Pick a game that has a crafting system. Answer these questions and give examples when applicable:

What are the outcomes (the things that are crafted)? 

• The range of things you can “craft” is quite extensive. You can make food (if cooking is considered crafting), clothing, tools, medicine, weapons, traps, and materials.

What are the resources (ingredients)? 

• The resources can range from: food gathered (berries, mushrooms, roots, plants), full items if you dismantle them for resources (shoes for cured leather, shirts for cloth), pelts from hunted animals, and other craftable items. 

What are the recipes? 

• Most food recipes are actually that, recipes. Pancakes require pancake mix, water, oil, maple syrup (cause the game is Canadian), and a skillet.
• Clothing recipes usually require pelts, animal guts that are cured to make a line (sinew), and a type of sewing tool.
• Tools will require scrap metal and a toolbox.
• Ammunition requires specifically the ammunition workbench along with various chemicals to make gunpowder and lead to make the bullet, along with empty bullet cases.

Does the crafting take time? 

• Crafting does take time. The time it takes depends on many factors: the tool you are using (sewing kit vs fishing line), any status effects you have on you (low skill level vs high skill level), and if the craftable already has time invested into it (requires 18 hours of crafting, you can split this up into 2 nine hour sessions).
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Where does the crafting take place? 

• There are seven locations to “craft” items: an ammunition workbench, an ammunition forge, a regular workbench, a forge, at a fire, a milling machine, and for free from your inventory.

What is the player experience? 

• I believe the player's experience depends on how long into the game they have made it. If they are just starting out on their survival run, the player will be looking for clothing, food, and shelter more than crafting items. If the player is injured quickly and doesn’t have a stockpile of supplies, they will have to rush out into the wilderness on limited time in order to find medicine for their afflictions. If players are comfortable with their shelter and have hunting tools, then players will look at recipes and start to hunt the predators for better clothing and equipment. 

Why do you think the design ended up in this way? Why were these particular elements selected for this crafting system? 

• I believe the crafting system is designed this way to keep the player on the back foot. In my opinion, The Long Dark is the “Dark Souls” of survival games. If a player can freely create all these recipes from wherever they are, that gives them too much of an advantage in surviving. It forces the player to make compromises and hard choices which could end their survival run. If I want bullets, I NEED to go to a specific part of the map that is dangerous to get access to the ammunition workbench, is the risk worth it?
• I would say the game is also very logical when it comes to crafting. It makes sense that making clothing using a designated sewing kit would be faster than using a fishing line that you found in a shack.