HELP CREATING POTION CRAFTING SYSTEM

How would you go about creating a potion/alchemy system from scratch?
What are some instances of such a system that you have seen and enjoyed in other video games.
Please give me ideas.

Other urls found in this thread:

youtu.be/ZG0C3ojOTTs?t=5m16s
yanko.itch.io/dissection
twitter.com/AnonBabble

sure, game dev-san, i'll try to help bail you out. is the system the point of the game, or is it added functionality? if the latter, how important are the items you create?

Its not the focus but it is the majority of the gameplay. Basically a cooking game but with potions that you make for customers.

>Its not the focus
>but it is the majority of the gameplay
well i can already tell this game is either waifu trash. good luck op, may you drain the wallets of many a virgin weeb.

jesus i fucked that post up. i wrote either thinking it might be something else but after looking at op's image again i decided it was definitely waifu trash. even replied to the wrong post.

if it's the majority of gameplay, it's the focus, though? the focus in a cooking game is, of course, the cooking.

i'm a little concerned that you're trying to solicit ideas for the main gameplay loop. it sounds a little like you had an idea (probably story-related or character-related), but you haven't invested any effort into thinking about or researching the most important part: how it actually plays.

i strongly recommend that you, personally, go play some games with alchemy gameplay or cooking gameplay, and then look at what elements you think work well, what don't, and what you feel is missing.

that, or you can have me sign a contract for a % of the profit, because i think it's unreasonable to ask others to design the core of the game for you, man.

lol

It is waifu trash. The potion making is an idea I had to make the "game" more fun/interesting. "Game" will be free so no profit.
Thanks for the advice though. Any games you'd recommend with good potion crafting systems?

In Atelier Ayesha, crafting is pretty important to quests and combat. The game takes place over a couple of years and each item takes a few days to craft. You have to be smart with what you craft and pay attention to the calendar or else you might miss an event. Collecting materials isn't hard as well.

In Ragnarok Online, there's a crafting system available to the Merchant class that allows them to create things like healing items. Once you get to advanced classes, you can make either weapons and improve them, homunculus that aids you in battle, debuff and attack potions.

In RSE, there's the Poffin thing where you can create Pokeblocks. It involves a minigame with other players or a computer. The berries needed to create them are pretty much everywhere. Although it isn't the main point of the game, it is integral to progressing in PokeContests.

The main draw is to not have the materials too hard to obtain otherwise the crafting isn't fun in addition to not having constantly low success rates to create the goods needed.

just do what UO did

so hilarious when you pick pocketted someone's black pearls

>The main draw is to not have the materials too hard to obtain
I second this heartily. If you want to make a crafting system fun then first you need to remember that you're focusing on ->crafting

Understood. But how do you make the crafting itself fun?
Lots of ingredients and trial and error? Minigames with a bit of skill?

i don't know about good, but a few games with crafting/alchemy systems:
- atelier
- witcher
- TES
- ffxiv
- cook, serve, delicious
- candy box
- potion maker

>Understood. But how do you make the crafting itself fun?
when you finally find the right mixture there is a poof and a fireball that scorches holes in their clothes, obviously. like you said op, the main focus isn't the gameplay it's the waifus anyway.

Sounds like a great idea for a mobile game.

My vote goes to trial and error, but without distinct success or failure. Put in a way to test potions, like a little magic dummy with stats, player drops their potion on it and sees the results.

I’m no game dev guru, but let me tell you what i fucking love.
Any game with a “combination and discovery” mechanic. Like kirby 64 power combos or paper mario where you give the chef random foods and she gives you items with different uses, even slime rancher with the slime combinations. I don’t know why more games don’t do this but it makes the game so much more interesting.

So what you should do, op, is have a set amount of consumables or materials, and the player has access to a cauldron or something. And he can only use 2-3 materials at a time. Have much more item combinations than you do findable items to combine. It’ll be fun, trust.

There needs to be a reason why you're crafting not just for the sake of crafting. Are you using the items to increase your stats? Are they weapons? How does crafting supplement the overall game? In the vid below, crafting is a rhythm game. You're a smith creating weapons for others and you can only get better materials if you create good weapons for them so they survive.

youtu.be/ZG0C3ojOTTs?t=5m16s

if you are asking for my favorite types of crafting systems then basically take crafting from Rune Factory but remove the level grinding.
Make each material have it's own stats when crafting it into something along with hilarious hidden shit like Rare Cans, Invisible Stones, Formula X, Mealy Apples, etc. does that is learned through obscure character dialogue and experimentation

potions are created from several common and uncommon substances, which are found in a variety of different ingredients, to varying degrees and varying concentrations.
The mechanics come in when determining which ingredients to take and the skill lies in how much and how easily the substances are extracted and combinable.

