Print Page - Vintage Story

Title: Vintage Story
Post by: Jubal on July 17, 2026, 07:36:10 PM

So, a few months ago BeerDrinkingBurke kindly got me a copy of Vintage Story, a survival-crafting minecraft-like game with a lot of deep crafting mechanics, eldritch horror elements, and some interesting if odd plot. Here's a thread about the game! I'll probably post bits of my own building and progress but feel free to post yours too :)

My main world, which I dubbed Uniaeth, now has a base that's close to endgame, though I've still not tried to build steel production and I've got one more plot item I think before the game runs out of its current content (there's a lot more in the nominal plan, but I think it's one of these very slow projects where I'll be able to play the final version in, idk, 2040 maybe).

My spawn area was a pretty hills-and-canyons zone with a couple of nearby lakes and woods and a cold microclimate, but I didn't know most of that stuff then so I just got on and settled down. My chosen site was at the first major ruin I found, which I dubbed Tuath Aied: it's the remains of some sort of village, with stumps of a wall, a few buildings, some piping, etc. I started by constructing what can best be described as a burrow on the west side of the site, and that's ended up being my primary base.

First Year

The first year is designated as Year 0 ingame, but oh well. I think this is my 'oldest' image of the site at Tuath Aied, when I'd just put my first plot of spelt grain in (still my primary cereal crop), looking away from the door.
(https://i.postimg.cc/bNQCxXbs/Screenshot-2026-03-09-214514.png)

And here's the first indoor tour, a lot of which is still the base layout now. The kitchen was my first refuge, and included my first straw bed and everything: the workshop started as storage and then became the workshop. Once I had a pickaxe I then went and constructed the storage room and the steps down to my room.

The next step was an indoor pool, which as things got towards winter meant I could do things like panning for metals without going outside in the fruzz.

Kitchen: (https://i.postimg.cc/fT4qSW3d/Screenshot-2026-03-24-211034.png)	Workshop: (https://i.postimg.cc/ZKksvY93/Screenshot-2026-03-24-211112.png)
Storage room: (https://i.postimg.cc/WbMWGRrM/Screenshot-2026-03-24-211126.png)	My room: (https://i.postimg.cc/8PhKR8WR/Screenshot-2026-03-24-211201.png)
Further indoor shot: (https://i.postimg.cc/m2QXYxMw/Screenshot-2026-03-24-211236.png)
Basement pool: (https://i.postimg.cc/bNQCxXb6/Screenshot-2026-03-24-211302.png)	Basement storage: (https://i.postimg.cc/Ghk7F0Y5/Screenshot-2026-03-24-211314.png)

First Winter

Winter is a pretty big deal the first time you hit it in VS. In following years unless you've been very lax you probably can produce enough grain to get you through it, but first winter can involve dying a lot. If you're living close to world spawn this isn't actually a huge deal, and my playstyle has definitely been far more death-avoidant than is actually sensible at times. Winter is also pretty and you can make snowballs.

About this time I built the first outbuildings: the main one immediately in front of the entrance has always been the leatherworking area, full of barrels of tannins and things. I'd also set up a covered area for pottery making and a charcoalling mound, which you can see just left of centre in the first screenshot below.

(https://i.postimg.cc/3xYL9LC9/Screenshot-2026-03-25-203819.png)	(https://i.postimg.cc/FHNPGPgP/Screenshot-2026-03-27-165002.png)
(https://i.postimg.cc/bwp6L6HW/Screenshot-2026-03-27-165048.png)	(https://i.postimg.cc/Z54fjfxz/Screenshot-2026-03-27-165105.png)
(https://i.postimg.cc/nhpdTdGp/Screenshot-2026-03-27-171739.png)

Second Year

Once the winter passed, it was time to expand things again. I tilled some more fields, built a raft for more exploration, and built a lantern tower at the top of the mound I'd made my home under, which helps make it a visible landmark if travelling at night (at least from the south - from the east you're in woods, and from the other two sides the hills get in the way). There are various permanent light sources in the game, the simplest being little fat-burning lamps, which are less bright than torches but having something that doesn't go out when you're in a cave system and accidentally stumble into a waterfall is hugely valuable. In this case though I'd managed to loot a lantern from an underground ruin and used that.

