My Friends and I's Experience on Vintage Story After Buying it Sight Unseen.

[Quizent]

Hello everyone!

Three of my friends and I recently purchased Vintage Story after seeing about 10 seconds of gameplay and a screenshot that showed a vertical slab. We have now played for a total of ~8 hours over 3 play sessions and I thought it would be fun to make a post talking about our experiences and some of our initial thoughts on the game. We have not used any YouTube, forum, or wiki guides on our playthrough, only using the in-game help guide.

With Vintage Story being a blocky graphics survival game where you can freely destroy and place blocks it will obviously be compared to Minecraft. Three of us were quite surprised that the game doesn't feel like Minecraft and truly feels like its own game with its own personality. We were fine if it had a Minecraft vibe as long as didn't feel like it was trying to be Minecraft. The fourth felt like the game was too similar and he could have more fun just playing Minecraft; he decided to stop playing about one hour into our first play session.   

The first half an hour of our first play session played out with us completely ignoring the tooltip about opening the help guide, trying to punch a tree, realizing that does not work, getting mauled by a wolf, finding some rocks and sticks on the ground, trying to craft inside the 3 x 3 grind with them, realizing that does not work, getting mauled by a bear, then FINALLY reading the tooltip about the help guide which say to get flint and knap it into a tool shape, finding flint, starving to death, finding more flint and sticks, making some basic tools, then getting mauled by a monster and losing our basic tools, then doing it all over again, and then starving to death again for good measure. It was hilarious to get our butts kicked this hard.

Now that we had a better idea of what we needed to do and feeling like our world spawn was bad (this was completely vibe based), we decided start a new world and try again from the ground up. This time we were much more successful and had tools, fire, and full stomachs by nightfall of day one. The next hour and a half was spent with us making up a dirt hut, gathering wood, making hand baskets, and trying to find clay as that seemed like the next logical step according to the in-game guide. We were completely unsuccessful at finding clay and we were slightly frustrated that we couldn't find such a necessary resource after an hour and a half. 

Our second play session started with us finding a huge clay deposit about 50 blocks from our dirt hut, go figure. We mined up quite a few stacks of the red clay and got to work with the pottery system and making pit kilns to get storage vessels, tool molds, cooking equipment, and food storage containers. We were very relieved when we figured out that the pit kilns only took one in game day and not one real life day to complete because at that point we weren't sure how grindy the game would be and the in-game guide only said it would take 20 hours and did not specify if that was in-game time or real time. While our pit kilns were cooking, we were spending time panning and hunting, and I got absolutely clobbered by a deer... twice. I did not expect the deer to fight back so valiantly and my friends still haven't stopped teasing me about it. We then used the copper we panned and filled in our tool molds to get some new copper tools and filled a few crockpots with red meat and berry stew. We were getting somewhere finally!

We really enjoyed the pottery molding experience and how it felt like you were actually putting together each item instead of just using a 3 x 3 grid to instantly get the items to place in the pit kilns. It also gives you something to do while hiding away from all the spooky monsters at night when they show up!

On our third play session with our copper tools made we at the ready, we went to try mining for some copper. We found one copper vein right on the surface of a cave and then after that... nothing. We decided to make the prospector pick to try to locate some veins. We found a couple spots with "decent" ratings and percentages in the 20's for copper ore but we were not really sure as to what to do after that. We were getting low on the copper we got from panning but we didn't want to waste through our pickaxe trying to dig around for a copper vein that seems to have a low chance of actually being there. We were trying to avoid having to pan again.

During this search, we had a temporal storm which ended up having us hunkering down in our little food cellar as monsters filled up in our base above. When the storm finally ended up and we cleared out the monsters (which included all of us dying multiple times), we were able to resume our activities. This was probably the first game system we did not enjoy. It was not very fun to essentially stop what we were doing to hide in a cellar for 10 minutes as monsters invade our base just for us to die multiple times clearing them out after the storm. Now maybe these storms are not a big deal later on in the game, but at this early stage, it felt pretty bad. This kind of took the wind out of our sails for the play session and we decided to log off for the evening and decided to risk it and try to mine around those copper spots with "decent" ratings the next time we play.

Overall, we are enjoying the game a lot. The three of us have been having a lot of fun learning how all the systems work and actually feeling challenged while not overwhelmed. I am sure half of what we were doing was making the expert players cringe with how wrong we are probably doing it, but please try not to give me any hints! We want to try figuring more out on our own. If anyone is interested I can also update later on with our progress. 

Thanks to anyone who read through my entire post!

