I am in the process of writing my first adventure, and I have an awful lot on paper already.

One thing I am struggling with is implementing recipes.

So far I have a tree of 58 items. All of these items in some way or another contribute to 1 final goal!

These items include ingredients, utensils, containers and the byproducts of previous amalgamations.

Now for the most part, the combinations would be a 1 time affair, consuming the original artifacts and creating a new one in their place, and this is pretty simple. Like adding a rope and bucket to a well-head.

But there are a couple of things that will be used multiple times, and to make life a little more difficult, some require to be measured.

I am not about to ask my players to measure out each ingredient, as I feel that would be too tedious.

What I would like your opinion on is whether I should ask my players to follow a list of steps to create something, OR, just type MAKE "X" and have them automatically make the item provided they have the required inventory and location specific items.

For example, lets say we wanted to make some blue-green paint. We have our ingredients and utensils in our inventory

Blue Dye
Yellow Dye
Flour
Water
Cooking Pot
Spoon
Measuring Cup

In the room is a stove

We have read, or hold, the recipe which states

"for a blue-green colour, mix 2 drops blue dye and 1 drop yellow dye to 5 parts water and 5 parts flour"

and a method which states

"for an even hue to be obtained, first the dyes must be mixed with cold water, then the flour can be mixed in and the whole mixture heated for 10 minutes"

As I said above - I am not dealing with the measures side of things (although a measuring cup is required in the inventory), as I hope to have the ingredients and containers in such a way that even though an ingredient is re-used, it is done so in a different container, thus making it easier to decide which concoction is being produced.

With that in mind, and the above example we have 2 options.

We can simply type MAKE BLUE-GREEN PAINT as we have all the requisite items and know the recipe.

OR

We can go through a list of commands

PUT WATER IN POT- You place 5 measures of WATER in the COOKING POT.
PUT BLUE DYE IN POT - You place 2 drops of BLUE DYE in the COOKING POT.
PUT YELLOW DYE IN POT - You place 1 drop of YELLOW DYE in the COOKING POT.
STIR POT - You mix the liquid until the water turns an even blue-green colour.
PUT FLOUR IN POT - You place place 5 measures of FLOUR in the COOKING POT
STIR POT - You mix the flour into the blue-green water until an even consistency is reached.
PUT POT ON STOVE - You place the COOKING POT on the STOVE and gently heat it for ten minutes.
TAKE POT - You take the COOKING POT.
EXAMINE POT - The COOKING POT contains some BLUE-GREEN PAINT.

Now that list of steps is not too dissimilar to some of the recipes I am planning.

At present, I have several USE X on Y combinations, and about 6 recipes, 1 or 2 of which have many steps.

Would you rather follow a list of instructions? Or would you rather simply type MAKE X?

Which do you feel would provide the better gameplay?

Would you also like to add in the measurements? I decided against them due to excess tedium, repetition and the fact that if people make a mistake they would have to start the recipe from scratch.

Please note:
I only plan on having the player collect, harvest, produce each ingredient item once.
I only plan on having the player produce each recipe once.
Once all recipes for which an ingredient can be used in have been completed, that ingredient will disappear from the players inventory.

You opinions are greatly valued, I hope I haven't rambled too much.

p.s. the above example was something I dreamt up for this topic so as not to give away an secrets of my game until I am ready to do so.

Thank you.

I would use the MAKE X way. It's easier for the player and the game creator

you could give multiple choices of combinations, using a puzzle~riddle for figuring out which option to choose, while having the execution be the "Make X".

msg (riddle or puzzle)
show menu ("What order of ingrediants?",split("ABC;ACB;BAC;BCA;CAB;CBA",";"),false) {
  if (result=ABC) {
    msg (you don't die; you chose the correct order of ingrediants!)
  } else {
    msg (you die; you didn't choose the correct order of ingrediants.)
    finish
  }
}

HegemonKhan wrote:you could give multiple choices of combinations, using a puzzle~riddle for figuring out which option to choose, while having the execution be the "Make X".

msg (riddle or puzzle)
show menu ("What order of ingrediants?",split("ABC;ACB;BAC;BCA;CAB;CBA",";"),false) {
  if (result=ABC) {
    msg (you don't die; you chose the correct order of ingrediants!)
  } else {
    msg (you die; you didn't choose the correct order of ingrediants.)
    finish
  }
}

Thats fine, but I kind of wanted to avoid the possibility of the player making an incorrect recipe, as it could get too tedious - yet I felt the "MAKE X" solution was too simple.

Besides, 1 of my recipes has a heated stage and a cool stage, requiring to move from one pot to another.

I have to admit that I was inspired down the recipe route by "The Mansion 2", and that is a multi step non-measured approach IIRC, however the ingredients are used in equal parts.

I am fairly sure that I have managed to separate out the combinations so that when an ingredient is used on a specific container, only one recipe can be concocted.

It is more of a case of how simple or laborious do I want the task to be - as I said, I have about 6 recipes/processes to do.

if it's laborious~tedious, then as a player, I'm not going to be happy about it, unless it is fun~rewarding. "Grinding" needs very massive rewards for its (our~the players' of your game) effort.

have the instructions and~or order of the ingredients be riddles, other type of puzzle, or adventure quests (like to gather the ingredients) with maybe some interesting story~plot~etc attached to the ingredients' instructions and~or ordering of them. Or, make its completion lead to a major event (you beat the game or you get to fight a super boss, with a powerful reward, like an item or whatever) or make it completely optional to do (with a powerful reward or whatever, or an interesting back plot~story).

Thats why I am asking for input.

So far these 58 items, in one way or another, facilitate in the end goal of escape.

There are several mini-quests planned involved in obtaining and maybe refining some of the ingredients.

I don't want it to be too laborious as it is likely to put people off (like you have alluded to), but neither do I want to make it too easy, otherwise there is no point.

you could do "get input", so you don't have to list the different combinations as options to choose from, though this would then require the game player~user to type in the order and syntax~format correctly, or less so, as maybe JaynneBonnie can provide some coding for "find strings", to make it easier on them.