Thanks a ton for giving it a go and for the proper review!
There's a reason the crafting feels so underdeveloped, haha. After getting my GDD together, I started out with making the pixel art for the game first without really expanding on the mechanics, it ended up taking 'till Monday to start actually coding things and even then I focused on peripheral systems before the core mechanic :p
By the end I realized I really should've stuck with simpler art and iterated on the core gameplay before doing anything else, because the way I implemented the alchemy felt really bad to play IMO, so I switched to recipes last minute even though I wrote the GDD with recipes in mind. At least I learned I gotta plan things out more, actually stick to those plans and iterate core mechanics first through this experience.
I also wanted the drawing to have more depth instead of such rigid form requirements, but then I think I'd need Machine Learning and that's a lot of math I don't understand (yet).
And a more guided "Show, don't tell" tutorial is definitely on the docket, Potion Craft did something like that pretty well imo.
I'm definitely gonna develop this further eventually! Just gotta focus on my driver's license first now, I didn't drive for 2 weeks 'cuz of the jam, haha.