Gamify Mining (and possibly other features)

[DampTurtle]

The Problem

Vintage story has set itself apart from other block-Voxel games through it's goal for immersion. My only question is why stop at a grid-less/GUI-less crafting system as a goal?

Mining in many games has been nearly the same since its inception. Stand in front of a block and hold a key. That's it. While, for soft materials, tapping the mining key can be ideal; Things start to get old fast when you have a large stack of hard ore and have to just sit there for minutes just holding a key and maybe slightly moving your wrist.

This can get really draining when mining to build is necessitated or incentivized in a game. You get home from work or school looking for some fun in a particular game but instead are made to sit and hold a button for a vast amount of gameplay or else you eventually face punishment and/or die. Then, boom! Time for bed. All you did today was hold a button.

A Solution

A solution to this problem popped into my head after I was introduced to Stardew Valley. Unlike many AAA titles--leaving fishing up to pressing a button, waiting, then pressing another button (over and over)--Stardew famously gamified fishing in a unique and exciting way that required active player involvement and skill. This could work for a myriad of tasks in vintage story without a menu/GUI. In particular mining. Having the player be punished or rewarded for breaking blocks properly could be revolutionary in the genre. Something akin to hitting Cracks in blocks with the proper tools in order to successfully break it could be exciting with proper thought and implementation.

Some proof of this concept working for mining is one of the most 'successful' games in history doing something similar. Although I personally think it could be implemented in a more fun fashion, Fortnite gamifies mining by rewarding players for hitting weakpoints in structures. It ensures that you're not truly interrupted from some form of gameplay to hold a button while staring at a wall.

While Faster aiming = faster mining can be a good implementation, there are probably a large number of possibilities as to how mining can be gamified in a fun and immersive way.

While I'm sure such a system would require a ton of work; I think it'll be worth it in the long term by helping to distinguish it from other block titles. I believe games are fun in spite of you having to sit there and hold a button not necessarily because of it. So wherever gameplay can be implemented I say it should be implemented.

 

Some Features that could be gamified:

• Mining
• Crafting
• Cooking
• Fishing

Feedback and Disagreement are welcome. Discussion helps ideas grow.

PS: I promise this was not written with any AI involvement lol.

Credit to Stardew Valley, Fortnite, and Salty Water (Mining mod) for inspiring this idea.

 

[DampTurtle]

I didn't think of it at the time, but healing can be gamified too! 

Edited June 21 by DampTurtle

[LadyWYT]

Welcome to the forums!

Interesting idea, but I don't like the thought of turning absolutely everything into a series of mini-games, and that seems to be what's suggested here. Tasks like mining are always going to be a little tedious, to an extent, but...they're mundane tasks. The action is supposed to be something that the player can understand immediately and complete quickly, so they can get the resources they're after and move on to the more complex work of refining said resources. Turning the action into a mini-game might make it more "interesting" at a glance, but more of a hassle to deal with in the long term since now it takes several seconds to mine a block for resources rather than just a couple.

Dave the Diver suffered from this somewhat. Very fun game, but it really loved to throw multiple mini-games at the player, and rather frequently too, which could be overwhelming to downright aggravating to deal with.

[Bruno Willis]

Yes, welcome!

I would say turning cave ins on, and then using support beams is a really fun addition to mining. You end up with some pretty rickety, believable looking mines doing it that way (I only wish support beams stretched a bit further before needing two beams, so that aesthetics are not a resource sacrifice).

There are already layers of cracked rock in the game, which are easier to mine, it's just rare that they lead to where you want to dig. They act more as a roof stability threat than a mining advantage. 

I think that adding extra granularity into the act of breaking blocks, while fun, would probably add a lot of extra time into the mining process. I'd lean more towards additional variation in the stone. I like how quartz layers can make an early mine impossible in a certain location, and cause you to look elsewhere, or look for a cave that cuts through that layer. I could imagine bands of harder stone (but still breakable with copper) cutting through the world, as well as more realistic cave systems (check out this thread:)

 I could imagine filling some cave systems up entirely with muddy gravel would add an interesting challenge/opportunity that would change the pace of mining. 

