Crafting, Inventory Management, and How They Can Make Us Better
- Justin Matheson
- Feb 23
- 5 min read
Crafting is not “making stuff,” it is complex systems thinking.
In games like Minecraft, The Witcher, and Hogwarts Legacy, crafting looks cozy on the surface.
Pick flowers, loot ingredients, stash materials, eventually make something useful.
But the skill underneath is not cozy.
It is the ability to hold a messy system in your head, while you make choices that still make sense hours later.
And then you add inventory friction, the Diablo and World of Warcraft problem.
Limited bag space, item categories, stack limits, weight, junk, and the constant question, “Is this worth keeping?” I can still remember the incredible frustration that would arise in me when I would try and pick something up in Diablo and it would just flip up in the air and land on the ground. Or not being able to run in Skyrim.... ugh.
Ingredient-based crafting plus inventory management creates a built-in practice loop for creativity, critical thinking, growth mindset, metacognition, and mindfulness, because players are constantly planning, noticing, adapting, and remembering how small pieces connect to larger recipes and a larger strategy.
What I mean by “crafting + inventory” (the mechanics we are actually talking about)
This post is about two mechanics that work together.
1) Ingredient-based crafting loops
You gather (or farm) diverse ingredients/components over time.
You learn recipes, patterns, and dependencies.
You craft consumables, upgrades, quest items, or systems that unlock new options.
2) Inventory friction
Storage is limited.
Items have value that changes over time.
Players must organize, prioritize, and sometimes let go.
When you combine these, players are not just crafting items, they are crafting a mental model of the world.
The skill bundle: how this mechanic trains more than “memory”
Pragmatic Creativity
Crafting asks, “Given what you have, what can you make?”
I see this as creative problem solving with restraints and guardrails.
Critical Thinking
Players are constantly testing assumptions.
“I think this ingredient is rare, so I should save it.”
“I think this potion will matter later.”
“I think this build path is worth investing in.”
Then the game gives feedback.
Sometimes brutally, and sometimes that feedback comes in the form of you finishing the game with 416 health potions that you never used but couldn’t bring yourself to sell.
Growth Mindset
Crafting and inventory loops make ignorance visible when you waste materials or you craft the wrong thing or you sell something that you actually needed.
The question becomes, “Now that I made this mistake, how do I move forward?”
Metacognition
At some point, strong players do not just manage inventory.
They manage themselves.
They notice:
“I hoard because I hate running out.”
“I over-optimize and lose time.”
“I keep junk because I cannot decide.”
That self-awareness is metacognition.
Mindfulness
Inventory friction creates micro-stress and in that stress, players either react (sometimes poorly), or they slow down and choose.
That pause is teachable.
It is also rare in workplace training.
Where traditional training falls short
Most “skills training” is still too clean.
It gives people:
a framework,
a scenario,
maybe a role play,
but it rarely gives them a living system that changes as they interact with it.
These mechanics give a wildly different opportunity to players.
It creates:
delayed consequences,
incomplete information,
competing priorities,
and enough friction to surface real behaviour.
That is why this is useful for skill development.
Not because games are magical (which they are), but because the mechanics create the conditions the skills actually require.
Game examples
Minecraft
Minecraft crafting becomes interesting when the player stops thinking, “What can I make?” and starts thinking, “What system am I building?”
Ingredient gathering becomes planning.
Recipes become dependency maps.
Storage becomes organization and future-proofing.
What to watch for (skills in the wild):
Does the player build a consistent storage system?
Can the player explain why they are collecting something?
Do they adapt their plan when new constraints appear?
It is also important to note that Minecraft famously has no recipe book per se. Ingredients are all available but how to put them together and what sort of tools you need to combine ingredients, that information doesn't always exist in the game and has to be found through other sources.
The Witcher / Hogwarts Legacy
In these games, crafting is less about building a factory, and more about building readiness.
The player anticipates what is coming and the player prepares. This is especially the case when it comes to The Witcher because there are some enemies that you can't be successful against without the correct preparation. Shout out to the Monster Hunter series in the same breath.
What to watch for:
Do they craft reactively, or proactively?
Can they name the “why” behind a recipe choice?
Do they learn from failed preparation attempts?
Diablo / World of Warcraft
Bag management is strategy because what you keep changes what you can do next.
It is also where a lot of players reveal their default operating system (or lack thereof).
Hoard.
Panic.
Over-optimize.
Avoid deciding.
What to watch for:
Are they making decisions, or delaying them?
Do they use categories and rules, or pure vibes?
Do they change their approach after consequences show up?
These games don't bring out these skills until much later. I would argue almost end-game levels. With these games, specifically Diablo, you probably wouldn't be able to use these in a training or learning scenario unless you had an existing foundation of players already.
What this means for L&D teams (practical, measurable)
This mechanic bundle is useful when you want people to practice thinking about their thinking, not just performing a script.
When approaching this from a training standpoint, it's important to know that these different skills require a different level of experience with the games. For example:
If you have a group of people that you are training that are all Diablo players already, perfect! Diablo would be a fantastic tool to use to help them practice these skills.
If you have a group of people that you're training that are all gamers but have never played The Witcher or Hogwarts Legacy, those are awesome because then you would be able to access that content quickly enough for it to still be engaging.
If you have a group of people that you're training that have no experience, I can't recommend Minecraft enough because it is simple, it is attainable, and these skills are addressed immediately upon starting to play.
The bigger question this raises
If we want people to get better at complex thinking, then we should probably stop pretending the skill lives in the lesson content because it doesn’t. It lives in the conditions and the practice.
Crafting and inventory mechanics build conditions that are messy, meaningful, and consequence-rich. Which is basically the workplace.
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