Let’s Make an RPG Crafting System
Hello coders! Captain Coder here with another learning series. On the Captain Coder’s Academy discord, it was proposed that I implement a crafting system live on stream. This site serves as a blog that chronicles the streams for anyone who missed them live and recaps what we completed and learned each day. I hope someone finds this blog useful!
- Archived Streams Playlist: Playlist
- Catch the Captain Live on Twitch: Twitch
- Source Code: Repository
Day 1 - Design Document and Project Scope
The crew began work on the initial version of the Crafting System. We defined our learning goals, created a design document, specified the scope of the project, set up a new Unity project, and wrote a simple implementation of a [ShapelessRecipe].
Day 2 - Using DLLs and Defining a Crafting Container
The crew continued work on the Crafting System. Today, we explored how to link an external DLL within a Unity project, began the CaptainCoder.Core library, defined the API for the [CraftingContainer] class, and began writing a unit tests for [CraftingContainer].
Day 3: Scriptable Objects and Recipe Database
Today, we finished an implementation of the [CraftingContainer]. Additionally, we took our first dive into ScriptableObjects by defining scriptable object types for items, recipes, and recipe categories! Lastly, we started work on an implementation of the [RecipeDatabase] class.
Day 4: Interfaces and Exploring UI Toolkit”
Today, we finished a implementing the RecipeDatabase class, refactored the CraftingSystem to expose additional interfaces, implemented a CraftingContainerData ScriptableObject, and began exploring using the UI Toolkit in play mode.
Day 5: Drag and Drop Grid
Today we finished implementing the UI Toolkit tutorial to create a drag and drop inventory. Then, we refactored that implementation to be linked with a CraftingContainer such that it renders a grid with both valid and invalid positions.
Day 6: Combining Items in the UI
Today we updated the Grid Container UI to contain locations for resulting combined items to be displayed as well as add a button for combining. Additionally, we wired up the UI to the Crafting System implementation from the first 3 days of work. Lastly, we implemented a simple algorithm to scan assets to generate the RecipeData ScriptableObject.
Day 7: UI Cleanup
Today was the final day working on v0 of our Crafting System. We updated the restyled the crafting container UI to scale with the size of the underlying grid, added buttons to switch between crafting container types, and added a simple item menu to allow the user to add and remove items in the crafting container.