"Stoneshard" Early Access - A beautiful, punishing open-world turnbased roguelike

[Klyka]

Stoneshard on Steam

Stoneshard is a challenging turn-based RPG set in an open world. Experience the unforgiving life of a medieval mercenary: travel across the war-torn kingdom, fulfill contracts, fight, mend your wounds and develop your character without any restrictions.

store.steampowered.com

Stoneshard is a challenging turn-based RPG set in an open world. Experience the unforgiving life of a medieval mercenary: travel across the war-torn kingdom, fulfill contracts, fight, mend your wounds and develop your character without any restrictions.

EXPLORE THE RAVAGED LANDS

• Open World
  War always leaves its mark: villages lie in ruins, dungeons are infested with monsters and old roads are abandoned. Travel across Aldor and learn more about its past.
• Economy
  The wartime economy is ruthless, but it also presents many opportunities: fulfill contracts, hunt for treasure, trade in a variety of goods and travel the land to earn your fortune.

CHOOSE YOUR PATH

• Character Development
  Experiment with 100+ abilities and 200+ equipment pieces without any class or level restrictions. Create your very own playstyle!
• Enemy Variety
  Take part in intense battles against numerous factions. Brigands, abominable cults, the undead - all of them require a unique approach.
• Tactical Battles
  There is no hand-holding. Only the thoughtful ones shall prevail - plan a few turns ahead, adapt to your surroundings and fully utilize your character's strengths.

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SURVIVE AGAINST THE ODDS

• Health System
  Master the simple but deep health system: cauterize bleeding wounds, relieve pain with alcohol and drugs, practice bloodletting and heal your maladies with various concoctions.
• Psyche
  Different in-game situations have a distinct influence on your character's mental condition. High morale may turn the tide in your favor when fighting even the most hopeless of battles, while low sanity brings panic attacks and paranoia.
• Permadeath
  Do you like risk? Then try out the Ironman mode, where every decision is irreversible and your character dies once and for all.

PLANNED UPDATES

• New Content
  New settlements, including three majestic cities. New enemy factions: the mysterious Deep Dwellers and the ruthless Hive. Even more activities, equipment, enemies and abilities.
• Caravan
  Gather your caravan: upgrade it, find new routes and recruit followers - their skills and abilities will surely come in handy. Feeling tired? Return to your camp to hear fresh stories or just rest by the fire.
• Devotion
  Devote yourself to one of the aspects of the enigmatic deity. But remember: every blessing has
  its price. Are you ready to make a pact?
• Campaign
  To solve the mystery of the Stoneshards, you'll have to visit dozens of exciting locations, make decisions with long-lasting consequences and slay a number of ferocious bosses.
• Alchemy & Cooking
  Discover new recipes and experiment with potions and dishes by combining different ingredients.

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So this just released in Early Access on Steam and I am about 5 hours into it and greatly enjoying it.
The game is crazy punishing, especially with the save system which makes you spend a night at an Inn (for a cost) to save and you lose any progress down till your last save if you die. Even then though, the feeling of trying again and finding new stuff and beating enemies is there for me and I persevere.
I tried melee, ranged, magic and everything seems fun so far. Sadly no character creator implemented yet so you need to use 4 archetypes but they all can be freely customized skill and attribute wise once you level them up past their initial start stats.

I really love the graphics and the game has good voice acting too (so far only in the tutorial which is quite long and has a great boss at the end). The music is more understated but the boss fight music I experienced was quite great. Lots of detail and little animations and spell effects that already make it a joy to look at.

The current content in the EA seems pretty nice with a decently sized overworld, dungeons and quite a lot of different enemies already. Also tons of items and skills with way more to be implemented. Especially the skilltree has a LOT of locked options for the future.

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If you want to try this out, there is a free prologue on Steam that is basically the tutorial of the game (which IS a prologue cause you play a custom character in the actual game) on Steam and you can find it here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/869760/Stoneshard_Prologue/

 

[Anastasis]

Thanks! This looks very cool!

 

[Sarcastico]

Looks interesting. Will try out the prologue!

 

[Phantom]

Interesting concept. However, I can see injuries' micromanagement become very annoying.

 

[Soggoth]

Played a bit and refunded. It should be a nice game in 2 years in full release. The art is beautiful, though...

 

[Klyka]

Interesting concept. However, I can see injuries' micromanagement become very annoying.

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It's not actually as micromanagement as you'd think. they do heal over time in resting mode, using items and such will just make it easier and faster.

 

[SaberVS7]

So this sounds to me roughly like a westernized Elona? Am I thinking correct?

 

[Kalentan]

So the rouge-like element that when you die you go back to your last save and you can ONLY save at an inn?

Hm... I could do that...

 

[Klyka]

So this sounds to me roughly like a westernized Elona? Am I thinking correct?

