I like the implementation of actually digging into the ground to find resources, the color variations that indicate where the resources are, and the animation that happens when you find stuff, but to work in AW would require a lot of tweaking.
First off, the land in AW is not fully destructible like it must be in that game. Second, the floating rocks looks more like magic than science fiction, let alone science. And third, single-handed picking is way too unrealistic to not be annoying, at least to me personally.
However, those problems don't mean that the AW devs couldn't devise some similar animations and mechanics that would make picking a lot more entertaining and engaging! I don't know how many times I've sat falling asleep in my chair while picking rocks, haha.
