KickStarter Stoneshard - open world roguelike RPG - now available on Early Access

[The Wall]

Indefinite Early Access was a mistake.

I'm happy with current version of Stoneshard. But it was mistake normalizing Kickstarter being done in 2018. and game still in 2024. being unfinished. So many things from Kickstarter era changed. Not design just, but promises

Stoneshard won't receive ANY DLCs/expansions. One was reached during Kickstarter as stretch goal. LeadDev even said how he can't wait to stop working on Stoneshard. As I said, many game updates can be found in Russian section of Stoneshard Discord

LeadDev's #1 answer to any question particularly game ideas in past 6 months has been: "No"

And then, there is this gem:

Stoneshard will release on Steam Early Access in December 2018. We're aiming to release the full game during Q2-Q3 2019 for Windows, Mac, and Linux (Steam). After that, we're planning to release the game on PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and Xbox One in the fall of 2019.

 

[The Wall]

Or are they abusing the tragedy after so many months passed?

I don't think I've seen them using war as an excuse. Maybe I'm wrong, I don't read every post.

They definitely did. Many, many times did. Stopped a year ago. They are from St. Petersburg, where zero bombs fell. Part of team was from Ukraine (artists I believe). They left Russia because they had no access to their Steam money revenue, bank account was frozen. They are currently in Balkans or Cyprus

I very much like Stoneshard and follow its development closely. Wish Devs the best

 

[Jacov]

If they stopped after they settled in other countries then I don't see a problem.

 

[The Wall]

If they stopped after they settled in other countries then I don't see a problem.

Agreed. But what's the problem Boss, then? They have 2 more Dev Dairies to post before announcing release date for Rags to Ritches update

There was also small controversy with their codebase. Some Russian fan opened their source code and was horrified with spaghetti code found there. Nested infinite IF statements, no classes used and horrors like that. There should be and there are explanations for previous similarly sized or bigger updates taking 4-6 months and this one taking 20 months. Let's stop pretending we are retarded

 

[Jacov]

If they stopped after they settled in other countries then I don't see a problem.

Agreed. But what's the problem Boss, then? They have 2 more Dev Dairies to post before announcing release date for Rags to Ritches update

There was also small contraversy with their codebase. Some Russian fan opened their source code and was horrified with spaghetti code found there. Nested infinite IF statements, no classes used and horrors like that

Maybe that's the thing then? They don't have a good developing pipeline? They suck at coding? Don't want to be an asshole, so it's either this or they had to find a day job aside from gamedev to sustain themselves and their families after the move.

Also, how did that fan get access to the source code? Do you have a link to his discoveries?

 

[The Wall]

If they stopped after they settled in other countries then I don't see a problem.

Agreed. But what's the problem Boss, then? They have 2 more Dev Dairies to post before announcing release date for Rags to Ritches update

There was also small contraversy with their codebase. Some Russian fan opened their source code and was horrified with spaghetti code found there. Nested infinite IF statements, no classes used and horrors like that

Maybe that's the thing then? They don't have a good developing pipeline? They suck at coding? Don't want to be an asshole, so it's either this or they had to find a day job aside from gamedev to sustain themselves and their families after the move.

Also, how did that fan get access to the source code? Do you have a link to his discoveries?

I'll try to find it. Also conversations between him and LeadDev on Discord. Engine they are using is Game Maker Studio 2. They received criticism for that too. Stoneshard has no mod tools but fans have managed to make mods for it, adding Geralt from Witcher etc.

I remember that Russian fan saying how from what he saw in codebase Devs are afraid of changing single component in UI because that could destroy everything. Code is allegedly THAT tangled. Zero modularity in codebase

Not unheared. Didn't Battle Brothers (with less reviews on Steam then Stoneshard but still a lot) Devs use HTML or something as part of their game?!

 

[The Wall]

They suck at coding? Don't want to be an asshole, so it's either this or they had to find a day job aside from gamedev to sustain themselves and their families after the move.

Explanations are simple and probably along these lines. Agreed. But biggest problem is them arguing with mostly Russian part of audience about project being years late and not seeking solutions

 

[Jacov]

I remember that Russian fan saying how from what he saw in codebase Devs are afraid of changing single component in UI because that could destroy everything. Code is allegedly that tangled

I remember them saying something along the lines of «we can't add saving because of the engine» and then they re-coded chunks of the game from scratch to fix that issue. Something like that. I don't remember specifically, it was some time.

But biggest problems is them arguing with mostly Russian part of audience about being late and not seeking solutions

I can understand them thinking it's neccessary to defend themselves on Steam forums, but it doesn't look good when the main dev wastes time arguing instead of actually developing the game. And it must be taxing on one's sanity, having to deal with all those people.