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I couldn't tell you cause I am not familiar with Elona XD
Looking at footage of it, it seems to be similar in some aspects. I don't know if Elona has a dedicated main story you can follow and such.

 

[Joseph Merrick]

love the art style. think I have to check it out when I get up again.

 

[Klyka]

love the art style. think I have to check it out when I get up again.

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The artstyle is wonderful. it has a ton of detail

 

[Sou Da]

Stone's Hard.

 

[cowbanana]

I love the pixel art, too bad it's a procedurally generated roguelike as I absolutely hate that tired game design.

 

[Timppis]

This looks really interesting and I had never heard of it. Thanks OP.

 

[Klyka]

I love the pixel art, too bad it's a procedurally generated roguelike as I absolutely hate that tired game design.

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It's not really "procedural". There is a lot of stuff that is set in stone, but some things are changed out with others when you first create a game. The game has a full on campaign with main story and voice acting and "cutscenes" etc...

See it more like a large part of the open world is "random"

As an example, in my first campaign i tried there was a "Fort Jovunnr" and it was 2 regions to the east and 1 region south from the village you start in. Then when I tried a new campaign, there was no such Fort there but instead a "Fort Urdast" which was 2 regions to the south of the village.
The contracts were different too but they seemed to just come from a pool of handmade contracts instead of them being generated.

 

[Anastasis]

The artstyle is wonderful. it has a ton of detail

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That the prologue boss? He jacked me in two shots! Pretty fun although a little too inventory heavy (I think I would get better at it down the line).

 

[Klyka]

That the prologue boss? He jacked me in two shots! Pretty fun although a little too inventory heavy (I think I would get better at it down the line).

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Yeah that's the first form of the boss! He has some attacks that come out of the ground that you need to move away from, those massively hurt, outside of that he is very doable

 

[Man Called Aerodynamics]

Just have to say, your OP title makes this sound like Popular Buzzword: The Game. Is it hobby-grade?

 

[Kalor]

This looks really neat. Might check this out once it's further in early access.

 

[Klyka]

Just have to say, your OP title makes this sound like Popular Buzzword: The Game. Is it hobby-grade?

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Why not play the iconic Prologue and find out? :P

Joke aside, I just wanted to show what the game was about cause it is a mix of quite a few interesting things.
Not all roguelikes have these nice graphics, not every open world game is turn based, etc...
Just tired to catch peoples attention :D

 

[Burt]

Glad to hear impressions are positive. I got my backer key the other day but haven't hopped in yet

 

[Klyka]

Glad to hear impressions are positive. I got my backer key the other day but haven't hopped in yet

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I definitely have been enjoying my time with it!
I was surprised how much it kept me playing. I already got 5 hours in it and I have died like 15+ times now, always losing tons of progress. I haven't even finished a single contract! XD
The tutorial is pretty great but it also gives you a bit of a false sense of the speed of leveling up and such. Also fighting in a tight dungeon is easier than out in the open world cause you REALLY do not want to get surrounded or flanked

 

[Clear]

Damn love that art style.

 

[Atilac]

Controller support? Any annoying hunger or drink system?

 

[Klyka]

Controller support? Any annoying hunger or drink system?

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I haven't tried with controller yet, but the roadmap says full controller support is coming!
Game has hunger and thirst, yes. You need to eat and drink, you get intoxicated, you have mental health.
It's not crazy, you don't need to eat every like 5min or so. So far it was enough for my character to eat a piece of bread that costs 15 coins about every 25 minutes or so. it depends on how much you get wounded and such too though.
It hasn't been something I really had to play around with too much yet. I'm still trying to get through ambushes without dieing first XD

 

[Comandr]

I've got about 13 hours into this so far and I can say: the game is great. Currently, it's pretty limited. There are two towns on the map you can visit, each with their own merchants and NPCs. That said, there are only two quest givers in the game and they each have two to three quests that can be completed and repeated later. The quests are basically all kill/fetch quests. Go here, kill this guy, get that item, come back. And when I say come back, I mean walk back. There is currently no fast travel system of any kind in the game. So get used to hoofing it.

To save, you'll have to go to an inn, rent a room for a given length of time, and then go sleep in your bed. This means that if you die during your adventures, you'll go back to the last time you slept. I'm of two minds to this. I've already died to bullshit and lost tons of progress... But it does make the world feel a little more grounded and your decisions a little more important. It is a turn based, tactical game, and there have been several times already where I realized after the fact that if I had carefully examined the situation and used the items I had available, I could have scraped by. It's easy to get into combat and look at it as closer to an action game.

