What we have here is a beautiful survival/crafting game, but survival is hard. We have our basic needs, food, water, protection from the elements, our state of health, but what I’ve not seen is something that could greatly enhance the survival aspect:
Disease and Injury
Let’s talk disease first, as I am familiar with a few games that include this. We needn’t a pharmacopeia of ailments, but perhaps a few general categories - parasites, fever, gastrointestinal distress, and respiratory ailments. Catch a case of parasites from eating raw meats, being bitten by some infested creature or drinking bad water, and you experience increased depletion of Food and Water status.
Catch a fever, your stamina drains faster, takes longer to recover.
GI issues will dehydrate you.
Respiratory ailments will reduce your movement rate, drain your stamina and make it take longer to recover.
These things can be avoided by cooking foods, boiling water, maintaining clean conditions, and not letting the local wildlife snack on you, or sharing your living space with rats.
They can be treated by producing medicines from collected plant resources or other resources.
Injury - this opens up a world of possibilities here. We already have bandages and splints, but a few injury states would also contribute to the survival side of things. States like Open Wounds, which drain your health and make you more susceptible to Disease. Burned, as a result of direct exposure to fire, which makes you cold, drains stamina, and can decrease health when engaging in physical activities (Running, jumping, mining, melee Combat), and Poisoned, as a result of animal attack, weapon attack, or eating something raw or toxic, which drains health, stamina, and could include some neat visual effects ranging from distortions to outright hallucinations (not seeing a ravine or seeing creatures that aren’t there, or other players as some kind of monster).
All of which should also be treatable by creating suitable medicines - bandages we have to treat open wounds, ointments for burns, and antitoxins for cases of poisoning.
I know, I know, work to implement, and something of an annoyance to have to deal with when it happens to you, but that’s survival. It’s hard.
