The desert wind whipped around me, stinging my eyes as I realized I was out of water—again. My survival hinged on brewing a potion, but that required a glass bottle, and glass in Hytale isn’t quite as straightforward as in other crafting games. Forget smelting sand into blocks; here, it’s all about alchemy and progression.
Crafting Glass in Hytale: Beyond the Basics
There’s a unique thrill in discovering how different Hytale is. Unlike some games, simply tossing sand into a furnace won’t give you glass blocks. Instead, you’re aiming for empty glass bottles, a resource with surprising utility. Here’s how you get them.
Where do you find sand in Hytale?
While sand is fairly common near coastlines and riverbanks, the mother lode resides in the Badlands biome. Think of it as Hytale’s sun-baked frontier. You’ll find this yellowish landscape far to the south on the map, practically begging to be strip-mined.
Keep an eye out for pale yellow areas on your map to pinpoint sand deposits. Don’t confuse them with the less saturated sandstone near rivers. Grab your pickaxe (or even just your hands) and start digging.
From Sand to Bottle: The Smelting Process
Back at your base, it’s time to fire up the furnace. I often forget this step, but a furnace is easily crafted with logs and stones. Once you’ve got that sorted, here’s the recipe for glass bottles:
- Interact with the furnace by pressing the F key.
- Place any fuel, such as tree logs or tree sap, on the leftmost cell.
- Place the sand blocks on the middle cell and turn on the furnace.
- The empty glass bottles will be produced in the rightmost cells.
- Now, you can pick them up and store them in your inventory.
You might be thinking about windows, but Hytale handles those differently, without glass or sand. For now, at least during early access, the focus is elsewhere. You can always spice things up with some mods, though.
Can you make glass panes in Hytale?
Currently, Hytale’s crafting system prioritizes functionality over purely aesthetic glass structures. This isn’t a limitation, but rather a design choice. Think of it less like a missing feature and more like a different avenue for creative expression. The world is your oyster, but in this case, the oyster contains potion recipes, not panes of glass.
The Alchemist’s Touch: Using Glass Bottles
Glass bottles find their true calling at the Alchemist’s Workbench. It requires 20 Stones, 5 Gold Ingots (approximately €75 worth of materials in real money terms if you were to buy the gold), 10 Venom Sacs, and 10 Bone Fragments. Building one is like assembling a miniature laboratory. Open the UI with the ‘F‘ key, and the magic begins.
Here, you can conjure a range of potions: antidotes, stamina boosters, mana infusions, healing elixirs, and other concoctions that grant passive effects. Each potion is a unique recipe, a puzzle box of ingredients leading to distinct advantages. Are you willing to experiment?
Do glass bottles get used up in Hytale?
Once a glass bottle has been used to create a potion, it vanishes. Unlike in the real world, there’s no recycling program in Hytale’s alchemy system. This means you’ll always be sand-gathering, always be smelting, always be striving to keep your potion supply stocked.
So, glass in Hytale is less about architecture and more about inner power. The game transforms a common resource into a vital component of character progression, a clever twist that sets it apart. Does this narrow focus on potion-making ultimately limit creativity, or does it encourage a deeper exploration of alchemy?