[Rainbow Fresh]

Now I don't wanna say ideas should be shut down immediately just because they ask to go into the opposite direction of the game's theme but having the suggestion of actively "game-ifying" a mechanic, with the suggestion for most mechanics in the game slapped onto it, in a game that specifically aims to have as little game-ification as possible (a 3x3 crafting grid is game-ified and the devs want it gone for more in-world interactions) just raises immediate concerns.

You are mentioning essentially turning mechanics into minigames. That is, having a more active part for the player to play in it. And I do agree that some things could in theory be more engaging and "fun". I do also agree that any game basing its content and mechanics in "realism" is always balancing the fine line between fun and realism and sometimes realism needs to be dropped or loosened for the sake of having a more enjoyable experience. Using the term of "game-ification", however, makes me immediately think of the wrong kinds of non-realism. It makes me think of flashy popups, quick time events and some such. Which is certainly the wrong appeal for a game like Vintage Story, and not necessary in the first place. Let's take some of your later examples for where "game-ification" is supposed to help:

- Cooking
I wholeheartedly agree that it is lacking, big time, when it doesn't need to. You have a firepit with one input slot or a cooking pot with 4. You put things in the slots at the right ratio, light it up and wait. Done. That is boring and certainly part of the reason why food consumption inevitably turns into a drag later in the game; starvation is not an issue because you grow basically infinite food but constantly having to just do this and eat it becomes repetitive real quick. However, we don't need game-ification to fix that. What we need is, in contrary, more realism. Imagine if cooking in the game was actually akin to real cooking. You fill a pot with water and heat it up to cooking temperatures. Then you add your ingredients; not by "X times A, X times B, X times C" formula but more organic. A slab or two of redmeat, pre-cut into small cubes. Let it simmer. Add a carrot. Add a potato. Sprinkle in some salt to refine the dish. That would be much more engaging and fun to interact with (it's why mods like Culinary Artillery exist and are oh so popular) while being grounded more in realism than game logic. I mentioned it in another thread before but this is how cooking works in Project Zomboid and it's one of the most fun mechanics in that game imo.

- Fishing
Ah, the good old. The thing every game since 2016 must have just for the sake of having it. The dreaded fishing mechanic. Now this one is a real hardheaded contender because... real fishing is just the most boring thing imaginable. It's literally sitting and waiting for hours. Only - potentially - broken by the occasional moment of adrenaline when finally something DOES bite and you need to try and reel it in without it escaping, the line snapping or you loosing the rod. When it comes to fishing mechanics in games, Stardew Valley is certainly one of the more entertaining one and I can see where the idea to have something on the same level comes from. However, as LadyWYT mentioned, some tasks are just meant to be mundane and boring. In fact, as it currently stands, fishing is kind of overpowered with its only limiting factors being the depletion of fish through overfishing and how boring it is having to actively sit there and waste hours of daylight. That said, it could be made more engaging and as such potentially more fun once again not by adding a minigame popup but instead adding actually realistic fishing mechanics. Having to reel the fish in without the line snapping by holding it against the fish's movement careful to not stress the rod too much and reeling it in closer when the fish is exhausted. Much like any other "realistic" fishing simulator. Would also allow for making higher tier fishing rods later in the game.

- Healing
I don't think the process of applying a poultice/bandage to your wound can inherently be made more engaging. Not without going into grotesque medical territory which seems out of line considering the devs are adverse to adding proper butchering of animals due to "too much gore". That isn't all there is to healing though. Instead of adding a skill-check QTE for properly applying the bandage, we just need to wait for the status effect system to finally be implemented. With such a system, more complex injuries (infections, sickness, longer lasting injuries) are basically a given and longer-term treatment of such comes naturally with it. Once again making a mechanic more engaging not through game-ification but through adding more indepth realism.

- Crafting
As mentioned above, the devs are working in favor of getting rid of the crafting grid entirely in favor for solely interacting with stuff in-world to create stuff.

