Vintage Story

[Son of the King]

Has anyone else here played Vintage Story?

It's a survival game that has swallowed up all of my free time for the last week or so, and I thought it would be of interest to the people here that played Haven and Hearth back in the day.

Visually it is similar to Minecraft, but in terms of mechanics and actual gameplay it's quite different. I've spent several in-game months getting to this point, finally working with copper to be able to make decently sized chests.

Freshly poured copper

Spoiler

The forging is one of a few in-world crafting systems that I think are the real core of why this game feels so good compared with similar survival games; you actually hammer your hot ingot into shape voxel by voxel. Stone tools are crafted by knapping flint into shape voxel by voxel, and pottery is done by actually shaping the pots in a similar way then firing them in a kiln.

Forging some nails for chests

Spoiler

It's been really scratching the Haven and Hearth itch for me, only without the MMO aspect (which has its positives and negatives).

Since I took those screenshots a couple of days ago, summer began to turn to autumn and I've been working non-stop to try to prepare myself for winter; watering my farm daily to try to get a final harvest in before everything freezes, foraging plants that will stop growing in the winter, hunting boars for meat and hide (to make fur clothes to not freeze to death), and preserving food in my newly-dug cellar. My latest project is working out how to brew wine, since I have no other good way to preserve fruit over the winter months yet.

I'll update this thread with more pictures from my homestead as the year goes on if people are interested.

[Jubal]

Oh interesting! I've not heard of it before but the actual direct shaping of things element does sound quite fun, I like that idea.

[Son of the King]

I suspect the smithing version of it might get boring when I'm swimming in metal and need an obscene amount of nails for some project, but none of it has lost its charm yet. The clay forming system has a nice feature which lets you repeat layers of your pot without clicking every voxel again, which takes away some potential tedium when you're making 48 pots to preserve your prepared meat meals in for winter.

It's now late September and I'm feeling relatively prepared; I have one set of fur clothes along with some more hides drying, and I've collected a lot of the resources that will disappear in the cold months. I think I should have enough food, though I might be subsisting on porridge only by the end of winter. If I can manage to get one last harvest in before the frost arrives I'll be positively comfortable.

My homestead in late September

[Son of the King]

The last days of October and winter has crept down the mountain and brought the first frost. Thankfully my last crops were hardy enough to survive a couple of nights of sub-zero temperature and I should have a good amount of food stored up for the winter.

The last crops on a cold morning

The lake has started freezing over now, and I've started planning my winter tasks; mining lots of copper, then hopefully mining some tin and making bronze.

The lake is freezing

With luck, I'll also have time and resources after that mining to build a slightly fancier house over on the hills you can see on the other side of the lake.

I thought this winter sunset was nice

[Son of the King]

I reached another exciting progression milestone today, smelted my first bronze (after several days of effort to locate and mine tin).

Bronze in the crucible

Poured into molds

I've been finding winter surprisingly nice, its cold but I have plenty of food and my woollen coat keeps me warm without any trouble. And the lack of any urgent tasks has been nice for multi-day expeditions away from my main house without feeling like I'm missing out on essential chores. I think on my next playthrough I'll try to tweak some settings to make it a bit tougher somehow though, its pretty much a totally solved problem forever I feel at this point.