Survival Crafting

A playbook for survival-crafting games — the gather → craft → build loop, survival needs, the crafting/tech progression, and base building. This is a compositional skill: it orchestrates inventory data, world content, persistence, and threats. It does not re-teach those primitives; it defines the loop and the pressure systems (needs, scarcity, escalation) that make survival tense rather than tedious.

When to use

• Use when the player gathers resources, crafts items/structures, manages survival needs, and builds a base against escalating threats: survival sandbox, crafting/base-building game.
• Use when designing needs (hunger/thirst/temperature), a crafting tech tree, gathering loops, or base placement/building.

When not to use: crafting as a minor RPG feature → rpg. Permadeath grid dungeon → roguelike. For inventory/items as data assets, use godot-resources / unity-scriptableobjects; for world generation, procedural-gen.

Core loop

Gather raw resources → craft tools/items → build and upgrade a base → manage survival needs → explore farther for better resources → survive escalating threats → repeat at a higher tier. Each loop should unlock the next loop (better tools → reach new biomes → new resources → better crafts). When that ladder breaks, the game becomes a grind.

Must-have systems

1. Resource nodes + gathering — harvestable world objects; tool requirements/tiers; respawn.
2. Inventory — stacks, capacity (slots or weight), drop/transfer, hotbar.
3. Crafting — recipes (inputs → output), a crafting station/tech gate, a tech tree.
4. Survival needs — hunger, thirst, temperature, stamina, health, with decay + consequences.
5. Base building — placeable structures, a build grid/snapping, storage, crafting stations.
6. World + day/night — biomes/resources (often procedural); a time cycle driving threats.
7. Threats — hostile creatures/weather/events that escalate; combat or avoidance.
8. Save/load — world state, inventory, base, needs, progression; large-world persistence.

Design knobs

Knob	Effect	Notes
Needs decay rates	pressure cadence	Slow enough to explore, fast enough to matter.
Need-failure consequence	stakes	Damage over time, not instant death.
Resource scarcity / respawn	exploration push	Scarce near base → travel for more.
Tool tiers / gating	progression ladder	Better tool → new node types.
Recipe complexity / tech depth	long-term goals	Multi-step chains, not flat lists.
Inventory limit (slots/weight)	logistics tension	Forces base trips and storage.
Threat escalation curve	difficulty over time	Night/seasonal/event ramps.
Day length	rhythm	Day = gather, night = defend.

Patterns

1. Needs decay with graded consequences

# Pseudocode in the per-frame/per-tick update. dt = seconds. Needs fall; failure bleeds HP.
def update_needs(p, dt):
    p.hunger = max(0, p.hunger - HUNGER_RATE * dt)
    p.thirst = max(0, p.thirst - THIRST_RATE * dt)
    p.temp   = approach(p.temp, ambient_temperature(p), TEMP_RATE * dt)

    # Consequences are graded, not binary: warnings, then attrition — never instant death.
    if p.hunger == 0 or p.thirst == 0:
        p.hp -= STARVE_DAMAGE * dt          # damage over time creates urgency with recovery room
    if p.temp < COLD_THRESHOLD or p.temp > HEAT_THRESHOLD:
        p.hp -= EXPOSURE_DAMAGE * dt
    if p.hunger > 0 and p.thirst > 0 and not exposed(p):
        p.hp = min(p.max_hp, p.hp + REGEN_RATE * dt)   # safe + fed => heal

2. Crafting: validate, then atomically consume inputs

# Pseudocode. Recipes are data: inputs -> output, with an optional station/tech requirement.
recipe = {"id": "stone_axe",
          "inputs": {"wood": 3, "stone": 2}, "output": ("stone_axe", 1),
          "station": "workbench", "requires_tech": "basic_tools"}

def can_craft(recipe, inv, tech, station):
    if recipe.get("requires_tech") and recipe["requires_tech"] not in tech: return False
    if recipe.get("station") and recipe["station"] != station: return False
    return all(inv.count(item) >= n for item, n in recipe["inputs"].items())

def craft(recipe, inv, tech, station):
    if not can_craft(recipe, inv, tech, station): return False
    for item, n in recipe["inputs"].items(): inv.remove(item, n)   # consume all, then add
    inv.add(*recipe["output"])                                     # atomic: no partial craft
    return True

3. Gathering gated by tool tier

# Pseudocode. A node yields only if the held tool meets its required tier.
def harvest(node, tool):
    if tool.tier < node.required_tier:
        return notify("Need a better tool")        # e.g. stone node needs a pickaxe, not fists
    node.hp -= tool.power
    if node.hp <= 0:
        spawn_drops(node.drop_table)               # weighted drops (see roguelike loot pattern)
        node.start_respawn(node.respawn_time)      # node returns later; world isn't depleted forever

Pitfalls / failure modes

• Needs that kill instantly → frustration and save-scumming. Make failure damage over time, with clear warnings and a recovery path (Pattern 1).
• Grind without a ladder → gathering that never unlocks new gathering. Each tier must open the next (better tool → new node → new resource → better craft).
• Non-atomic crafting → inputs consumed but output not granted on an edge case. Validate first, then consume-and-add as one step (Pattern 2).
• Inventory with no limits → no logistics tension and no reason for a base/storage. Cap by slots or weight.
• Permanently depleting the world → players strip the map and quit. Respawn nodes or regenerate resources over time.
• Per-frame decay unscaled by dt → needs drain at different speeds on different hardware. Scale by dt.
• No save / fragile save of a large world → a crash wipes hours. Persist world+base+needs incrementally; version it (see save-systems).
• Flat threat curve → no late-game pressure. Escalate via night/season/event tiers.

Composition (build it from these skills)

• Items/recipes as data: godot-resources / unity-scriptableobjects — items, recipes, tech tree, drop tables.
• World: procedural-gen for biomes/resource placement; level-design for authored areas.
• Persistence: save-systems for large-world state, base, inventory, needs, and versioning.
• Threats: game-ai for creatures; the engine physics skill for melee/collision.
• Building/placement: godot-tilemap / unity-tilemap-2d (2D) or godot-3d-essentials (3D) plus UI snapping.
• UI: game-ui-ux for inventory/crafting/HUD layout and scaling; godot-ui-control for the concrete inventory, crafting menu, needs HUD, and build mode.

References

• For the full needs model and thresholds, the crafting tech-tree graph, gather/respawn tuning, base-building grids, and threat escalation, read references/needs-and-crafting.md.