- And finally, mining
As mentioned above by both LadyWYT and Bruno, game-ifing something this basic is a tough choice. Yes, mining is inherently boring and if all you do with your evening is mine 1000 blocks of iron ore it can, in hindsight, feel like alot of time wasted doing nothing but holding down LMB (using a macro) and ever so slightly move your wrist. But turning the mining of a block into a minigame that takes significantly longer just for the sake of trying to add enjoyment into the process isn't gonna be as great in the long run either. As was mentioned in another thread, power creep doesn't really exist in Vintage Story's progression system. The difference between a copper and a quenched steel pickaxe is certainly not comparable to having an Efficiency 5 Netherite Pickaxe in TOBG. Even the latest game player will still spend notable amounts of time mining, be it for ore, landscaping or gathering fancy ashlar bricks. Turning every block mined into a minigame isn't gonna help the way you think it will. What could help is adding more stuff around it. As Bruno mentioned, having a properly functioning, clearly communicated cave-in mechanic will distract you from the repetition of holding LMB and moving your wrist by 0.5cm every few seconds. Having mechanics in the direction of the "Stone Quarry" mod or the "Immersive Mining" mod (if that was its name) could help add some depth to the process. Hell, even adding some more believable realistic tools (not talking about ore bombs) besides the pickaxe could help. Late-game mechanically powered drill maybe? We are also said to get Minecarts of some sort later down the line. All of this already interacts with mining and as such help breaks up the tedium somewhat without game-ifying anything.

Edited June 22 by Rainbow Fresh

[Bruno Willis]

4 hours ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

Now I don't wanna say ideas should be shut down immediately just because they ask to go into the opposite direction of the game's theme but having the suggestion of actively "game-ifying" a mechanic, with the suggestion for most mechanics in the game slapped onto it, in a game that specifically aims to have as little game-ification as possible (a 3x3 crafting grid is game-ified and the devs want it gone for more in-world interactions) just raises immediate concerns.

I really agree with your take here, but I do think the o.p. is actually more inline with your take than not: 

15 hours ago, DampTurtle said:

In particular mining. Having the player be punished or rewarded for breaking blocks properly could be revolutionary in the genre. Something akin to hitting Cracks in blocks with the proper tools in order to successfully break it could be exciting with proper thought and implementation.

This seems to be more about picking a detail of a too simple system and bringing it into focus by drawing on realism, rather than making a full mini-game of it (correct me if I'm wrong here).

Thinking about it further I can imagine starting to mine a block, and a crack forming (like it does already) but in one of like 5 possible configurations. If you move your mouse and target where the crack forms, you mine the block faster and maybe spend a little less durability. Essentially, you get the same mining techniques as currently, + a small payoff for paying extra attention. I'd make the difference between mining without paying attention and mineing with care minimal, but add up over time. That way, if you care about it and enjoy the mechanic, it feels worthwhile, but if you don't care, you don't feel like you're being punished. 

[Rainbow Fresh]

4 minutes ago, Bruno Willis said:

Thinking about it further I can imagine starting to mine a block, and a crack forming (like it does already) but in one of like 5 possible configurations. If you move your mouse and target where the crack forms, you mine the block faster and maybe spend a little less durability. Essentially, you get the same mining techniques as currently, + a small payoff for paying extra attention. I'd make the difference between mining without paying attention and mineing with care minimal, but add up over time. That way, if you care about it and enjoy the mechanic, it feels worthwhile, but if you don't care, you don't feel like you're being punished. 

That does sound like a possible minor incentive to make mining itself ever so slightly less monotone. However, I feel like this level of miniscule detail would be lost with how Minecraft-y block breaking currently works; I feel this would be much more meaningful if we were to assume block breaking works as in Salty's... forgot the name, that mod where you swing realistically, slow and impactful, taking few but slow swings to mine a block or fell a tree. That way you'd have more than enough time to see and adjust for the crack forming.

 

EDIT: Found it, Salty's and Toast's "Immersive: Mining"
https://mods.vintagestory.at/immersivemining

Edited June 22 by Rainbow Fresh

[Steel General]

I think it would be cool to see something like the mechanics of chiseling and slag removal come into mining, carving ore chunks from the host rock - give the pick an 'F' menu to select between breaking whole blocks, eighth blocks, or 64th blocks, and have the chisel be a better choice for anything under eighth block. I'm thinking the penalty for error is just inventory space - ore chunks hold the most utility in the smallest package, so you'd rather leave with just ore chunks than both ore chunks and ore gravel from breaking the ore chunks when you mine them.

