作者：Eric Schwarz

尽管从传统意义上来看，锻造武器/道具的系统主要出现于角色扮演游戏（RPG）和盗贼类游戏（roguelikes）中，但是现在它却成为了各种类型的现代游戏通用的一大机制了。毕竟，游戏是各种选择的集合体，并且就像RPG中的经验值已经渗透到所有游戏元素中一样，锻造系统是另外一种能够给玩家提供选择的可靠方法。

虽然如此，并非所有锻造系统都是相同的——如今几乎在所有游戏的功能列表中都能够看到“锻造系统”的字眼，但是它既是一种富有创造性的创想，也能够变成让人乏味与沮丧的罪魁祸首。虽然锻造系统具有其价值，但是能否合理执行这一机制并发挥其价值也需要依赖正确的方法。方法对了，锻造系统便能够为游戏带来好处，方法错了，甚至有可能导致玩家放弃游戏。

为什么要设置锻造系统？

在详细分析锻造系统之前我们应该先弄清楚一个基本问题，即为什么需要创造锻造系统？锻造系统能够为游戏带来什么？它能够解决何种问题，并且又会制造出哪些新问题？更重要的是，锻造系统是否适合游戏的整体主题？但是如果涉及游戏机制，我们就更需要搞清楚为何在游戏设计或编程之前需要明确这一系统的必要性。

crafting (from mmosanctuary.com)

锻造系统对游戏机制的作用

1.让玩家有一种亲力亲为的感觉。就像是自己做饭吃而不是叫外卖，锻造系统能让玩家感受到自己拥有自己所创造的道具。即使你可能是根据“菜谱”进行制作或者其中未融入太多的创造性，但是简单的锻造过程比起为玩家提供相同的道具更能让他们获得满足感。

2.实现道具的二次使用。受战利品驱动的游戏，特别是RPG所存在的一个共同问题是，玩家可能会因为拥有过多装备而无所适从。而通常来看解决方法便是卖掉或者抛弃这些装备，虽然玩家很少会在游戏中使用这两种方法。但是锻造系统便能够很好地缓解这一问题。

3.平衡游戏内部的经济系统。提供给玩家过多无用的道具的另外一大副作用是，将导致游戏经济失去平衡或趋于不稳定，并破坏游戏中货币的价值。我都不记得在多少款RPG中，因为拥有太多货币并无处可花，只能停止收集路上遇到的道具。而执行锻造系统不仅能够减少过多无用的道具，而且能够提高游戏内部货币的价值并维持它的重要作用。

4.鼓励玩家探索游戏世界。特别是在开放世界中，锻造系统能够帮助设计师更好地吸引玩家沉浸于游戏世界中。即使只是需要摘几多花去提炼药剂，如果玩家能够因此获得道具，他们便会愿意为此付出时间和精力——-特别是这些道具很有帮助并且较为稀有之时。

5.提供更有帮助的奖励。你有多少次在完成游戏目标后却只接收到一些无用的奖励，例如对于魔法师来说没有意义的长剑或者低于角色级别的道具等。而在锻造系统中，玩家能够获得一些锻造材料或者特殊诀窍，如此设计师既不用绞尽心思去揣摩针对不同玩家的不同奖励，而且玩家也能够获得对自己有帮助的实在奖励。

6.增加游戏时间。不幸的是，有些游戏错误地利用了锻造系统的功能。尽管，要求玩家花费更多时间完成游戏任务有时候是好事（如果游戏太过简单，那么花费太多时间也就不值得了），但是我们所接触过的游戏大多都只是利用这一机制扩展玩家的游戏体验而已。

掌握了这些内容，我们便能够进一步分析如何更好地使用锻造系统了。虽然从字面上来看，锻造系统很有效，但是放在特定环境中，我们就难以保证它是否有利于游戏设计了。使用了锻造系统的《超级马里奥3D大陆》是否会变得更加完善？情节紧凑且具有结构性的《Uncharted》是否需要一个基于鼓励探索的系统？《侠盗猎车手4》是一款开放游戏，但是强调以不同火药创造不同类型的子弹是否符合设计师最初的理念，或者是否符合当前的游戏体验。

