Beginner guide (demo)
The public demo is a short workshop day-loop: buy rough stone, extract minerals, cut gems, fulfill commissions, and rebuild Vermilion House reputation. Full release date is still Coming soon on Steam.
- Read Codex / tutorial entries as they unlock (gem level, quality, mineral type, and cut shape are different fields).
- Buy two or three stones, not a full table. Use the loupe / magnifying glass while stock is out.
- Set tool processing level to the surrounding rock, not the gem’s hardness.
- Accept one commission and read every requirement line before you cut.
Appraise with the loupe
Steam store copy: ore merchants bring uneven quality — use tools and experience to pick treasures. Demo patch 0.2.11 notes that the magnifying glass shows the mineral’s type icon and name, and that Attraction appears on ore details when you open storage from a display cabinet.
Practical habit: if the loupe does not show a gem worth the price, walk away. Refusing a purchase costs nothing; a bad buy costs the day.
Match tools to rock, not gem
Community consensus on the official Steam thread “how to reduce or avoid breakage?” (player Zebrion, Oct 2026): each tool has hardness and/or toughness you can scale (often with Q/E style level controls — see Codex “tool processing levels”). Damage happens when the tool is within about one level of the material you hit. Two or more levels below the gem/medium → no breakage from that hit.
Example from that post: hardness-5 gem inside hardness-3 granite → set chisel/drill to 3 so you chew rock without chewing the gem.
Cited as player explanation on Steam Discussions, not an official design doc. Treat numbers as demo heuristics.
Skip soft gems in the demo
Same Steam thread: gems at toughness/hardness 2 or below are awkward in the demo because fine tools like the polishing wheel are not in the demo build. Prefer clearer mid/high hardness stones until you know the extraction puzzle.
Fill display, don’t sell everything loose
Store fantasy loop includes reputation and stranger clients. Demo patch notes highlight Attraction on ore when using a display cabinet. Keeping finished pieces / interesting ore on display is the progression-friendly habit; liquidating everything is the classic early mistake players report.