Cool, but not necessarily fun... might need to adjust yields so that the same time invested, with skill, gets the results we now expect.

[LadyWYT]

4 hours ago, Bruno Willis said:

Thinking about it further I can imagine starting to mine a block, and a crack forming (like it does already) but in one of like 5 possible configurations. If you move your mouse and target where the crack forms, you mine the block faster and maybe spend a little less durability. Essentially, you get the same mining techniques as currently, + a small payoff for paying extra attention. I'd make the difference between mining without paying attention and mineing with care minimal, but add up over time. That way, if you care about it and enjoy the mechanic, it feels worthwhile, but if you don't care, you don't feel like you're being punished. 

I don't think this would make mining faster or more fun, personally. It seems like it would be something of a difficult mechanic for new players to grasp easily, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but mundane activities like mining should be rather easy to figure out. I also think the split-second delay on analyzing the crack and figuring out where to point the cursor to "break it faster" will ultimately end up breaking the block slower than the conventional method--those split-seconds add up rather easily.

A better option would be applying this sort of logic to trees--simply hitting the base of the tree until the whole thing falls apart is a useful utility, but not particularly exciting or realistic. Cutting out wedges and then being able to watch the tree actually fall over before picking up the resulting blocks(or log, and needing to refine said log into the appropriate products) would be a lot more interesting. The cutting process might be slower than the current process when it comes to small trees, but larger trees might actually be harvested a bit faster, balancing out the mechanic.

For mining, I think it would work as a specific action for fossils, and make a pretty fun mini-game for the player every once in a while. Fossils can be delicate, and to extract them intact one needs to take special care to chisel away the rock around them. In this case, it makes more sense that the player would take their time and be very careful about where they swing their pick, lest they destroy their prize. Once the fossil has been carved out, the player can use a hammer and chisel to polish the result.

[Bruno Willis]

3 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

I don't think this would make mining faster or more fun, personally. It seems like it would be something of a difficult mechanic for new players to grasp easily, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but mundane activities like mining should be rather easy to figure out. I also think the split-second delay on analyzing the crack and figuring out where to point the cursor to "break it faster" will ultimately end up breaking the block slower than the conventional method--those split-seconds add up rather easily.

Think about how you remove slag when processing iron. I typically hold the mouse down and move the cursor so that I'm striking as fast as possible, in different, deliberate areas. I'd imagine that'd be the mechanic. 

Granted, I'm not sure how much value it would add. I'm sort of imagining it as something you could slowly realize "Oh, it mines faster if I hit the crack that forms" and then you do that.

[MKMoose]

11 hours ago, DampTurtle said:

[...] mining can be gamified in a fun and immersive way.

I kind of agree with the idea, but also disagree with the premise. Why gamify things when it is entirely possible to lean into realism where it makes sense to make the mechanics more engaging? Even weak points similar to what you've described could be impemented without any sort of gamified feel - not necessarily quantitatively realistic, but entirely inspired by reality in the qualitative sense of "rocks are not completely uniform and can be broken more easily when leveraging cracks and discontinuities".

Fishing is arguably the best example here, as described adequately by @Rainbow Fresh. In its current implementation, it's basically a "click to materialize a fish" system, and it is entirely possible to add plenty of depth to it through reasonably realistic reeling while scaling down an excess of realistic waiting. Even the waiting part could be made more interesting by letting the player watch the fish under the water purly for visual interest and move or jerk the bobber to get the fish to bite faster in warm water.

 

4 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

I don't think this would make mining faster or more fun, personally. It seems like it would be something of a difficult mechanic for new players to grasp easily, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but mundane activities like mining should be rather easy to figure out. I also think the split-second delay on analyzing the crack and figuring out where to point the cursor to "break it faster" will ultimately end up breaking the block slower than the conventional method--those split-seconds add up rather easily.