不用说，想总是比做容易，而唯一能够测试想法的便是实践。虽然锻造系统能够带给游戏许多好处，但是我也在某些游戏体验中感受到奇怪，抽象的锻造系统，好像它出现在游戏中只是一种偶然，未能与游戏维系起自然的联系，我想应该是因为设计师未能详细审视个体游戏机制以及它们在游戏整体中的作用。

锻造技能

RPG游戏设置中所包含的锻造技巧是用于约束玩家的锻造能力而不是节制资源的使用。与“为什么需要锻造系统”相同，回答“为什么需要锻造技巧”也能够帮我们明确锻造系统在特定游戏中是否有效。即使一款游戏适合使用锻造系统，但是也有可能出现锻造技巧过度使用或使用不合理的问题。

当我们在考虑锻造技巧之前，首先应该搞清楚以下问题：

如何执行技巧级别？玩家在游戏中的锻造技巧升级是否区别于其它技巧，或者这种技巧的发展与标准游戏设置是否牢牢结合在一起？

花费多长时间才能获得锻造技巧的升级？是否需要投入更多时间，如获取经验值那样，或者需要投入其它资源，如收集的货币或锻造资源等？

锻造技巧的级别构成是怎样的？只有一些技巧级别拥有较大的利益，或者这些级别会跟随着玩家的每一步前进而相对增长？

锻造系统是固定的还是可定制的？也就是，锻造系统是遵循于约束所有玩家的共同规则，还是玩家可以根据自己的选择创造属于自己的锻造系统，如针对特定道具创造锻造系统。

锻造技巧提供给玩家何种信息？是展现了所有游戏机制的细节内容，还是为了鼓励玩家主动尝试而有所隐藏？

玩家拥有多少锻造技巧？每个玩家只拥有一种锻造技巧，还是玩家掌握了游戏中的所有锻造技巧？

比起其它技巧玩家是否会更多地关注于锻造技巧？例如，玩家是否会为了成为一名更加出色的工匠而放弃战斗能力？

也许这些问题看起来很明显，并且它们都是设计师在开发过程中苦心想出的问题，但是你也必须尽早地找到它们的答案。这些选择阐述了锻造系统的属性；如果不尽早花时间尝试着寻找问题的答案，将会导致锻造系统的失衡，并且难以融入游戏中，而最终只能成为一种无效的系统。

锻造系统和刷任务

就像我之前提到过的，锻造系统的出现频率远远高于我的想象，并且主要是用于拉长游戏时间，但是可能就因此影响了游戏的价值。就像在日本的RPG中，如《最终幻想》，为了打败主要怪物，玩家不得不花时间进行一些重复的战斗，锻造工具，并通过要求玩家重复相同的游戏内容而约束他们的行为，从而破坏了整款游戏的节奏和基调。

有时候，适当的刷任务能够为游戏带来好处，而做得太过火便很容易让玩家感到沮丧。但是如果刷任务是可选项，即不一定是玩家必须完成的任务，那么玩家便可以根据自己的需要做出行动。相反地，也有些玩家更喜欢刷任务机制，因为他们认为这是一个“安全区”，即他们不需要琢磨着如何应付新游戏机制或故事元素。刷任务内容非常主观，我们应该明确适量的刷任务内容，包括哪些是必要的以及哪些是可选择的。

crafting system in Team Fortress 2(from gamasutra)

如上图，《军团要塞2》使用了大规模的锻造系统，并且侧重点远远大于游戏的核心元素。

还有一些游戏出现了过多的刷任务机制，以致将过分扩大锻造系统的功能。举个例子来说，《军团要塞2》便过度使用了锻造系统，从而导致我和好友们一起退出了游戏。尽管这是一款本应能够经受时间考验的多人游戏，但是游戏开发者和整个游戏社区都不合理地突出了锻造系统在游戏中的地位，从而破坏了游戏整体的平衡。