>Its not the focus
>but it is the majority of the gameplay
>mostly filler
Sounds like any AAA game then.

BotW has a cool crafting system.

how?

The first Witcher had a great alchemy system, it's too much to describe it in detail and I'm also too lazy for that but you should definitely check it out.

captcha: sold europe

bump

Arx Fatalis was pretty cool. you mixed flour and water to get dough, then you used a rolling pin on the dough to flatten it then you dropped that dough on the grill/fire to cook it. You could also add wine or apples to the dough to make pie. I know I'm talking about cooking, but what you have to keep in mind is that things have to make sense. Maybe putting snake poison in a cauldron creates a cloud above the cauldron? If you use some tool to gather from that cloud you can get some sort of vapor that you can use for other ingredients. Interactivity and making effort actually pay off is key.

POTION SELLER

It would be nice if instead of just throwing random shit into cauldron we were required to extract venom from venom glands and stuff if we aren't buying directly from a store
Roughly like how it works in this for example
yanko.itch.io/dissection

To add to this anons post: You would be doing all of this with the mouse, dragging and dropping items from your inventory and the game world; really immersive and it made the player feel much more involved

If your game itself isn't complex then your crafting system shouldn't be either.

If you're going to do alchemy, go all the fucking way.
use vials and bottles of different sizes, stock them up if you want to make potions, glass does not appear out of thin air, use alchemy tools for making potions and ingredients, mortar, retort, calcinator etc, use solvents, water and alcohol as reagents.
think about the use of your results, use potions for healing or buffing, incendiary or magical bombs, oils to make your weapons burn in fire,
make a process an important part of alchemy, use temperature as a modifier, use catalysts and other tools to stabilize your results, use some kind of failure or success rating
classify all sorts of raw materials for making ingredients and extract their proprieties.
make sure ingredients have some sort of quality or purity standard
make sure you can identify proprieties of a ingredient, make knowledge an important part of the system, encourage discovery and experimentation
combine potions and solutions to make even better potions according to your knowledge.

do not simplify things, make complexity and experimentation part of the system, reward the player with knowledge and become a powerful alchemist

go fucking autistic man, that's what I want, and if you do this, I will play the shit out of your game

There are specific recipes for stuff. There are also buffs that be extended to last longer if you have the correct ingredients.

>There are specific recipes for stuff.
truly groundbreaking crafting system
>There are also buffs that be extended to last longer if you have the correct ingredients.
see above

you botw are truly something special

Depending on how you will do it something that let's you store information you got already would be nice
For example if you add book you would have to fill yourself it would be nice if you could find other books or recipes to improve your book so you could eventually have a whole bookshelf full of books you have written yourself and other things
That or just automatic book with all that info if it's simpler game

I have a good idea for a potion system but I'm keeping it for myself :3

Rude

also magical transmutation or infusion should be an important part of your work as an alchemist, lets say you have a quest to make a blade be stronger or sharper, or infusing it with special elemental proprieties.

The real concept of a game I have is that you're an alchemist in a shithole village, and as you progress you put your own store in a bigger city, then in the capital, you sell potions ingredientes, bombs and shit, the thing is that you collect raw materials when you go around with a party of heroes gaining gold and pages of old books to increase your knowledge
you are not a permanent part of the various parties of heroes, like, you're not the direct protagonist of the story. like a shop keeper or a mercenary alchemist. you'll gain quests, like some guys is trying to poison some other dude, and you sell the other guy the antidote, or a party wants some sort of smoke bomb so they can confuse a dragon, or a king wants to seduce her next queen I dont know, shit wuould be fun as fuck

I hope you like my idea OP because I would totally do it if I had any brain to program a game. I just have talent to be a mediocre ilustrator,

If it makes you feel any better the goal with it is zachtronics tier autism.

looks fun

not him but now i want to hear the idea dammit. however it would surely be tl:dr for my attention span

also if you're making potions, pick a charming art style

Neato. What's that from?

path of exile

Nice.

Honestly it would be nice if there was way to distinguish potions in some way
Maybe strong ones glow or have some nice animation and things like that