While implementing something of the sort for all stone blocks could potentially be a bit much, I think it would be quite fine to do it for ore blocks and cracked stone, and potentially even give the player a bit more ore as a reward for more careful mining. Large-scale faults of sorts as an extension of the cracked stone deposits could also be an option, so that most areas wouldn't have the mechanic but sometimes a large strip or layer of blocks (potentially containing ore veins) would have frequent cracks that could make it a more viable location for a mine.

And the easiest way to remove the problem of having to quickly figure out where the crack is while mining the block would probably be to pre-generate the weak spots. As long as it's not applied to all stone blocks and instead just a small portion (e.g. ore and cracked stone, as mentioned), then the performance impact would remain very minimal.

 

4 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

A better option would be applying this sort of logic to trees--simply hitting the base of the tree until the whole thing falls apart is a useful utility, but not particularly exciting or realistic. Cutting out wedges and then being able to watch the tree actually fall over before picking up the resulting blocks(or log, and needing to refine said log into the appropriate products) would be a lot more interesting. The cutting process might be slower than the current process when it comes to small trees, but larger trees might actually be harvested a bit faster, balancing out the mechanic.

Trees physically falling over is a huge can of worms for a game like VS, and I personally would say that it goes a bit far. Salty's been playing with this kind of features a fair bit, though, most notably in the Falling Trees mod. More interesting wood processing would absolutely be amazing, though.

 

4 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

For mining, I think it would work as a specific action for fossils, and make a pretty fun mini-game for the player every once in a while. Fossils can be delicate, and to extract them intact one needs to take special care to chisel away the rock around them. In this case, it makes more sense that the player would take their time and be very careful about where they swing their pick, lest they destroy their prize. Once the fossil has been carved out, the player can use a hammer and chisel to polish the result.

What TOBG's archaeology wishes it was... 

Applying something similar to ores or at least gemstones seems like it could work very well in VS.

 

50 minutes ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

I don't think the process of applying a poultice/bandage to your wound can inherently be made more engaging. Not without going into grotesque medical territory which seems out of line considering the devs are adverse to adding proper butchering of animals due to "too much gore".

While I don't know what the devs might think of this kind of mechanics, I think having simple "minigames" (technically something like embedded contextual minigames) tied to certain medical procedures, even something as simple as rotating a strip of bandage around a limb, could work really well without an excess of gore. There is a small game called Casualties: Unknown, though fairly distant from VS in theming, which implemented something of this sort in a pretty neat way:

 Applying dressing in the Casualties: Unknown tutorial.

Similar types of minigames in different contexts can be found, for example, in many RPG's lockpicking mechanics, or in games like Among Us as part of tasks. Barotrauma's and Project Zomboid's medical systems are somewhat similar to that of Casualties Unknown with a large variety of afflictions and treatments, although without that kind of minigames. Games like Green Hell have also had some relatively interesting aspects of their healing mechanics, which can be somewhat graphic with realistic visuals but should be fine when translated into the pixelated textures of VS and abstracted away somewhat.

Naturally, implementing something of this kind into VS would bring a whole host of questions, challenges and possible problems, but I think it could be a good direction to go into with healing that doesn't involve particularly much gore and at the same time adds a lot of depth and hands-on interaction.

[LadyWYT]

2 hours ago, Bruno Willis said:

Think about how you remove slag when processing iron. I typically hold the mouse down and move the cursor so that I'm striking as fast as possible, in different, deliberate areas. I'd imagine that'd be the mechanic. 

Oof, I'd hate mining then if it turned into that sort of mechanic.  Splitting slag off blooms isn't an issue for me, and I'm practiced enough that I can do it rather fast, but I don't like holding down the mouse button for that kind of work at all since it's easier to make a mistake working like that. At least in my experience.

 

1 hour ago, MKMoose said:

What TOBG's archaeology wishes it was... 

Applying something similar to ores or at least gemstones seems like it could work very well in VS.

