to sell for much higher price? The 5 skills you have in mind can be used to either create higher quality items or yield greater quantity of materials in less time.

Wow it's a while since I haven't updated this thread

Yes of course if there was also a RPG part, things would need to be done differently. The ingredients could come from looting enemies/creatures, so you might want to kill certain type of monsters to get specific ingredients, or craft some potions using an ingredients that maybe would give you fire resistance bonus, etc etc.

That's also why I didn't add a RPG part to this game, would be quite complex - especially if wanted to have a lot of recipes.



I might reuse this system in RPG with a much limited/restricted scope, like for PS2, I think could be interesting if there was the OPTION (since not everyone probably likes it) to craft items and stuff from enemy loot or gathering some ingredients during missions. But there wouldn't be 250 recipes like in Amber, I could get away with it since it would be a RPG, and not a crafting simulation



Back to Amber, today uploaded a video showing how the automatic crafting works (it's very simple actually):

[youtubewd]VRWCvr_9YDM[/youtubewd]

simply clicking on one of the two buttons, the game will automatically pick the ingredients for you (assuming you have them!). So you can make higher quality (but more expensive) items, or cheaper quality ones. It could be useful for example if a task requires you to craft 25 copper ingot in a week, but doesn't matter about quality (or has minimum target quality of 50 or something).



The original system is much more complex, but I thought to keep that one only if you click the "Manual" crafting. Since I guess most of the time players will want to do it automatically. Also, you can always craft it manually, so it's not like you CANNOT do it, if you really want.

Manual will be probably used when you want to balance stuff, like you know you have enough ingredients for a final result of XYZ quality, and you want something in the middle (not highest or lowest quality).



Also, if we manage to add the "recipe discovery" feature (I really hope so since would be cool!) this is also where players will experiment with ingredients, trying to uncover new recipes

This looks more and more awesome all the time, Jack!!!

Thanks, today I'm going to add the various shops, including random events/seasonal changes

I lied, yesterday took a break

Today though I started for real:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CygaQBaXEAApRFa.jpg" style="max-width:100%">

I'm going to do first the seasonal events, which have a good chance of happening during a specific season.

In the game you won't be able to see a summary like this until the event itself triggers, OR with the "aviary room" (I need to find a better name lol). Basically I had the idea that you can have a sort of room with crows bringing news at light-speed from all around Aravorn. If you build that room, you'll know a few days before the event triggers, so you can do all your own market speculations

*Importing wood from Grandtree and ore/gems from Hammerhands is more expensive.



Are you also planning non-seasonal events, like a band of goblins ransacked the last caravan from X, so temporary price surge on whatever they were carrying?