 

[lukaszek]

Nested infinite IF statements

thats actually quite interesting. How? Some jinja template with a loop?

 

[mediocrepoet]

I figured I should at least see where the game is at before trying to refund it. It's fairly fun in terms of what they've got, they should seriously plunk in a MQ to completion and drop in chargen if they're going to, call it 1.0 and then if they want to keep developing features, do it as they will as free updates, or if they feel the game is complete as is, sell it as DLCs.

I got a decent enough deal on it before it's almost not worth refunding anyway, so I'll just wait it out or possibly mess around with what they've got more later.

If nothing else, it was good to review Steam's refund policy for these things and see what I have that could be eligible if I were so inclined.

 

[Sweeper]

Welp, never been scammed before, but now I'll finally have a "how I got scammed" story for the youngins
Gather round now, ol' NotSweeper has a story for y'all. It was the summer of 2022, Vladimir Vladimirovich decided to launch his special military operation on them Ukrainian rascals that year, and one day I was feelin' mighty retarded...

 

[mediocrepoet]

Welp, never been scammed before, but now I'll finally have a "how I got scammed" story for the youngins
Gather round now, ol' NotSweeper has a story for y'all. It was the summer of 2022, Vladimir Vladimirovich decided to launch his special military operation on them Ukrainian rascals that year, and one day I was feelin' mighty retarded...

Could be worse. You could've Kickstarted Mechajammer, or one of Hobgob's projects, or Arcadian Atlas.

Or all of the aforementioned.

 

[Sweeper]

Stoneshard was the only EA title I ever bought, and you better believe it's gonna be the last.
Damn shame too, could have been a great game.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Stoneshard was the only EA title I ever bought, and you better believe it's gonna be the last.
Damn shame too, could have been a great game.

I think it still could be. Or at the least, I don't care enough about the price point I picked it up at to bother taking back my rolling the dice on the project. Those other games I mentioned though. Well, the ones that actually produced games... Oof.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Well, the ones that actually produced games... Oof.

Realms beyond still hurts. Thankfully Archaelund shall be the salve.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Well, the ones that actually produced games... Oof.

Realms beyond still hurts. Thankfully Archaelund shall be the salve.

Realms Beyond + Chaos Chronicles. Doubly irked because I only have myself to blame after the first round.

 

[Saark]

So, will this come out before or after Silksong?

 

[Harthwain]

So, will this come out before or after Silksong?

What is Silksong?

 

[mediocrepoet]

So, will this come out before or after Silksong?

What is Silksong?

Sequel to Hollow Knight.

 

[cvv]

So, will this come out before or after Silksong?

What is Silksong?

Second biggest meme in gaming, after Scam Citizen.

 

[mediocrepoet]

So, will this come out before or after Silksong?

What is Silksong?

Second biggest meme in gaming, after Scam Citizen.

Not even close. I mean, off the top of my head, Half Life 3...

 

[Tyranicon]

So, will this come out before or after Silksong?

What is Silksong?

Second biggest meme in gaming, after Scam Citizen.

Not even close. I mean, off the top of my head, Half Life 3...

That's an ancient meme at this point.

It's hilarious they released Alyx just to keep the meme going for another 30 years lol.

 

[Fedora Master]

I feel like I already experienced everything the game has to offer anyway. You go to a place, hope you don't get eaten by bears on the way, clean it out one enemy at a time and run back. The skill system isn't deep enough to warrant a closer look, nor is the current map interesting.

 

[mediocrepoet]

So, will this come out before or after Silksong?

What is Silksong?

Second biggest meme in gaming, after Scam Citizen.

Not even close. I mean, off the top of my head, Half Life 3...

That's an ancient meme at this point.

It's hilarious they released Alyx just to keep the meme going for another 30 years lol.

Being an elder meme doesn't mean it's not big. The fact that anyone remembers it still implies that it's enormous.

 

[flabbyjack]

I am really surprised at the level of hate this game is receiving, so I logged in just to set the record straight.

Stoneshard, even in its current early release incarnation, is one of my favorite RPGs of all time. The main complaints appear to be:
1) It doesn't have a complete main quest line
2) Infrequent content updates
However, it's more of a sandbox game and the basic gameplay loop is solid. I have about 105 hours logged in the game and re-install it every time there is a major content update, but we haven't had a major update in almost 2 years.

Take a look at this negative review from someone with 500 hours logged (https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198193977226/recommended/625960/)

The game is fantastic and the gameplay loop is enough to get a lot of players entranced into the game. The skills are great, the stats and weapons are balanced and the dungeon crawling is fun and engaging even though its a turn based game.

My biggest complaint is they need to add back in a more flexible save feature.