 

1 hour ago, MKMoose said:

While implementing something of the sort for all stone blocks could potentially be a bit much, I think it would be quite fine to do it for ore blocks and cracked stone, and potentially even give the player a bit more ore as a reward for more careful mining. Large-scale faults of sorts as an extension of the cracked stone deposits could also be an option, so that most areas wouldn't have the mechanic but sometimes a large strip or layer of blocks (potentially containing ore veins) would have frequent cracks that could make it a more viable location for a mine.

And the easiest way to remove the problem of having to quickly figure out where the crack is while mining the block would probably be to pre-generate the weak spots. As long as it's not applied to all stone blocks and instead just a small portion (e.g. ore and cracked stone, as mentioned), then the performance impact would remain very minimal.

Eh...I'd rather see it just for fossils and special ores like gemstones. I wouldn't want to see it applied to ores and cracked stone in general, mainly because when I'm mining I like to just drill my way through everything before carting the resources home. Is it particularly exciting? No, but then again I don't really expect it to be. Sometimes it's nice to have a task be simple and straightforward, and not something you need to think about, while saving the more exciting mechanics for the activities you're not necessarily doing all that often(like smithing).

 

1 hour ago, MKMoose said:

While I don't know what the devs might think of this kind of mechanics, I think having simple "minigames" (technically something like embedded contextual minigames) tied to certain medical procedures, even something as simple as rotating a strip of bandage around a limb, could work really well without an excess of gore.

Isn't there already something of a bandaging animation in the game? I wouldn't mind seeing the animation polished a little more, perhaps with a temporary loss of speed since it's not really feasible to be patching yourself up while running at full speed. Given that some medicines don't keep long-term, it's also possible to require the player to create some of them fresh in order to treat certain injuries--perhaps grinding up fresh ingredients or combining powders/oils into a fresh salve?

Even in this case though, I'm not really sure I would consider it a "minigame" as much as I would just adding immersive animation for what the player happens to be doing.

[DampTurtle]

On 6/21/2026 at 6:14 PM, LadyWYT said:

Welcome to the forums!

On 6/21/2026 at 6:21 PM, Bruno Willis said:

Yes, welcome!

 Hey everyone! Thanks for the warm welcome; it brought a smile to my face.

 

I'm really happy this kinda blew up! its been insightful listening to everyone; and i appreciate you all spending time to thoroughly reply to me. I want to reply to everyone it'll just take me a bit of time due to my limited free time.

[DampTurtle]

Because its going to take me some time I want to just have a general summary of my feelings and thoughts to your replies

I honestly feel like everyone's saying some phenomenal stuff here; and I think we all essentially have the same thought process. We don't want too many 'minigame' like components. Too much and we have a game where we have to manually control the legs, heart rate, toes, blinking, and breathing of our characters to accomplish even the smallest tasks in game; but too little and we have a game where we spawn into a new world, and press 1 button , and have a 200hr AFK farm where we watch wheat grow for the entire playthrough.

-So we want a good balance which I appreciate a lot.

My question then goes would you prefer anything to be more engaging? If so, what and why? And if not, what and why? This way we can have a consensus on the specifics and ensure you all as well as the greater audience can have the best experience possible.

I saw some of you go into detail on the specifics already, as well as come up with solutions for many mechanics; I want those of you who did that to know I will read and give my thoughts to show I value what you have to say

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, DampTurtle said:

My question then goes would you prefer anything to be more engaging? If so, what and why? And if not, what and why? This way we can have a consensus on the specifics and ensure you all as well as the greater audience can have the best experience possible.

That's a difficult question to answer since "anything" is a rather broad category. As a general rule, every player has things they think should be more engaging, but not everyone agrees on what those things are or what sort of mechanics count as "engaging".

There's also the aspect to consider that a mechanic might be "engaging", but that doesn't mean that it's fun. MMOs and mobile games tend to be pretty notorious examples of that sort of thing, since the mechanics are designed to be addictive and keep players invested for as long as possible, but also tend to be mechanics that players frequently complain about. Likewise, mechanics can be rather fun, at least in the short term, but aren't necessarily beneficial for the long-term health of the game. 