The tower light from a distance: (https://i.postimg.cc/vZbPXPtG/Screenshot-2026-03-28-222253.png)	The farm expanding: (https://i.postimg.cc/sgsnKn4f/Screenshot-2026-03-28-225456.png)
The east view, ruins at Tuath Aied: (https://i.postimg.cc/g2sg7vgd/Screenshot-2026-03-28-225531.png)	The south view with charcoal mound, raft, etc. (https://i.postimg.cc/wj2wrhw6/Screenshot-2026-03-28-225546.png)
The tower at night: (https://i.postimg.cc/5yRjkKDR/Screenshot-2026-03-31-191738.png)

The other major drive of the second year was advancing in tech. I decided I wanted iron stuff before doing much plot, as the game says you should have bronze and I know I'm bad at the combat. First step was getting bronze in the first place. Copper is common, but tin I eventually found below a rather unsettling larger ruin:
(https://i.postimg.cc/JzxpFbpW/Screenshot-2026-03-29-231235.png)

I also decided that I wanted to know where I was going, which started me off on probably the silliest long expedition I've made in the game. I made it five thousand blocks south to the plot location doors, so that I could map out a route to get there without falling in too many holes - then I kept going out of sheer curiosity, and ended up getting far enough south that the flora were starting to change, including redwoods and sunflowers (one of my most prized things coming back being). I managed to get back to I think 4000 blocks south before falling in a hole and dying, but a few very long corpse runs later I made it back home.

Plot location doors! (https://i.postimg.cc/brBdFV44/Screenshot-2026-04-09-230204.png)	A redwood trunk (dear goodness how did I not die at that point) (https://i.postimg.cc/KjH4spCW/Screenshot-2026-04-10-000843.png)
Redwood forests at nearly 15000 south (https://i.postimg.cc/D0MmYpRt/Screenshot-2026-04-10-001739.png)	High woods on the way home (https://i.postimg.cc/vTNDS2ps/Screenshot-2026-04-10-201433.png)

Second Winter

Now I knew how to get to the distant location, it was time to work on things I needed and things that mattered. Strictly speaking I did not need chickens, but chickens definitely mattered. I caught some wild chickens and got my chicken farming going.

The other thing to work on was mechanical power, which was less successful at this stage. I picked a tall spur of rock near home and converted it into a windmill, but my sails were two sizes too small to actually power the helve hammer, the device I needed to speed up iron working. So I did a lot of iron working by hand (I do not recommend this, it takes ages, you have to knock slag off every iron bloom voxel by voxel).

I also then needed actual iron, so I spent a bunch of the winter mining and cave-exploring. This winter was so much busier than the first, when I'd been generally hiding from scary things and the cold indoors: with a lot more food to fuel me I could be a lot more active. I also found some cool things like the below tapestry, which I could use to decorate at home.

A chicken shed and fence! (https://i.postimg.cc/Wbz5FD8N/Screenshot-2026-04-12-172124.png)	And some chickens... (https://i.postimg.cc/9Qq1bvvC/Screenshot-2026-04-13-195032.png)
The windmill version 1: (https://i.postimg.cc/vZ6XhppZ/Screenshot-2026-04-17-223438.png)	A rather sad helve hammer not running: (https://i.postimg.cc/YCm8RJJ2/Screenshot-2026-04-17-224755.png)
Finally some good iron! (https://i.postimg.cc/Vkjnd1x6/Screenshot-2026-05-30-120851.png)	Underground also has treasure to be found: (https://i.postimg.cc/xjhz5cYJ/Screenshot-2026-05-30-131321.png)

The Third Year

This was it - it was finally time to do some plot. This didn't mean I could ignore the farm of course, as I still needed to eat, but I was now doing extensive enough agriculture that not tending it much wouldn't be an issue.

The farm at Tuath Aied (nb started building better around the mill)
(https://i.postimg.cc/g2kNhgpF/Screenshot-2026-05-31-151415.png)

Some spring planting including sunflowers:
(https://i.postimg.cc/vZqXt5Y0/Screenshot-2026-05-31-151431.png)

Then it was time to head south again, and do plot chapter one. Actual spoilers ahead.

Chapter One (Spoilers!)