为了更好地进行说明，我将详细分析游戏中一款稀有道具“Sharpened Volcano Fragment”的锻造过程。

1.一开始，我们需要“Scrap Metal”，这是游戏角色需要结合两种武器创造而成的。

2.然后我们需要“Reclaimed Metal”，由3个“Scrap Metals”构成，这就意味着我们需要收集6个武器。

3.再来我们需要“Refined Metal”，而它需要3个“Reclaimed Metal”，等于我们总共需要聚集18个武器。

4.“Sharpened Volcano Fragment”需要2件“Refined Metal”。所以到现在我们共需要36个武器。

5.最后，“Refined Metal”需要与“Axtinguisher”，以及另外一个武器“Pyro”（相对来说较为稀有）结合在一起，但是因为我们已经费尽心力得到36个道具了，所以多做这一步也似乎也没什么大不了。

当然了，这个案例所说的还是乐观情况，并以玩家能够凑齐锻造武器所需的一切道具为假设前提。但是实际上，玩家在游戏中需要收集的武器常常是这个数量的2至3倍之多。不过还是有许多“永不畏惧”的忠实玩家努力在完成这些任务，据估计，玩家在游戏中每隔2、3个小时才能够找到一个新的道具，如此看来，玩家每周只能收集到8至10个新道具。这就意味着你花费80至100个小时寻找到的道具只能够锻造出一个武器。所以玩家很有可能花费250个小时甚至更多的时间只是在安装一些所需的原材料罢。

当然了，这是一个较为极端的案例，游戏中的大多数道具并不需要玩家投入如此多的时间和精力——如果你不在意锻造目标，那么一般15个小时便可。但是这个例子主要是用于强调锻造道具所需要的投入的时间之多，而这正是开发者和游戏社区对玩家的期待。想到可能需要放弃白天工作时间去锻造武器，多数玩家更情愿花钱买到这些现成的装备。

优秀的锻造系统：案例分析

分析了《军团要塞2》中刷任务般的锻造系统，接下来我将列举一款合理使用了锻造系统的游戏。《崛起》是一款由《Gothic》系列的原班制作人马Piranha Bytes开发的游戏，延续了后者开放的世界和惩罚机制等优点，但是拥有了一个较为复杂的故事轴。我认为这是迄今为止将锻造系统发挥得最为淋漓尽致的现代游戏，与《The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim》等同类型游戏相比较时更是如此。

首先，《崛起》合理地限制了锻造系统：游戏中只有4种锻造技巧，即点金术，锻造术，勘探技巧以及剥皮技能，而且其中只有2种技能能够获得1次以上的升级。升级锻造技巧能够让玩家获得其它技巧所需要的学习分，而这必须借助技巧训练师的帮忙。玩家必须花钱去雇佣训练师，但是在《崛起》只有很少的金币，特别是在游戏初期。尽管这些技巧的级别不多，但是当玩家获得每次升级时，便能够从技巧中相应获利，包括获得新药剂进行提炼或者获得武器以用于锻造等。

Risen-Crafting(from gamasutra)

因为游戏中所需的道具是稀缺资源，使得锻造系统在这款游戏中的作用有别于其它游戏。然而从其它方面看来，我们能够以一种较为廉价的方式获得生命包。在《崛起》中，玩家必须尽可能地收集一些有益的道具，包括能够提升角色性能的药剂以及强大的宝剑等。而为了锻造道具，玩家就必须努力收集原材料，尽管它们的数量非常有限。而很多有帮助的原材料只能通过打败强大的敌人或者在遥远且黑暗的地牢中探索而获得。所以，锻造系统不只是将所有材料汇聚在一起按压操作按钮的行为，它需要玩家在游戏世界中不断探索，并勇敢地面临游戏中的各种危险。

