Long ago and far away, I played Death & Taxes. It was in a bundle I purchased on itch.io during the height of the pandemic. I fell in love with it. It was engaging, with a simple and effective core gameplay loop and electric and hilarious characters.

But this is not a Death & Taxes review. This is a review of CraftCraft: Fantasy Merchant Simulator, Placeholder Gameworks’ newest title. If you’re familiar with my writing here at NeverMore Niche, you’ll know I reviewed the demo of this game last year. I absolutely adored the concept, so I’m back again with a review of the full game.

CraftCraft is a crafting game, as its name advertises. You play as a newly minted member of the Crafter’s Guild, with just about a week to prove your skills. And make enough money to buy your shop from the guild by making enough to cover the daily taxes. Every day you’ll get new customers with interesting commissions, and it’s up to you to fulfill them to the best of your ability!

Controls That (Mostly) Feel Right

One of my favorite things about CraftCraft is the smithing system. Pull a lever down to get your metal, jerk the bellows to heat it, then smack the molten cube with your hammer. It’s all wonderfully kinetic. Hammering the piece itself is a rhythm game that I honestly can’t get enough of. If you’re making a bladed weapon, you then take it to the grindstone and listen for the SHING! of sharpness.

This game is not all weapons, of course. Over the course of the game, you’ll repair pendants and compasses, assemble protective sigils and trashy tiaras. The blueprint system gives you the silhouette to fill in, allowing you an insane amount of creative freedom while still providing an interesting challenge. Unfortunately, the tools for these crafts aren’t quite as delicious as the smithing ones. There’s nothing wrong with them, but comparatively they seem a little clunky.

Rotating objects is particularly finicky, especially without a mouse. There is also not a page that lists all of the control keys, which I think is a major oversight. I put the game down for a couple days and completely forgot how to rotate objects and I spent close to an hour trying to find out which key it was. Eventually I did get an answer in the game’s discord server — it was the R key. I think having a control scheme available to reference would go a long way to catching similar frustrating experiences.

Creative Freedom*

CraftCraft is excellent at giving you direction without limiting you… most of the time. Every order is unique, with a good amount of randomization in terms of customers. Of course, the plot relevant and repeat customers will be the same between playthroughs, but you have lots of different ways to fulfill their requests. Asked for a natural and ominous sword? You have dozens of combinations of hilt and blade, not to mention the additional decorations you can add from your foraging spoils.

Every day you can forage for new items to add to your growing hoard of materials — some items are guaranteed, while others are completely random. This is of course both a delight and a frustration, depending on your preferences, but for me it was another fun ingredient in the overall mix.

*RNG and commissions may apply.

Colorful Characters and Caricatures

One of my favorite parts of CraftCraft was the customers. Each and every character was vibrant and memorable. As an avid Tabletop RPG player and frequent game-master, it was a delight to see such a variety of distinct NPCs. Sure, not all of them have visible depth, but for one-off characters it’s not sin. Even the characters that came across as stock or stereotypical felt bright. There was an obvious joy to the writing that added a spark to every exchange.

Several of the numerous characters are romanceable, although I did not end up romancing anyone myself. I was holding out hope for Saskia, but unfortunately the final day of the game rolled around and there were no flirtations to be had. However, I did not feel cheated out of anything. There are plenty of sustained interactions with NPCs that you really feel like you’re becoming a part of the local community. The romance options seem to just be sprinkles, and I enjoy that in a game like CraftCraft.

A Larger World

As your first week slowly unravels, you become aware of the city of Windspell’s greater situation. Hints of political strife, trade issues, and taxes worm their way into the story in an organic way. I will not spoil things too much, but it is an engaging and refreshing way to participate in a larger story. It definitely isn’t a method of storytelling that will work for everyone, but it definitely worked for me.

That being said, I think the story could have benefited from a few specific effects early on. There are some key commissions in the middle and later sections of the game that worked excellently, but there are no major decisions to be made in the first few days of the game. At least during my first couple plays, it really felt like only one quest line had any impact on the ending. There was also a commission and encounter I thought would lead into a plot relevant quest line that ended up going nowhere.

Still More To Come

As of writing this, CraftCraft is still receiving major updates, with more planned. Some of these are necessary, bug-fixing patches. Several issues I encountered have been fixed during the writing of this review, so I played through the game again to put it to the test. The bug with the crafting blueprints was gone, and the sticky cash-register controls were smoothed out.

The most important additions came at the very end. While there was nothing wrong with the ending during my first playthrough, the updates have “beefed up” the ending, so to speak. There is more follow up, and an extra scene with an important reoccurring character. And I have it on good authority from my roommate who also played through again that there was more text added to the romance in the ending sequence.

Final Thoughts

CraftCraft is available on PC and Mac through Steam and GOG.com. It retails for $15.99 and is out now.