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Game News Stoneshard gets updated prologue demo, releasing on Early Access on February 6th

Infinitron

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Tags: Ink Stains Games; Stoneshard

Remember Stoneshard, the ambitious open world roguelike with great pixel art that was successfully Kickstarted last May? The game was already impressive back then, but it's changed a lot over the past year and a half. Now, as they prepare for a belated Early Access release on February 6th, the developers at Ink Stains Games have released an updated version of Stoneshard's well-received free prologue build which implements most of the game's new features. The latest Kickstarter update has a list of the most important changes. There's no trailer for this release, so here's the one they made back in June when they thought the Early Access would be out this year.



Ink Stains Games here! We’d like to wish all of you Happy Holidays and to present you the long awaited update for the Prologue as a Christmas gift.

The original Prologue was published in May 2018. At the time it was more of a proof of concept, designed to demonstrate you, our Kickstarter backers, our vision of the future game. A lot of time has passed since then, most systems of the game have changed beyond recognition. And at some point the Prologue grew so outdated that updating it became a priority.

Now the Prologue is mechanically equal to the main game and we hope it will make it easier to wait for the February release, especially for those of you who didn't take part in the closed alpha and beta tests. It's available for download on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/869760/Stoneshard_Prologue/

The list of changes is too expansive to be presented in detail – after all, this update includes a year and a half of hard work. The Prologue’s structure remains the same, but if we are to list the most important changes, here is what you should expect from this update:
  • An improved tutorial with detailed advice on main game mechanics.
  • Vampires were swapped with Proselytes – a new group of enemies with their own set of abilities.
  • A reworked boss fight, which now consists of two consecutive phases instead of two parallel outcomes.
  • A reworked health, injury and needs system. The old Prologue had it functioning based on RNG. Now it’s a transparent, deterministic process which you can assess at any time.
  • More weapons, equipment and all kinds of items.
  • Abilities from the closed beta are now available in the Prologue.
  • Destructible environment. Press CTRL to attack environmental objects!
  • Reworked Dual Wielding system.
  • Lots of QoL improvements: better controls, more hotkeys, item comparison, inventory auto-sorting, pop-up hints and more. Though keep in mind that the game is designed primarily for mouse controls.
  • Most of the game art was reworked.
  • Dialogues and lore notes were rewritten to better clarify the opening events of the story. New voice-overs for the characters.
  • Lots of changed and added mechanics (reworked Attributes, for instance).
  • A reworked UI.
  • Fullscreen support for 1366х768, 1440х900, 1600х900, 1680х1050, 1920х1080 and 1920х1200 resolutions.
  • Added an event log.
  • Last Hope” and “At What Cost?” achievements were replaced by “The Bitter Beginning” and “Eternal Hunger” achievements. The rest of the achievements were updated to fit with the content changes.
  • Enemies learned how to open doors.
It’s worth to remember that many of the planned mechanics are still missing. On February 6 the game is just being released for Early Access, during which we plan to continue developing it for another couple of years, gradually implementing our vision.

This is indeed a nice Christmas gift. Grab it on Steam and tell us what you think.
 
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Played the demo and the older demo. It's pretty good. Stealth is not available in the demo anymore, which is a shame. They also changed the voice actor for the main character, now he sounds less foreign, which I think is kind a shame because the accent gave it some charm. Also, you need to read all these tomes whenever you reload the game to open up skills, which seems unnecessary for a demo.

Also, they got rid of your character getting his leg hurt by blowing up a mandatory box. Instead, he just goes "I forgot my leg hurt" after a few minutes...which seems kinda silly. The old way made more sense and taught you how to blow things up and heal injuries.

Some other minor changes I could gripe about.

Overall, demo is decent. Nice to have more skills. Feel easier than the unupdated version. Gives lot of weapons before you go into dungeon.
 
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Looks beautiful! Plays quite nicely, seems quite hard, though I do suck at games like this. Looking forward to the whole thing!
 

KeighnMcDeath

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Guess i'll wait til march after more review judgment is had after the release.
 

Sacibengala

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Looking foward to this since the first demo. I hope that the early access don't get my wallet crippled.
 

Andhaira

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Seems like such a great engine and graphics to make a party based, turn based RPG. Heck they could make it a strategy-rpg game with you using an overland map (like FFT or Realms of Arkania Star Trail) for travel and have NPC encounters/skill based checks and then when you reach certain locations you immediately enter combat.

Using a great turn based engine on a single character game is such a fucking waste.
 

sser

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Seems like such a great engine and graphics to make a party based, turn based RPG. Heck they could make it a strategy-rpg game with you using an overland map (like FFT or Realms of Arkania Star Trail) for travel and have NPC encounters/skill based checks and then when you reach certain locations you immediately enter combat.

Using a great turn based engine on a single character game is such a fucking waste.

It's a roguelike. There are already a gazillion games like what you described, but you rarely see a roguelike with this sort of production value.
 

Andhaira

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Played through the demo, its pretty sweet. Love the flavor of the monastery and the vampires, and reading their notes on how they ended up this way. Creepy fun. Game play is gud too.

Not too happy about th einjury mechanics and how you are forced to fill your inventory with shit like splints and salves. I like verisimilitude (the original Realms of Arkania are my fav orite games of all time) but this seems like it will get in the way of fun.

Anyhow, will buy on day 1, but I doubt the main game will be able to maintain this flavor. Lets see; at least it will be fun to try out different builds. Planning on greatsword wielding warrior-mage focusing on greatsword, pyromancy and electromancy along with a couple of other magic skills on first play-through; then a sword & shield paladin with magic on second. Then a ranger and finally a pure mage build with quarterstaff.
 

Murk

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Did a few magic runs last night and really enjoyed it; would love to see even more spells and toys to play with ofc but for now it is shaping up to be really good.
 

Andhaira

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This game is great. A good mix between a rogulike and a proper rpg, albeit single PC only.

Unfortunately the Feb 2020 release is not a full release but early access, and the game will remain in EA for another year and a half! WTF!! EA is basically code for public beta testing and getting the same schmucks to pay for it as well; does anyone know if this will basically be a barebones game with minimal features, game breaking bugs and crashes to desktops?

My biggest fear regarding this is the dreaded save wipe on dev updates...
 

Fenix

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It's a roguelike.

As someone who spent a lot of time on Stonehard channel I can say that this is a roguelike from a people who have no idea about difference between roguelikes and roguelites or roguelikes-like, as such their channel was full of mainstream kids who even at gunpoint can't tell the difference between Binding of Issac and Angband.
I'm not telling the game will be bad, since you liked the demo, just bear that in mind.
 

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