PixlBit

The once expert chef, Mama, has become versatile over the years, expanding her skill repertoire to include gardening, and even babysitting. One of Mama's latest ventures has her creating homemade goods in Crafting Mama, a title that follows classic Cooking Mama convention, without any added frills.

As the title suggests, players will be doing crafts this time around, and the game contains forty different projects in total. These include origami, jewelry making, wood crafting, pottery, and sewing, in addition to many others that don't fall into a standard category.

In the traditional fashion of a game starring the iconic character, players can initially select from a few projects, and as they successfully complete them, others are unlocked. Unlike some other titles in the Mama series, as players complete certain crafting projects, they will also unlock a mini-game associated with the project. One example of this pertains to the kaleidoscope, whose mini-game requires players to turn the scope to a particular point in order to match up two hearts. Depending on how successful players are they will be awarded a medal if they can beat the set high score.

Certain crafts also allow players to create several different designs of the same project, for example players can make several different necklaces out of a few designs the game presents. Unfortunately, players are not rewarded at all for going back through and completing all the different designs of a particular craft project, making the options a bit pointless at times since in many instances the difference applies merely to changing the color.

The challenges, in this case craft projects, still work the same as they always have. Each project is broken down into a series of mini-games, some having only a few steps, others having many. As always, players are judged at the end of a project, being given a medal rating of Bronze, Silver, or Gold; a rating that still requires players to complete the project flawlessly.

At this point, I have experienced nearly all of the games starring Mama, and frankly the formula is becoming a bit boring. Though Crafting Mama is a new concept allowing players to create craft items rather than food, the gameplay structure is as bland and lifeless as ever.

This fact is made even worse by the overbearing attempt to turn the mini-game steps into actual mini-games. In Cooking Mama and Gardening Mama, when completing a particular step in the project, I never thought that any of them were outlandish or unrealistic. In fact, all of the steps were logical and correlated quite realistically to what people would actually do in real life. Being an avid crafter myself, I was utterly confused at the manner in which particular steps were handled in Crafting Mama.

Sure, all of the game's have those idiotic puzzles in which a hand is moving up and down and players must tap the screen at the perfect moment to make a stick or other object fit perfectly in some type of orifice. But Crafting Mama takes it to a whole new level by needlessly overcomplicating particular steps in the project process. For example, when trying to complete a level based off of stringing beads onto a wire for a necklace, players have to tap beads raining from the ceiling, which will then string them onto a wire. Unfortunately, the wire randomly decides to sway left or right, causing the beads to fly off.

While design issues like the aforementioned may be a personal gripe, Crafting Mama continues to suffer from the same problems seen in many of its predecessors. With many of the mini-games there's an absolute lack of direction, and considering perfection is required for a gold medal, players may find themselves having to repeat a seven step crafting project because they didn't understand what they needed to do. Control issues are another problem, as some of the games, especially those that require the stylus to be swiped across the screen, are either unresponsive or don't respond correctly, leading to the same frustration stated above.

My favorite issue with the game though, is the inability to pause it and exit. This means that if players are stuck in a project step mini-game, or actual mini-game, they will have to wait for the timer to count all the way down in order to exit. Though the complaint is nitpicky, I can't think of one other game that doesn't feature a pause menu.

In general, there's just nothing special about Crafting Mama, and in fact, going through the steps in mini-game form to create many of the simpler projects seems a bit backwards to me. The concept of crafting just doesn't make for a very compelling video game, especially considering that the vast majority of projects in the game are ones that people could easily make in real life, and then have an actual physical product to be proud of.

Considering that the title will likely appeal to a younger demographic, it’s better off that they take the time they’d invest in a digital project and instead create something real. Instead of wasting five minutes making a paper cutout in Crafting Mama, get some construction paper and do it for real. Rather than folding a paper airplane or origami in the game, just go make some in real life. Trust me; you'll undoubtedly be more entertained.