A new skating mechanic

[TheRealEBE]

I love The Long Dark, but I find if you don’t have anything to do and don’t want to explore, there isn’t much to do other than research, repair, harvest, pass time, cook, or sleep. And if you are unable to do these things or don’t feel like doing them, the game can be quite boring if you have nothing to do.

So I thought that maybe a new ‘skating’ mechanic could be added. In certain cabins close to frozen lakes (like the unnamed pond) you would have a chance of ice skates spawning. These ice skates wouldn’t have a great warmth and wind proof bonus, but would be fairly waterproof and durable. You would take off your current footwear and put the skates on, and then once you go onto the lake, you could move quickly by skating. You would be able to skate like this for as long as you want. However if you wanted to pass time, there would be a feature in the radial menu where you could pass time skating. You would also be able to travel faster on ice using these skates, not only on lakes. For example, you could skate from mystery lake to the dam via the river, and get there a lot quicker.

If you skate enough on a lake, the ice could weaken, and then you could chop though the ice likewise to the ice inside fishing huts. However, because the amount of ice would be greater, the ice would take longer to break and you wouldn’t be able to use the hunting knife to break through the ice. Then once you have broken through the ice, you could fish, and this would make it possible to fish in regions without fishing huts.

This would be a fun gameplay mechanic that could make long-term survival less boring. Your thoughts on this?

[ajb1978]

In terms of footwear, I'd rather have snowshoes for the accessory slot that give you a movement speed buff on snowy surfaces, and a couple extra seconds on weak ice.