The dungeon of Chapter One is the Resonance Archives, a space that you learn was produced as a knowledge store by an ancient people trying to fight back the Rot, an unpleasant black death like disease. The rough surface area allows you to set up a base, but then once you're in you can no longer build or destroy (which is a pity - one thing I find odd is when games basically take away their own core mechanics for the plot stuff). It's an eerie space, and includes a lot of unpleasant monsters, finishing with an immobilised metal giant. The game design is sometimes so-so, but the aesthetic design is fantastic.

For the first time I used a temporal gear, which resets your spawn point for the next twenty spawns. I used five or six, I think - for the final battle, the enemy didn't regen health with any speed so I did feel I was grinding it out a bit, fortunately my metal armour was just about good enough to not break before the battle ended. The archive rooms you get at the end are very pretty and let you get lots of books (books!) and other useless but pretty items.

Inside the doors: (https://i.postimg.cc/8zJfxvdK/Screenshot-2026-06-01-210319.png)	A rough side-room where I decided to try and set up camp: (https://i.postimg.cc/SNtzZd95/Screenshot-2026-06-01-210259.png)
My camp and spawn point: (https://i.postimg.cc/yYrSfjR2/Screenshot-2026-06-01-210940.png)	The way down: (https://i.postimg.cc/28XBHGvN/Screenshot-2026-06-01-211032.png)
A side-room with various clutter: (https://i.postimg.cc/BbjJtTv9/Screenshot-2026-06-01-212604.png)	There's also giant mystery machinery... (https://i.postimg.cc/QtLzccSF/Screenshot-2026-06-01-214201.png)
Which can whirr into life! (https://i.postimg.cc/NG2Mst2P/Screenshot-2026-06-01-223346.png)	What were they doing here? (How wrong can bell-making go? Very.) (https://i.postimg.cc/XNBJjWB1/Screenshot-2026-06-01-223525.png)
This doesn't get across quite how eerie the central chamber is: (https://i.postimg.cc/CMn1h0nP/Screenshot-2026-06-01-223445.png)	And the reward! Behold the archives! (https://i.postimg.cc/kMR4JCRH/Screenshot-2026-06-02-181615.png)

With that done, the rest of the year's work was just ensuring winter food was available and starting to shape a space to put my loot in. There was no way I could haul it all back in one go, but I decided it was time to start a little archive for myself (sadly the game doesn't let you take all the books from the big archive, but you can take a solid thirty or so).

Here's the first view of the archive cave:
(https://i.postimg.cc/g06zYqnm/Screenshot-2026-06-04-233731.png)

The Third Winter

The third winter was mostly preparation for Chapter Two, a significantly more distant location, but one where I (sort of) had an ace up my sleeve now, for having completed Chapter One I could get A TAMED ELK to ride around on which is great. The less great part is that the tamed elk is a bit janky, you need to not ride it down holes, and I did once console-command revive it because I turned my back and it walked into a pit kiln fire and cooked itself when I was like 12000 blocks from home. Nonetheless I love my elk, which I guess may now be my second elk.

Also in hoofed news, I had finally gotten some mouflon farming going. I actually just found a valley with some mouflon in it and built the pen around them rather than trying to capture them: the domestication mechanic works over generations and requires feeding them, which I have been doing. This hasn't been useful to me yet, because the mouflon tend to attack me and I'm trying to expand their numbers rather than cull them so far, but we'll get there.

I also found some weird glow things in a cave, proving that this game can still throw new things at me after over 100 hours of play.

Tuath Aied in the third winter (https://i.postimg.cc/h40SPGPf/Screenshot-2026-06-07-144046.png)	My elk! (https://i.postimg.cc/59mxNtNH/Screenshot-2026-06-07-153502.png)
My mouflon enclosure: (https://i.postimg.cc/2jxz858b/Screenshot-2026-06-08-005507.png)	The winter snows: (https://i.postimg.cc/zDkJXfXH/Screenshot-2026-06-09-223230.png)
Glowy cave things! (https://i.postimg.cc/66h95Q5v/Screenshot-2026-06-11-185007.png)	And from a distance: (https://i.postimg.cc/05C82N2m/Screenshot-2026-06-11-185209.png)