 

[Loosebearings]

Welcome to the forums! It's always nice to see a new player enjoying their introduction to the game.

22 hours ago, Quizent said:

and trying to find clay as that seemed like the next logical step according to the in-game guide. We were completely unsuccessful at finding clay and we were slightly frustrated that we couldn't find such a necessary resource after an hour and a half. 

I will warn you that things like this will happen a few more times during your playthrough as you try to progress through the tiers and you can get seriously stuck in your progression. However times like that can be an excellant opportunity to start on some of the story content as travelling to the story locations can take thousands of blocks and bring you through all sorts of different terrain.

 

22 hours ago, Quizent said:

During this search, we had a temporal storm which ended up having us hunkering down in our little food cellar as monsters filled up in our base above. When the storm finally ended up and we cleared out the monsters (which included all of us dying multiple times), we were able to resume our activities. This was probably the first game system we did not enjoy. It was not very fun to essentially stop what we were doing to hide in a cellar for 10 minutes as monsters invade our base just for us to die multiple times clearing them out after the storm. Now maybe these storms are not a big deal later on in the game, but at this early stage, it felt pretty bad. This kind of took the wind out of our sails for the play session and we decided to log off for the evening and decided to risk it and try to mine around those copper spots with "decent" ratings the next time we play.

This is an issue many people, alongside myself have with the game. The whole temporal system can feel annoying at times, with storms being the worst of it. However if you're smart about it you can use them to your advantage, though I'll leave it up to you to figure that out.

I'll be glad to hear about further progress you make or even see some of what you've been able to build, it seems like you're making quick progress through the early game. Hopefully you make it through your first winter unharmed!

[dakko]

Welcome to VIntage Story and the forums!

I enjoyed hearing of your experience and would love to hear more.

If you and your friends find temporal storms too 'unfun', there is a way to turn them off without having to start a new game. If you'd like that, please ask here and we'll let you know the command without you needing to go to the wiki.

[Loosebearings]

11 hours ago, dakko said:

If you and your friends find temporal storms too 'unfun', there is a way to turn them off without having to start a new game. If you'd like that, please ask here and we'll let you know the command without you needing to go to the wiki.

Theres also a way to make them happen less often too, with the max being around every 20-30 days instead of the default of 15-20 (I think)

[ifoz]

On 12/19/2025 at 2:22 AM, Quizent said:

We decided to make the prospector pick to try to locate some veins.

The best way to find early copper is to look around on the ground for nuggets, then dig down exactly where they are. There generally should always be a deposit below surface nuggets.

 

On 12/19/2025 at 2:22 AM, Quizent said:

This was probably the first game system we did not enjoy. It was not very fun to essentially stop what we were doing to hide in a cellar for 10 minutes as monsters invade our base just for us to die multiple times clearing them out after the storm. Now maybe these storms are not a big deal later on in the game, but at this early stage, it felt pretty bad.

Yeah, even as an experienced player I usually enable "sleeping through storms". In the lore they're supposed to be like something of a raid event, but in actual gameplay enemies can spawn wherever they want so it usually just ends up with players either logging off or going AFK in tiny boxes.

 

On 12/19/2025 at 2:22 AM, Quizent said:

screenshot that showed a vertical slab.

Just wait until you discover chiselling and support beams. 

[Quizent]

Hello again everyone!

Thanks for all the kind welcomes and responses everyone had! We had one play session since my original post and we cracked the prospecting thing wide open. We ended up getting ~4,000 units of copper and ~600 units of tin so now we will be able to mold a bronze anvil right away instead of doing a copper one first. We got extremely lucky with an area of lots of tin and copper ore together. I'd like to give a big kudos to my friend for reading up on bronze early so we knew that cassiterite was an important ore to be looking for. Without him doing this we would have just mined up the copper and made the copper anvil straight away, wasting 900 units of copper. We had to spend some time hunting down animals due to our food situation getting to be a bit dire. Deer and boars currently look to be the best animals to get good meat from but we are slightly worried that we may over hunt the area and not be able to find wildlife down the road so we have planted some berry bushes right near our base and are looking into expanding our garden for vegetables. I hope that if we leave the wild life alone for some time that the population will bounce back.

In regards to everyone's suggestions with the temporal storms, we decided for this play through we will keep everything set to this default so if we continue to not enjoy the experience, we will tone it down the next save we start. We don't want to have a knee jerk reaction and turn off a game system we only had one experience with.

23 hours ago, Loosebearings said:

I will warn you that things like this will happen a few more times during your playthrough as you try to progress through the tiers and you can get seriously stuck in your progression. However times like that can be an excellant opportunity to start on some of the story content as travelling to the story locations can take thousands of blocks and bring you through all sorts of different terrain.

