Recipe List Extension Release

Greetings fellow rpgmaker enthusiasts.

I have just released the first paid extension to my crafting system plugin. As a major extension, it overhauls a large part of the functionality of the base plugin. You can see a good bit of what I'm talking about from the extension's page. I figured I'd use this devlog to make some suggestions about who would want this extension, and what they  could use it for, which is something I felt shouldn't be included on the actual store page for the extension itself.

So, what is this plugin for? Well, at it's core, it is a scene which shows all known crafting recipes belonging to a specified category. The player can access the list of all unlocked 'cooking' recipes, see what ingredients they need, and move to the crafting scene to make that item. It is important to note that it only shows recipes that are unlocked, meaning that they have either been crafted successfully once, or have been unlocked either by default or via plugin command. This functionality extends to crafting categories that would normally be hidden from the crafting UI, allowing players to look up unlocked recipes for categories they may not be able to access from the menu normally.

The usage implications are pretty obvious here. The major downfall to an ingredient-based crafting system is remembering which ingredients make what item. This base functionality helps resolve that problem, by giving the player an easy in-game way to look up recipes.

That's not all, though, as the plugin parameters allow the dev to set this plugin into Synthesis mode. What is that you ask? Well I described it on the store page, but I'll go over it again here. Synthesis mode allows the player to craft recipes from the recipe list directly in the recipe list scene. The use-case for this is a little bit more nuanced, though.

A big part of what makes my crafting system unique is that it is entirely ingredient driven. Using synthesis mode takes that portion of it entirely out of the equation. I can come up with two use-cases that make sense for synthesis mode:

• The dev has both the crafting system, and the recipe list available from the main menu (or from plugin calls).
  • Players will unlock recipes via experimentation in the crafting system scene.
  • After learning a recipe, or otherwise unlocking it, the player can then access the recipe list scene and re-craft it there, removing the need for players to have to memorize important recipes.
  • Allowing crafting right from the recipe list window is more player friendly, negating the need for the player to have to temporarily remember what ingredients, and in what quantities, need to be put into the crafting UI to create the desired item
• The dev only gives the player access to the recipe list scene.
  • In this scenario, players can only craft recipes that are unlocked. Since the player doesn't have access to the normal crafting system UI, they cannot unlock recipes via experimentation.
  • Recipes must be unlocked via plugin command, or by being unlocked by default.
  • This use-case functions much more like a standard synthesis based crafting plugin, removing the experimentation aspect from the base crafting system entirely.

Why make this change, though? Well, not everyone wants an entirely ingredient driven crafting system. While that is what makes mine unique, it also makes some people unlikely to use it. This extension opens it up to more kinds of projects, so everyone can use it.

Keep in mind, also, that the synthesis style crafting mode still has something that other synthesis plugins are missing - ingredient categories.

Any recipe in the crafting system can contain one item that isn't an item at all, it is an ingredient category. In the base plugin, recipes that included an ingredient category item checked the ingredients provided by the player, and matched that item if one of the given ingredients matched that category. As that isn't really possible in a plugin that simply lists recipes and lets the player select and craft them, the extension modifies this functionality. When selecting to craft a recipe that contains an ingredient category item, the player is forced to choose an ingredient they have (in the correct quantity) that matches the category. This allows those category items to continue to be used in recipes, and prevents the recipe list from being cluttered up by a dozen different 'sandwich' recipes that all contain different kinds of meat.

If you haven't already picked it up, I have bundle deal running on the base plugin and this extension. You can grab them both for $20.00, which means you're getting the extension for about 75% off. If you already have the crafting system plugin, you can grab the extension for 20% off. The 20% off deal will continue in perpetuity, so no rush on that one, but the $20 bundle deal is a limited time only.

Thank you, and happy rpgmaking!

~Ramza