[DampTurtle]

On 6/22/2026 at 2:50 AM, Rainbow Fresh said:

Using the term of "game-ification", however, makes me immediately think of the wrong kinds of non-realism. It makes me think of flashy popups, quick time events and some such. Which is certainly the wrong appeal for a game like Vintage Story, and not necessary in the first place.

Yeah, I can definitely understand how this got misconstrued due to me using the word gamification but from what I read of your response we agree overall. I simply referred to what you call realism as gamification lol.

 

On 6/22/2026 at 7:01 AM, Bruno Willis said:

This seems to be more about picking a detail of a too simple system and bringing it into focus by drawing on realism, rather than making a full mini-game of it (correct me if I'm wrong here).

This is exactly what I meant, when I say gamification I don't intend it to mean GUIs or Pop-ups, more so interactivity or as RainbowFresh put it: Realism

Though, I would like the 'realism' to have a more of a intensity to it so it feels like Stardew fishing even if it's functionally different in it's entirety. I guess I'm saying I don't want to replace a hold-button-mechanic with a bedazzled hold-button-mechanic or press-button-3-times-mechanic with an animation in-between each press; I think making the tasks that we have become more like 'gameplay' would be the better option. This may include requiring some timing, accuracy, or there being failure and/or success conditions to tasks

Below hopefully helps a bit with what I'm trying to portray

On 6/22/2026 at 11:59 AM, LadyWYT said:

. Cutting out wedges and then being able to watch the tree actually fall over before picking up the resulting blocks(or log, and needing to refine said log into the appropriate products) would be a lot more interesting.

I really like the cutting a wedge idea, I just hope that there'd be an additional reward (like more wood and sticks) for a skilled technique or a requirement for a proper chop so that it isn't just the same chopping we have now just with better graphics/animations

I feel like if the VS team doesn't implement such realism/gamification principles in the game it'll just be near mechanically the same as Minecraft just without any GUIs and having animations in-between our button presses/holds.

Does that make sense? Or is there something I'm overlooking? I'm also not saying everything has to be fleshed out just more things. especially long/frequently performed tasks

Edited June 27 by DampTurtle

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, DampTurtle said:

I feel like if the VS team doesn't implement such realism/gamification principles in the game it'll just be near mechanically the same as Minecraft just without any GUIs and having animations in-between our button presses/holds.

Does that make sense? Or is there something I'm overlooking?

It does make sense, but I think you're overlooking the sheer knowledge and skill cap differences between Minecraft and Vintage Story. Minecraft has a lot of stuff in it, but it doesn't ever really push the player to their limits or require them to do much thinking in order to beat the game. And while it might be an easy game and prone to holding the player's hand...it's also not very good at providing certain kinds of information to the player. For example, redstone is a rather complex system, but there's not exactly any in-game information on how it works, aside from the player's own experimentation and the rare simple contraption in a generated structure. Regarding combat and other systems...yeah, there's some neat tricks the player can pull off, but the general gameplay after a hundred hours' worth of experience is about the same as it is after only a few hours.

In contrast, Vintage Story demands a lot more from players, expecting them to learn several gameplay systems and then use that knowledge to survive, or else suffer the consequences. However, Vintage Story also gives the players a handbook containing information about most everything in the game, including short guides on how more complicated systems like mechanical power and temporal stability work. Combat is rather rough at first, but once you start getting the hang of timing your movements against enemy attacks you can start pulling off some crazy moves. 

Basically, any game could be summarized as "button-mashing", and many modern games fall into the trap of allowing the player to succeed no matter which buttons they press. Vintage Story allows button-mashing as an option, but unless the player is carefully thinking about what they're doing and applying what they learn about the game, they're not going to get very far. 

1 hour ago, DampTurtle said:

I'm also not saying everything has to be fleshed out just more things. especially long/frequently performed tasks

One important thing to note is that there's multiple different things requiring the player's attention in Vintage Story, so the more time that a single system requires is less time that's left for everything else. 

[Heegrim]

SaltyWater has an immersive mining mod that you should check out. Just improving the animations makes it feel way less tedious. I do think adding weak points to reward paying attention while mining is a good idea too. Same with different rock types having different hardnesses or types of weak points.