风险vs.奖励的因素不只这些。《崛起》是一款相对复杂的游戏，在游戏初期，玩家的角色总是会很快死去，特别是当面对一些特定敌人时，这种情况更是难以避免。只有经过训练，掌握战斗技巧或者获得一些更有帮助的道具，玩家才能够战胜一些更具挑战性的敌人。面对如此挑战，玩家必须做出抉择：掌握战斗技巧并确保能够在对抗中获得生存，还是投入更多积分和金钱去锻造一些稀有的药剂或新武器。在《崛起》中玩家总是很难获得切关生命安全的道具和武器，所以玩家会如何做出选择也是这款游戏吸引人的一大亮点。

最后，《崛起》的锻造系统，不管是关于锻造技巧还是游戏机制，始终强调游戏环境的重要性。如果游戏中的锻造系统对于玩家来说是毫不相干，无趣且没有价值的存在，那么不管是级别，诀窍，材料还是能力等内容也都没有意义了。尽管锻造系统本身非常简单，但是当与其它游戏元素维系在一起时就会变得更加具有吸引力。游戏设计也必须奉行“物以稀为贵”原则，《崛起》关于锻造系统的实践便证明了这一点。

结论

如果使用合理，锻造系统不仅能够强化玩家的游戏体验，还能为玩家提供更多选择帮助他们战胜挑战，创造属于自己的游戏角色，并更好地探索游戏世界。同时我还必须重申，即使锻造系统在今天的游戏设计中已经非常普遍了，但是它却不能用以保证一款游戏的好坏。任何一样好东西如果使用太过频繁，其最初的价值也会被削弱。

锻造系统并不适用于任何游戏，我欣赏这一机制是当它能够出现在合适的游戏环境中，但是所有类型游戏对这一机制的滥用现象却大大贬低了其价值，并因此破坏了许多游戏体验。老实讲，如果一个机制不能带来好的结果，那就果断放弃它，还是将时间和金钱花在那些值得投入的内容上吧。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Can I Craft That For You?

by Eric Schwarz

Though traditionally confined to RPGs and roguelikes, crafting has become a staple of modern gaming almost regardless of what genre you enjoy.  Whether it’s first-person shooters like RAGE, action-adventure titles like Dead Rising or Assassin’s Creed, MMOs like World of Warcraft, or even rhythm games like Sequence, crafting is here to stay, for better or for worse.  After all, games are all about choice, and just like RPG elements like experience points creeping into just about every facet of gaming, crafting is another solid way to provide that choice to players.

Even so, not all crafting systems are created equal – so much so that often reading “crafting system” amongst a list of a game’s features is enough to set off alarm bells in my head, as it’s as much a source of tedium and frustration as it is a genuine improvement.  While there’s always going to be some subjectivity involved as far as the value of crafting goes, there are still very clear wrong and right ways to go about implementing such mechanics.  When done right, crafting can be a positive addition to a game… and when done wrong, sometimes it’s enough to make players want to stop playing altogether.

Why Crafting?

The first question to ask before even going into the details of a crafting system at all is actually much more basic – namely, why crafting?  What does crafting, mechanically, accomplish for a game?  What sorts of problems does it solve, and introduce?  Perhaps more to the point, does crafting fit into the overall vision of what a given game is about?  Often when it comes to game mechanics, it’s not so much a question of the how as it is the why that needs to be addressed before any design work or code is written down.

Namely, what exactly does crafting do for a game?

1.Provides a sense of player agency.  Just like making a hot meal for yourself instead of getting take-out, crafting in games helps players feel that they own the things they create.  Even if it’s just following a recipe and there isn’t anything creative involved, the simple process of choosing to make something can often be more satisfying than simply being given the same object or item.

