Hello gamers! What are your favourite examples of building/crafting mechanics in games?
I’m talking things like basebuilding in Subnautica, where you’re involved in the resource upkeep and managing total rooms vs. fortifications. Or how Frostpunk limits your choices with a research-increasable building radius, plus constant pressure to adapt to unexpected situations, the fix to which you’ll have to implement before the next situation.
In general: What makes Building dope in games?
This can be in games with building as a goal, e.g frostpunk, or games where its pretty much an afterthought. Trying to expand my horizons, and think it’d be neat to hear what y’all feel makes building good
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The freedom is amazing, but (this is coming from someone whose favorite game is probably Minecraft) I also think it’s a pretty big drawback. Like you can make your base look like anything you want with practically any layout you want, but there’s very little practical reason not to live in a hole in the ground. In a way I wish they could implement a Rimworld-esque system for identifying rooms and structures (this room has a stove so it’s a kitchen, this one has a pool table so it’s a rec room) That kind of system seems like a perfect fit for managing villagers, and considering how broken villager trading is I feel like it’s something the game really needs. Pity it would be nearly impossible to implement lol
Well, Minecraft is Minecraft, so: there’s a mod for that (although it is not exactly what you asked for, but still something along these lines)
Interlocking building parts that snap together and can be placed in a grid. Like how Valheim does it. It also has 22.5° and 45° diagonal pieces that fit well together. There are also a wide variety of pieces that can mix and match to create different aesthetics. The controls are also very intuitive, it only takes a short amount of time to understand the mechanics.
A contrasting example would be No Man’s Sky. While it too has a nice variety of pieces that can interlock together, the controls aren’t as good. I frequently end up snapping to the wrong edge unless I’ve got a completely flat floor with all identically sized wall pieces, and even then it sometimes doesn’t let me place things where I want them to go. If NMS had the same build controls as Valheim, I’d be much more content with the (otherwise great) game.
As a fan of both, I completely agree. Valheim’s building controls are absolutely amazing. It’s so easy to build a really good looking structure. I tend to avoid the wall/roof/etc stuff in NMS and just stick with the prefab rooms and hallways.
My two cents on the topic. Basebuilding to me, in order to be reaaally good, needs to have a mix of necessity and aesthetics. The emminent example to me being Satisfactory. Basically, the entire game is basebuilding, and you could easily “win” by overrunning the whole map with buildings with very little order to it. But its more efficient to plan well, and keep optimising the material order.
Having a system where you can easily place things according to a planned idea, as well as having the ability to just go nuts, is part of it.
All said, however, the most fun in building games is the moment when you’re ‘done’ with a big section, or new unlock building, and you get that short moment of blizz when a plan comes together.
If you can handle playing older games, “fortresscraft evolved” is an interesting combination of Minecraft, Tower defence and Factorio. Think Minecraft, but thousands of blocks down to bedrock, conveyors, turrets, elevators and Lazer power systems. The voxel world is impressive in how it runs. Has a tiered tech tree and block breaking/placement is incredibly fast. Also well priced these days.
I enjoy voxel games sometimes, in this game you can break and build really fast, place rows of conveyors/blocks. So what makes this a good example of enjoyable base building? I’d say you can build nearly as fast as you have ideas, test and try things quickly. Make crazy solutions to problems. Making a mega factory/base that may span thousands of blocks.
