Crafting Principles

[ikabod-kee]

1. Crafting should be intuitive to the player, and shouldn't require a written explanation outside of a small tooltip. Terraria does this via a guide, but this can also be achieved with Add a search bar to the inventory crafting system. #758, letting players discover recipes on their own.

2. Crafting recipes should make sense and be inspired by real life. If a player wants to make glass, they would think to melt sand in a kiln/furnace, like how it's done in real life.

3. Crafting progression should be add-ons to existing blocks rather than a new block entirely, making the structure have to grow as you progress, encouraging the player to make a more dedicated space for them. Additionally, using the wrong add-ons for the recipes (for example, your furnace burning too hot via bellows) should not work, to encourage having to make different iterations of your stations.
   Examples of this:
   

These principles may change depending on feedback and changing ideas.

Issues relating to crafting:

• Procedural Crafting (Remaining Work) #89
• Make certain materials require additional work stations around the crafting table. #197
• The crafting grid should be restricted depending on the tool type #594
• Integrate the chisel into the tool crafting system. #625
• Opening the inventory crafting menu without any ingredients shows a degenerate window. #634
• Add a search bar to the inventory crafting system. #758
• List inventory crafting recipes more tightly. #759
• Crafting with Tools such as chisels #760

[IntegratedQuantum]

shouldn't require a written explanation

Some written explanation is fine, if it fits nicely into the remaining UI. A tooltip is a good example for that.
Like for example for the chimney idea, it could say "This looks like it should be placed on top of a furnace" in the tooltip to guide the player into the right direction.

If they want to color it [glass] though, we can't exactly add complex chemicals for each color

Well colored glass can be made with metals by adding them before melting. Like if you use gold you can get red and purple colors because the gold forms nanoparticles of a certain size which absorb specific wavelengths of light.
I think it would be quite fun to figure out what metals can yield what colors. The final color would also depend on the temperature, so maybe there is also a temperature selection in the furnace.

[ikabod-kee]

Updated :)