2.Gives a secondary use for items.  A common problem with loot-driven games, especially RPGs, is that the player will end up nearly drowning in excess amounts of equipment.  Usually the solution is to either sell this equipment or simply throw it away, neither of which rarely have much use in the game.  Crafting helps mitigate this problem.

3.Balances in-game economies.  Another side-effect of giving the player lots of junk or “vendor trash” is that often a game’s economy becomes woefully unbalanced or unstable, often to the point of completely undermining the value of money in the first place.  I can’t count the number of RPGs I’ve played where I simply stopped picking up items because I already had so much money to spend and nothing to spend it on.  Implementing crafting doesn’t just cut down on junk, it also helps reinforce the value of in-game money and keeps its role distinct.

4.Encourages exploration.  Especially in open-world games, crafting is one of the ways in which designers can subtly get players to do and see more of the game worlds they spend so much time creating.  Even if it’s just picking flowers to use in a few potions, players will want to spend time doing things and going places if they can acquire items doing so – especially if they’re useful or can’t be found elsewhere.

5.Provides better rewards.  How many times have you completed a game objective and received a reward that was completely and utterly useless to you, either because mages don’t use longswords, or because the item was well below your character level?  By rewarding the player with generic crafting ingredients and recipes (or unique, limited ones), players can actually receive something that’s useful, without designers needing to come up with specific rewards for every possible play-style.

6.Adds to play-time.  This, unfortunately, is one of the most malicious ways in which crafting is used.  Though sometimes there can be benefits in requiring players spend more time to complete a task (if something is too easy, it isn’t rewarding), the majority of games I see featuring crafting use it as a way to simply pad out the experience.  More on this later.

With all that in mind, it’s worth turning attention to exactly how all of those fit into the experience intended by a specific game.  All of this sounds good on paper, granted, but when put in context, sometimes it’s clear that crafting isn’t always beneficial to a game’s design.  Would Super Mario 3D Land really be enhanced by the ability to craft power-ups?  Does the cinematic, structured and highly scripted gameplay of Uncharted really need a system that encourages exploration?  Grand Theft Auto IV is an open-world game, but does hunting down powder to make different types of bullets really fit with the vision of the designers or the immediacy of the experience?

This is all easier thought about than done, it goes without saying, and sometimes the only true test is experimentation.  Even so, there are some games I’ve played where crafting feels bizarre, bolted-on and arbitrary to the experience, as if it was just thrown in there for the sake of it being included, and I think that’s largely due to a lack of scrutiny paid not just to the individual game mechanics, but to their place in the larger picture as well.  There’s no “right” answers in this sort of exercise, but what it does do is highlight whether or not crafting is a good fit for a game, or if those resources would be better spent elsewhere – and in more cases than not, the answer is “yes.”

Crafting Skills

More specific to RPGs is the inclusion of crafting skills in gameplay, which exist to limit the player’s ability to craft in a way other than denial of resources.  Much like the basic “why crafting?” question, the “why skills?” question is also of the utmost importance for ensuring whether or not a crafting system works in a given game.  Even in cases where crafting fits in, the specifics, usually relating to skills, can often be over- or under-developed.

As above, when considering crafting skills it’s important to ask these questions:

How does skill progression work?  Does the player level up crafting separate from other skills in the game, or is the development of those skills integrated deeply into the standard gameplay?

How long does it take to level crafting?  Is it something that requires a big time investment, such as gaining enough XP, or does the investment come from other parts of the game, like collecting money or crafting resources?

How are skill levels structured?  Are there only a few skill levels with big benefits, or are the levels incremental with relatively small improvements each step?

Is crafting static or customizable?  That is, is crafting a system that adheres to the same rules for all players, or do players customize their available options by, for instance, specializing in crafting certain types of items?

What sort of information about crafting skills is exposed to the player?  Do they get to see all the minute details of the mechanics, or are they hidden in order to encourage experimentation and to create a more organic notion of improvement?

