CRUFT

This game scratches an itch in my brain that I didn't even know I had. The crafting is very satisfying to me and the textures of certain items is satisfying as well!

Have to say, once I started to figure the game out, it actually is pretty fun and you can easily spend a good amount of time playing. It also wisely involves legacy rewards that can carry over into each game, so it adds replayability. But basically you are managing different things, involving animals and plants, while building up money to buy items or enhancements. The aspiration to build money, unlock more of each map, and gain legacy rewards will keep you playing for a while! I recommend trying it out, they even have a demo if you want to test.

Honestly I loved this game. It's a perfect little bite sized cozy crafting game that keeps you clicking for hours. There was an impressive breath of items you can craft as well as quantity of crafting workstations. Everything seemed to take the right amount of time, I wasn't really just sitting around waiting for one workstation to craft. Instead I was constantly juggling pigs, lumber, ores, fishing, and the all-encompassing CRUFT. Sometimes, real life calls for a few hours of peacefully clicking & crafting, as the game's music keeps the vibe going. There's no raid that's going to happen if you walk away for 5 minutes. Nothing coming to burn down your hard work. Just hours and hours of crafting and clicking, working towards the next achievement. Achievement felt doable and pushed me to try the various crafting trees differently on different maps. If you can't find how to process your item, or you can't seem to figure out the workstation for it, just remember that not all workstations are on every map. It's all intuitive beyond that. If you can't find your steamer for your rice, or smoker for your meat, it might just not be available on that map. Try again for that achievement a different time, there's always a different achievement you can try for. I saw this game at Boston Festival of Indie gaming and wishlisted it right then and there. I'm glad I had that chance exposure to this very well made little game. I was absolutely engrossed, it really hooks you!

Cruft is a thoughtfully made and super addictive crafting/sim game! It's relaxed and you get to decide what kind of experience you want to have in it. I'm looking forward to 100%ing dumpless, who's gonna join me? Pigcycling FTW!

If you find a lot of joy in discovering new things to craft, finding your own way through a complicated crafting tree, and figuring out money making combinations, then CRUFT is the game for you. It scratches an itch for me that originally came from Stacklands and Doodle God of just wanting to smash things together to see what comes out. You can go from farm to table in this game and there are achievements that you can unlock that leads to MORE crafting trees. I'm 20 hours in the game and I'd say I've only uncovered half of what can be crafted at this point. While it is charming and I sunk a lot of time into it playing it mostly like an idler since a lot of processes take time, I think it requires more QOL and balancing. At 20 hours, I am starting to get tired of manually starting every single process. I really wish to see some form of automation in the future or anything to help the more tedious parts of the game. Some changes that I really want to push for: - We should be able to magnet more than 10 items. Maybe the more magnets we have, the more we can magnet? At the very least, I want to be able to magnet 30 items at once because that's how many 1x1 items fit in the truck and would make a world of difference in organizing the playing board. - We need storage options that are better than the current Wardrobe. The wardrobe is terrible. You can magnet stuff into it, but you can't magnet stuff out. Achievements recognize what's in the wardrobe, but stations can't pull stuff out from them. I understand that managing your space on the board is a lot of the game, but a storage box that can store a lot of one item and that you and your stations can pull from would be invaluable for late game. - Some way to delete large pieces that don't fit in your truck is crucial. - A quest board / NPC that pays for end stage items would be awesome and incentivize players to try different crafting trees. - Money feels useless late game, so maybe being able to use that money to automate your set up would be a good use for it? = = = I'll update my review if more QOL comes out in the future!

Terrible controls.

Incredible time. Wasn't expecting the absolute nightmare of managing so much limited space, but the moment I found the gameplay loop of 'craft a hoard of stuff to unlock more stuff to do more stuff later', I was in. Had a great time. Seems to be something you can approach at your own pace, which is refreshing as hell