Thanks for letting me know that if we start spinning wheels, it isn't just us being dumb, haha! Also...there's a story going on? We are going to have to do some exploring to find some details on that because we have not even found a trace of a story other than the traders asking the initial spawn question thing. That is quite exciting that there is another aspect to the game that isn't surviving!

 

8 hours ago, ifoz said:

The best way to find early copper is to look around on the ground for nuggets, then dig down exactly where they are. There generally should always be a deposit below surface nuggets.

We were thinking that something like this would work, but unfortunately all the times we found nuggets on the ground, we just mined them up and did not mark where they were so we were going to wait and try it once we found some more. Great to know that this is indeed a way to find it!

Once again, a big thank you to everyone's warm welcomes to the forum. My friend's and I are really enjoying the game and it is great to be able to interact with such a nice community. I am sure I will be back soon with more updates!

 

[LadyWYT]

7 hours ago, Quizent said:

Also...there's a story going on? We are going to have to do some exploring to find some details on that because we have not even found a trace of a story other than the traders asking the initial spawn question thing. That is quite exciting that there is another aspect to the game that isn't surviving!

Not to spoil too much, but...yes, very much so.  Currently there are only two chapters implemented of a planned eight, however, that is only regarding the main story. There are various things scattered around the world that, while somewhat related to certain major events, it's left up to the player to draw their own conclusions about what happened there.

To start the main story, you'll want to be on the lookout for a treasure hunter.

[Loosebearings]

18 hours ago, Quizent said:

Thanks for letting me know that if we start spinning wheels, it isn't just us being dumb, haha! Also...there's a story going on? We are going to have to do some exploring to find some details on that because we have not even found a trace of a story other than the traders asking the initial spawn question thing. That is quite exciting that there is another aspect to the game that isn't surviving!

Ask a trader if they know any interesting areas, they'll point you in the right direction.

[cjc813]

On 12/18/2025 at 10:22 AM, Quizent said:

The fourth felt like the game was too similar and he could have more fun just playing Minecraft; he decided to stop playing about one hour into our first play session.

That's kinda hilarous. The first hour is the one that feels the least like Minecraft, which is exactly what you described in your post.

Glad the other 3 of you are still vibing and having fun.

The cool thing is, after only 8 hours you still know next to nothing. That's not an insult to you or your friends, that's just how the game is. Even people who have played for hundreds of hours are still going to learn new stuff here and there.

Hope y'all continue having a blast.

Welcome aboard.

Edited December 21, 2025 by cjc813

[CastIronFabric]

On 12/18/2025 at 10:22 AM, Quizent said:

.... We have not used any YouTube...

 

In my opinion for this game and really just about any game made in the past 20+ years not doing youtube before buying a game as well as not using youtube to learn how to play is like trying to drive a car without keys. 

why?

Edited December 21, 2025 by CastIronFabric

[Venusgate]

2 hours ago, CastIronFabric said:

In my opinion for this game and really just about any game made in the past 20+ years not doing youtube before buying a game as well as not using youtube to learn how to play is like trying to drive a car without keys. 

why?

Because finding a fantastic game based on faith feels really good.

To use a different metaphor: It's like picking a car blindfolded; rarely, you'll find yourself at the wheel of a lambo.

[CastIronFabric]

21 minutes ago, Venusgate said:

Because finding a fantastic game based on faith feels really good.

To use a different metaphor: It's like picking a car blindfolded; rarely, you'll find yourself at the wheel of a lambo.

If you say so, I do not find buying something on 'faith' to feel good at all, more like terrifiying.

That part aside, pretty much all games made these days are nearly impossible to play without watching youtube tutorials. However, I best not get in an argument over it, have fun and good day to you!

[Maelstrom]

On 12/21/2025 at 9:10 AM, cjc813 said:

Even people who have played for hundreds of hours are still going to learn new stuff here and there.

Can confirm! 

And playing since 1.14.

[CastIronFabric]

26 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

Can confirm! 

And playing since 1.14.

I know this much, there are aspects in many modern games (I am thinking of Stationeers at the moment) that if you do not know what you are doing ahead of time, you can loose 100 hours of game play and reloading the save will not help you either becasue the problem is long in the making.

I do not know if that is true in this game or not I would have to think about it, not as much I would think

[Maelstrom]

I think the longest delay between game decision and paying the price of the mistake is prepping for winter.  Any other mistakes are more immediate, like not being properly equipped for cave diving; which are more easily corrected without going back in time to a backup save.