The Fourth Year

The fourth year (that is, Year 3 in the game reckoning) would be the year of doing Chapter Two of the game plot. I don't think I have any shots from between the end of winter and the plot segment, so here goes:

Plot Chapter Two (Spoilers)

I also don't have very good views of chapter two. I started with a reconnaissance to get a halfway post to the first chapter two location and then did that journey. This place is the Lazaret, where people with the Rot went to die. This location also provides the plot reveal that this all actually used to be our world - I'm still not sure if I think that was a good call and I don't think it necessarily adds much, but it's sort of interesting. Unfortunately at one point I managed to die unexpectedly and had to do an on-foot corpse run to the Lazaret without my elk who was already there, that wasn't much fun. The lazaret is also rather small, but then points you to a significantly further location (ca 15k blocks from base, at least two days travel even if you're riding very hard day and night with an elk).

This second location is Nadiya, a village! An actual village and indeed the only village in the world (not presumed to be the case in lore, but it's the only village in the actual game). It's a bit far away to be very useful as a base or shopping centre, and there's some sidequest requests there I've still not completed. On the way to Nadiya I also came across a mushroom which, it not being registered as poisonous in the game system, I ate to interesting consequences...

Oopsie (https://i.postimg.cc/Y0XNpws6/Screenshot-2026-06-20-234854.png)	I'm really glad I didn't get attacked by a bear while tripping out (https://i.postimg.cc/GtMPc15v/Screenshot-2026-06-20-234907.png)
First view of Nadiya (https://i.postimg.cc/Y0XNpwsY/Screenshot-2026-06-21-002840.png)	And a better view of the settlement (https://i.postimg.cc/QC6gXryW/Screenshot-2026-06-21-002913.png)

From Nadiya you get pointed to the Devastation, which is the actual dungeon for the chapter. It involves weird enemies including a giant bird, a bunch of odd time travel shenanigans, and finding a mysterious lens that may be able to look between worlds. You can then take it to Tobias, a mysterious hermit from before the cataclysm who founded Nadiya and, it turns out, is responsible for your weird out-of-time existence, pulled out of time from before the events happened (which is also why you respawn when you die!) As Tobias actually understands alchemy and tech, he has a bunch of mechanical servants and a really nice home in some caves under a cliff.

Rust-brown sky heralds the Devastation (https://i.postimg.cc/SQVfLWx4/Screenshot-2026-06-21-140044.png)	It literally makes a dome you can see from a distance (https://i.postimg.cc/7PXn1gZq/Screenshot-2026-06-22-182257.png)
I didn't catalogue the events, but this was the prize: (https://i.postimg.cc/XNxkKwYb/Screenshot-2026-06-22-161356.png)	Tobias' cave has the glowy strands too! (https://i.postimg.cc/CMJsCjxY/Screenshot-2026-06-22-184227.png)
#HermitLifeGoals (https://i.postimg.cc/y6nyhF8V/Screenshot-2026-06-22-184355.png)	#Aesthetic (https://i.postimg.cc/mZVy3QgL/Screenshot-2026-06-22-184405.png)
I also built myself a tiny home near Nadiya so I've got a bed to sleep in if I visit again: (https://i.postimg.cc/T2QJjr33/Screenshot-2026-06-22-191859.png)

And that's more or less that so far! My remaining objective is to build A Thing for which I need electrum that I don't have, but as the rest of the plot doesn't exist yet there's no hurry to build it.

Final recent stuff:

I've also been continuing the mouflon plan: (https://i.postimg.cc/1tDshmfx/Screenshot-2026-06-23-183203.png)	And I remodelled the workshop, which now has an actual window: (https://i.postimg.cc/yd0s41Ww/Screenshot-2026-06-23-183456.png)
Some of the alchemical stuff now wants rare earths apparently: (https://i.postimg.cc/yxfG2tXC/Screenshot-2026-06-23-202138.png)	And an autumn view from a trip south to collect more Resonance Archive loot. (https://i.postimg.cc/Gh2Vv3dd/Screenshot-2026-07-05-234044.png)

Exilian

Off-topic and Chatter: The Jolly Boar Inn => General Gaming - The Arcade => Topic started by: Jubal on July 17, 2026, 07:36:10 PM