How many crafting skills does the player have?  Are they mutually exclusive, i.e. only one crafting skill per player, or can the player become an expert at crafting anything in the game?

Do crafting skills compete for attention with other skills?  Does the player have to, for instance, sacrifice combat ability to become a better blacksmith, or is every player guaranteed competence with at least one profession?

Some of these questions might seem a bit obvious, and admittedly they’re the sort of thing that gets hammered out during development, but it is absolutely integral to answer them as early on as possible.  These sorts of choices dictate the nature of a crafting system; leaving them to be figured out over time or through experimentation is setting up that system for imbalance, poor cohesion with the rest of the game, and eventually, outright failure.  These questions are second only to the fundamental one of whether to have any crafting to begin with.

Crafting and Grinding

As I mentioned above, crafting is, much more often than I’d like, used in order to pad out a game and extend it beyond its worth.  Much like in Japanese RPGs like Final Fantasy, where often the player has to take time out to perform repetitive battles in order to defeat a boss monster, crafting, in its lowest and most malicious implementation, can be used to restrict the player’s way through the game by forcing the replay of the same game content over and over, and is even sometimes responsible for outright ruining a game’s pacing and flow.

Talking about grinding is a hard thing, however.  As I said above, sometimes a little bit of grinding can be to a game’s benefit.  Too much of it grows frustrating, but especially if it’s optional content that isn’t necessary to complete the game, grinding can give extra-dedicated players the sense of mastery over the game that they live for.  Moreover, some players even enjoy the act of grinding itself – perhaps because it represents a sort of “safe zone” where the player doesn’t have to contend with any new game mechanics or story elements, or even because it leads to a sort of “grinding zen.”  Quantifying exactly what the right amount is, both necessary and optional, is a very subjective thing.

Team Fortress 2′s crafting system is extensive, but has begun to receive more emphasis than the core game itself.

Even so, it’s fair to say that there is such a thing as too much grinding, and that extends to crafting as well as anywhere else.  One game, I think, that perhaps takes the crafting grind to absolute extremes is Team Fortress 2, so much so that it has turned both myself and several friends of mine off from playing the game altogether.  Even though it’s a multiplayer-focused game intended to be played for years, with the crafting itself almost a metagame on top of it, the amount of emphasis given to crafting both by the developers and the community borders on absurd.

For the purposes of illustration, let me break down the process behind crafting a rare item, the Sharpened Volcano Fragment.  This assumes that the player already knows how, of course.

1.To start, we need Scrap Metal.  Scrap Metal is created by combining 2 weapons from the same character class.

2.Next, we need Reclaimed Metal.  Reclaimed Metal is made up of 3 Scrap Metals, which means that we need to collect 6 weapons.

3.Now comes Refined Metal.  Refined Metal requires, you guessed it, 3 Reclaimed Metals.  We’re up to a total of 18 weapons to hoard up.

4.The Sharpened Volcano Fragment needs 2 pieces of Refined Metal.  That’s 36 weapons in total so far.

5.Last, the Refined Metal needs to be combined with an Axtinguisher, another Pyro weapon… relatively rare, but considering we’ve burned through 36 items already, perhaps not too big a deal.

Of course, this is being optimistic and assuming that the player is a) going to keep all the weapons he/she finds for crafting purposes and b) going to find exactly the needed items.  More realistically, the player is going to need two or three times the 36 weapons needed.  Now, owing to some intrepid fans of the game, it’s been estimated that most players will find a new item every two or three hours of gameplay, and that on average, players can only obtain about eight to ten new items per week.  This means that, at minimum, you’re looking at about 80 to 100 hours of gameplay just to craft this one weapon.  Speaking realistically, however, it could easily take 250+ hours just to assemble the raw materials needed.

