As a game mechanic, crafting is the bane of my existence.

This is slightly an exaggeration; it’s the bane of my existence when survival is also an involved mechanic. Thankfully, Zakumba: Astraia features no survival elements, so including crafting in this game is only a net positive.

When it comes to merging story and gameplay, a crafting system was inevitable. If we created a game that deprived our star, Astraia, from building, she would want absolutely no part in it, and we can’t have Astraia be sad. That’s awful for morale.

Thus; crafting system.

Much like any constructive undertaking, you can’t just start with nothing. Fortunately, the Abandoned Factory provides a great deal of nothing that you can use to craft a ton of stuff: accessories for stat buffs, tools for combat and story progression…

Uh, and more (in the full game)!

To find these materials, you’ll have to smash crates, break barrels, and pulverize vases that look at you the wrong way.

Like an animal ready to pounce on its prey…

Sometimes, though, you’ll have to resist the urge to rush into a room and obliterate everything like a barbaric animal. Various spots around the factory require a more delicate touch, and will provide you with those materials you thought impossible to find!

But what if delicacy is something only food should be? Well, we have you covered:

Sometimes building is breaking. If you put it together, you’ll be good at taking it apart, which will gain you some of the materials you used to build it. Or, perhaps, you could find something already built, realize you don’t need it, and break it down into valuable resources! Is this possible in our Vertical Slice? No, but it COULD happen in the full game!

But back to being delicate. We understand that crafting in games can sometimes be a little unexciting, so we decided to grant you the option to spice it up!

Risk all the necessary materials for double the reward in this state-of-the-art rhythm game! They say 99% of gamblers quit right before they hit it big (they don’t, please don’t gamble), and your fate isn’t even in the hands of a malicious Blackjack dealer bribed by the guy next to you! If you’ve got rhythm, you’ve got double the output of your desired creation. Fail, though, and you lose all the materials without even getting the item you were crafting. Are you willing to bet it all?

We’re also planning to include another way to get more bang for your buck, but “planning” means “we’ll get to it at some point—perhaps in the demo, perhaps after—and also we don’t know how it’s going to work yet, but please trust us :)”.

So, yeah, be ready for that.

But, for now, I’ve finished crafting this post. This was a terrible way to end this, but, alas, I failed to find the proper blueprints to make a better one. But I could have found them at this WORKBENCH!

MUCH LIKE YOU CAN IF YOU PLAY OUR GAME—

Getting Crafty with It: the Crafting Blog