Minecraft is the first and last survival crafting game where the crafting is actually fun.
Survival crafting games have been a dominant force in PC gaming for some 13 odd years. Ever since Minecraft exploded in popularity, we’ve been inundated with games following its early access open world procedurally generated survival crafting sandbox recipe. It’s still one of my favorite genres and I can be counted on to drag my group of friends into every new tree-punching playground. Much as I love them though, the “crafting” is actually the worst part of the survival crafting genre.
When first launched, Minecraft was a novelty. Instead of just stuffing a stack of materials in my pocket and interacting with a shop or merchant to turn them into something new, its visual crafting system was a little puzzle unto itself.
A stick and two ingots in a line makes a sword. Three iron in a ‘v’ shape made a bucket while five wood in a ‘u’ shape was a boat. I’d be sitting in a Skype call with a friend (because Discord wasn’t popular yet) asking “what’s the recipe for a fishing rod?” Partially I’m feeling nostalgia for playing a new, still-mysterious game that hasn’t been completely documented on wikis, where thrilling discoveries can still be shared among friends, but I think the way crafting works in Minecraft is still unmatched by everything that’s come after it.