Granted, this particular item is an extreme example, and most in the game don’t require players to become zealots of the Church of Hats – though 15 hours is fairly standard if you’re content to craft random items and fill your inventory with more junk.  Still, it serves to highlight just how absurd a time investment is required – and expected of players, both by the developers and community, to sample all that Team Fortress 2 has to offer.  Given that you’ll need to give up your day job for the sake of crafting, it’s no wonder that players are willing to simply shell out real money to get their hands on the items.  Somewhere, Gabe Newell is rubbing his palms together and laughing maniacally.

Good Crafting: Case Study

After that rather depressing overview of Team Fortress 2, I’d like to take some time to gush over a game that actually gets crafting right.  Risen, developed by Piranha Bytes, is effectively a reboot of the Gothic series, and shares many of the franchise’s strengths, from an open world and punishing but fair difficulty curve.  It also has one of the best crafting systems I’ve seen in a modern game, especially when compared to similar games in the genre, like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

The first thing Risen does right is that it shows incredible restraint in its crafting system: there are just four crafting skills – Alchemy, Smithing, Prospecting, and Gut Animals – and only two of those can be leveled up more than once.  Leveling up crafting draws from the same pool of learning points all other skills require, and it must be done at the hands of a skill trainer.  Skill trainers cost money to employ, and gold is rather rare in Risen, especially earlier on.  Despite the limited number of skill levels, those skills provide large benefits for every new level gained, including new potions to brew and weapons to forge.

What?!  I can’t level my skills to 100?  What kind of crafting system is this?

Due to the scarcity of items in the game, crafting takes on a different role than most others.  Whereas in some it’s just a cheaper way to get health packs, in Risen it’s outright required for many of the best items in the game, from potions that permanently boost stats, to powerful swords.  In order to craft, raw materials must be hunted down, and their numbers are finite.  Many of the best ingredients can only be gained by defeating powerful enemies, or by exploring the darkest and most distant dungeons.  Thus, crafting isn’t just a matter of putting puts into a skill and hitting a button, it’s about venturing into the game world and putting your in-game life in danger.

The risk-versus-reward element doesn’t end there.  Risen is a deviously difficult game, and early on, death is often swift and almost impossible to avoid when going against certain enemies.  It’s only through training, mastery of combat and acquisition of better gear that the player even stands a chance against the more challenging enemies.  Because of the challenge, the player is presented with a very real dilemma: go for the combat skills and ensure survivability out in the wilds, or put points and money into crafting to gain access to powerful healing potions otherwise unavailable, or new equipment?  Both health items and gear are hard to come by in Risen, and the trade-off between those two and the combat skills is a compelling one.

Last, what Risen’s crafting system highlights most of all, both about crafting and more generally about mechanics, is that context is everything.  All the levels, recipes, ingredients, perks and so on in the world mean absolutely nothing if the decision to pursue crafting isn’t relevant, interesting, valid or rewarding to the player.  Even though the system is just about as bare-bones as it gets, the crafting is compelling because of all the other elements of gameplay around it.  It’s often true in game design that less is more, and Risen’s crafting is proof of that.

Conclusion

When implemented effectively, crafting can enhance a game in subtle ways, both deepening the gameplay experience and providing the player with options in overcoming challenges, customizing his or her character, and exploring the game world.  However, it is worth reiterating that crafting, as trendy as it is these days, is not a guaranteed way to improve a game.  There is such a thing as too much of a good thing, and that assumes that crafting is a fit for a particular game in the first place.  Game design is often a process of throwing things at a wall and seeing what sticks, but I think crafting might be one of those cases where that mentality doesn’t work.

I, for one, am hoping to see crafting fade from popularity, due to my own fatigue with the mechanics and because it’s something that simply doesn’t belong everywhere.  I enjoy it when put in the right context, but the fact is that seeing it thrown into just about every genre of game imaginable really cheapens the mechanic, and ultimately ends up damaging many of the games it’s shoehorned into.  To be blunt, if it can’t be done right, then don’t do it at all – there are better things to spend time, money and labor on.（source:gamasutra）