For the last several days, I’ve done nothing but play a steady rotation of Persona 3 Reload, Final Fantasy XIV, and Enshrouded. They’re all hefty undertakings, and to say I’ve got a bit of the brain drain is an understatement. I need something easy, something satisfying and new that doesn’t require every cylinder to fire.
That’s why I tried Infinite Craft, but that’s definitely not evidenced by the time I spent in Infinite Craft. For the unfamiliar, it’s a charming word game that gives you four elemental words: Wind, Fire, Water, and Earth. Those elements can combine with themselves or each other to form new things, those things make other things, and suddenly you’ve created Yellowstone National Park.
When my coworkers introduced me to the time killer, the little girl in me who liked mixing mud and leaves in the backyard under the guise of ‘making potions’ whirred to life. Without missing a beat, I decided on a goal: I’m turning water into wine in Infinite Craft, you know, like Jesus did.
As I tend to do, I immediately overcomplicated the process by googling “What do I need to make Wine,” and wound up with a list of words and phrases I couldn’t even define for you, let alone make them from the combination of four elements. I’m persistent though, so gotta give me some credit somewhere. According to Google’s list of (very reputable) “sources across the web,” I’ll need things like wine yeast, a siphon hose, acid, and a hydrometer. I’m assuming I can start with Water for a lot of these, so it counts.
Anyway, the air, a container, and some sort of fruit seemed like a place to start, so I tried to make a bottle. One thing led to another, and I wound up with a Dust Storm, Sponge, Poseidon, Egypt, and a Black Hole. Honestly, that’s not even partial credit material, but then I remembered middle school chemistry. You can make glass from sand, genius.
Now, it may be obvious to some, but my thought process didn’t immediately lead me to heat up the glass for a bottle. Coincidentally, though, while throwing things at the wall until something stuck, I did manage to create Amazon by combining Piggy Bank with Rain Forest, but that’s neither here nor there.
So, I trudge on, and it’s that repetitive, rat-brain-looking-for-the-cheese hook that compels me through Infinite Craft. I feel equal parts brainy scientist and compulsive rodent, and there’s probably something a little more grim to say there, but there’s a satisfying little reward in getting X outcome through simple trial and error. Add real money to the equation, and whoops, I’ve invented gacha.
My task still remains, though. Water must become wine. Gut feeling still says to turn this glass into a bottle and find the recipe for grapes, yeast, and a barrel. But I’ve created a Time Machine, Galileo, Vampire Fish, and Hawaii. That last one hits. That’s gotta be something.
Hawaii plus Soil equals Pineapple; finally a fruit. But, in a moment of frustration, I said “to hell with it” and combined Glass with Pineapple, winding up with a Pina Colada, and I know I used Water at some point along the way for Hawaii. It’s definitely a concoction a little off course from the bit, but turning Water into a Pina Colada still feels like it counts, kind of. It’s The Last Supper, but during happy hour.
Look, I get it. It’s a semantics game, and ultimately, I’m looking to take Water and some branching recipe to make Wine, but I’ve gone careening past the point. It’s a case of swatting flies with a sledgehammer; the answer to all of this is sitting right there already. There’s no need to make juice, some yeast, a bottle, the concept of time, and so on.
It’s Water plus Glass. Making Wine in Infinite Craft just needs… Water and Glass. I could’ve shaved an hour off of this process had I realized the tiny image was a drinking glass and not just some hunk of raw material. And when you think about it, Water plus a singular thing makes way more sense than, “take Water, turn it into a tree, grow fruit, turn a tree into a barrel, add fruit to barrel, so on, so forth.”
This whole process has aged me by decades, but it’s also another window into my blog on the Baldur’s Gate 3 inventory struggle. Combine wine, Mississippi, being miserably abstruse, plus a handful of early 2000s RPGs, and you get Destructoid Associate Editor Andrea Shearon. But in my defense, I was definitely the one who worked harder to make wine here.
