I'm now at step 6, crafting.
The only reason that containers were such an early part of the development plan is that I had initially envisioned using them in the crafting system, with crafting stations be containers that hold your ingredients. Actually fleshing out that idea, I discovered some downsides to it and decided to take things in a different direction.
I was pretty surprised and pleased when the recipe validation (the thing that checks your skill level and inventory) and crafting proc worked exactly right the first time. As of now there is no real crafting interface; like old school Hedgerow Hall, it's just a verb that takes the item you want to make as an argument from a list generated by the validation proc. There's also as of this moment no chance of failure and no differing item qualities, nor any tool requirements nor crafting stations. So while the foundation of the crafting system is in, it's not anywhere near finished.
But still, it's a very auspicious beginning. I thought the architecture for the recipes was going to be a lot harder than it was.
Here's a screen shot of the environment I'm using to test the crafting. The only craft materials available so far are wood and leaves, and the only items that can be crafted are torches (1 wood, 6 leaves) and leaf blankets (36 leaves):
As you can see, right now, the hall is a big, empty (barring random piles of test objects), boring place in a fairly empty and boring world. There will be more to see and do when the game opens up for testing.
Also as you can see, I did go ahead and make the inventory its own pop-up window instead of being a tab. I found it didn't make sense to put the container interface in a tab, and as long as it was a pop-up window, it only made sense to do the same with the inventory proper.
If you look carefully at the screenshot, you'll notice that the sack the squirrel is interacting with is not in the inventory. You can interact with a container adjacent to you or in your inventory. It automatically ends the interaction and closes the window if you move away. Moving items between the inventory and the container can be done either with context-sensitive verbs Retrieve and Stow, or by dragging and dropping.
Crafting in general requires more resources than in the original version (for instance, the leaf blanket that took 6 leaves in the original now takes 36), but if you are sufficiently trained in the required craft skill that you are using then you *always* succeed in making something; an ordinary success gives you an item of average quality and failure generates an item of some quality below average, weighted by your skill... the worst skilled crafters will most often produce abysmal works, while the best will only be slightly below average.
Untrained crafters have a chance of failure and wasting material, and produce very sub-par works even on a success.
I have not yet added in tools and crafting stations, but I believe that failing to meet the requirements will prevent untrained crafters from crafting, and treat trained crafters as untrained.
A slowly-regenerating resource called Inspiration must be spent to create above-average works. Using Inspiration bumps you up one skill-circumstance level (treating an unskilled user as a skilled user, or a skilled user without adequate tools as one with); if you are already in the best circumstance, the inspired creation will be above average in quality. Inspired crafting is also non-stressful, and in fact relieves stress.
Craft skills have differing primary attributes but they all have the same secondary attribute, Creativity. Your level of Creativity also determines how stressful crafting is (the more creative you are, the less stressful it is) and your Inspiration levels (both how much you can amass and how quickly you can regain it).