Crafting Minigame Explained: Introduction 2

Uncover the secrets of the crafting minigame in FANTASY LIFE i: The Girl Who Steals Time. Learn about all crafting Lives, how to craft items, and essential tips for success.

Before diving into the basics of the crafting system, let’s quickly go over the different Lives dedicated to it. There are five crafting Lives in the game: Alchemist, Artist, Blacksmith, Carpenter, and Tailor. Each Life has its own set of challenges to complete to reach Hero rank, but the core crafting process remains similar across all of them.

Each of the guilds for the Lives will have a crafting table inside. Outside of the guilds, you will generally find a crafting table that allows you to do everything at once. Before you can craft, you’ll need recipes. You get recipes by ranking up Lives, purchasing them from shops, or finding them while exploring. Most recipes needed for challenges are automatically given to you.

When crafting, you will see three activities. Each craft requires a specific number of turns to fill a gauge in the bottom left to 100%. At the start of each turn, tasks appear at the top with a timer gauge that depletes. Completing tasks faster fills the gauge more. Achieving 100% in fewer turns affects the item's quality.

You’ll have to move to each station to complete the task. Completing tasks usually involves switching to the task and performing an action: a simple button press, holding a button (if highlighted in green), rapidly tapping a button to fill a bar, or rotating an analog stick. For example, Blacksmith minigames involve hitting a hammer (normal and tap), heating metal (normal and hold), and soaking in water (normal and hold).

For the most part, don’t focus too much on crafting Lives early on, as results may be limited, though they can be useful for decent armor. Accessing materials can be difficult initially. Things become easier once you unlock Strangelings and can get Buddies. You can have up to two Buddies of the same Life join you when crafting. The first Buddy adds half their crafting stat to your score, and the second adds one-fourth. Equipping Buddies with tools can also improve their crafting stat.

When viewing a recipe, press L2/LT/ZL to see where you can get the materials. Early on, most materials can be bought from Material Shops, but late-game recipes will likely require you to gather items yourself.