So far I've only played as Pyromancer and I can say they are freaking broken. You start out pretty weak but by level 4-5 when you have a couple abilities under your belt, there's nothing you can't kite and burn down. By level 6 I felt pretty damn powerful. Short of being ambushed by archers (MY BANE!!!!) there's nothing you can't take down. Going to start the berserker guy today and specialize in axes and we'll see how that goes. I can already see challenges ahead but I'm eager to give it a shot.

TL;DR: Great game. Feels very grounded, in a good way. It's punishing. You will die to random bullshit critical hits. You will lose progress. That is being alleviated to some extent with future updates giving you more opportunity to save.

Edit: To make the game easier...

Spoiler

All of the weapons and items and monsters and everything are on a CSV file that you can freely edit the values of. Add a couple of numbers to a given item or monster and suddenly you get much more experience or grapes now fully restore your food and water need.

 

[dreamstation]

Added it to my wish list on steam last night. Looks great but the general consensus is that it's a bit light on content right now. Will keep an eye on it for sure.

 

[Deleted member 679]

Tried it out on a friend's Family Share just because the art was lovely, reminded me somewhat of Tibia and it was just a few MBs to download.

Played it for less than 10 minutes and instantly fell in love with the introduction, how the mechanics are presented, and the balance between pop up tutorials and player discovery. Great humor in the item and enemy descriptions as well.

Only negative thing I saw was the character walking animation, but it's not like that's exactly good in Tibia either.

I'm buying this, can't wait to properly play what's available, and looking forward to future updates. I don't usually do the Early Access thing, but this game just instantly captured me.

 

[Klyka]

For people who miss it in the OP:

If you want to try this out, there is a free prologue on Steam that is basically the tutorial of the game (which IS a prologue cause you play a custom character in the actual game) on Steam and you can find it here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/869760/Stoneshard_Prologue/

 

[pillowtalk]

you play a custom character in the actual game

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How much can you customize? I'm seeing a lot of the bearded guy.

 

[newmoneytrash]

Edit: To make the game easier...

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this is good because the hunger and thirst mechanics is the thing that turns me off the most from this game

 

[Owl]

How long does a run take? Seems like a game I'd like but I hear people complaining about the low content.

 

[Klyka]

How much can you customize? I'm seeing a lot of the bearded guy.

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there is currently no character creator, you just choose 4 preset characters. they got preset attributes and skills they can immediately learn, but any character can do and become anything. you could pick the mage character and find a book that teaches her axe skills and make her an axe wielder.
the character creator will be added at a later date.
there are two male (dwarf and human) and 2 female (human) characters to choose right now.
the old man with the white beard is a story NPC you play as in the prologue/tutorial only.

How long does a run take? Seems like a game I'd like but I hear people complaining about the low content.

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Well I don't think there is anything like a "run".
the game is supposed to have a full main story campaign and you can do all this side content. Right now I couldn't tell you how long it would take to do EVERYTHING in the current version. Like, 20+ hours? maybe? I really couldn't tell you. I have been playing for 5 hours and haven't even finished a single contract cause I died so often and lost my progress XD I finally got a good thing going with my archer though! (he says as he gets mauled by 3 wolves and dies, losing 30min progress again ;( )

 

[Shodan14]

From what I've seen so far, it looks great and has a lot of potential, but seems a bit early on the content side.

It could end up being a very good bridge to making roguelikes actually accessible.

 

[Klyka]

FINALLY finished my first contract! Had to go to a Fort and kill a bandit group to get reports back. Got me some nice money from that which bought me a new bow and some food and healing items. Almost lvl 3! Trying an archer/dual dagger build. Very fun so far!

 

[flyinj]

This game is incredible so far.

 

[Bulebule]

Downloaded it. Gives me Dransik/Ashen Empires/Elderlands-vibes which is always good.

 

[Klyka]

Second contract finished! My bow upgrade has paid for itself with how much more damage I do and I found some better daggers too.
Got a nice stash of healing items and food now.
I had to laugh at the contract cause you are supposed to kill someone and bring their hand as proof. The hand is an item in your inventory and counts as FOOD. So you could click it and eat it, thereby failing the contract AND losing sanity XD

 

[Cordelia]

I guess it's doing good. Dev's broadcast has 10k watchers and there are 10k concurrent players.

 

[Klyka]

I guess it's doing good. Dev's broadcast has 10k watchers and there are 10k concurrent players.

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Yeah, as far as I can tell the game has been (and still is for the release version) quite awaited. They had a kickstarter aiming for 30000$ and ended up getting over 100000$, so I guess that is telling

 

[Daniel Westlake]

From what I've seen so far, it looks great and has a lot of potential, but seems a bit early on the content side.

It could end up being a very good bridge to making roguelikes actually accessible.

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I think it definitely could and the developer or developers has been very receptive to feedback thus far even starting from way earlier in the process, the only thing that's a sticking point right now and they've been adjusting it slightly since the launch is the save system.

 

[Jolkien]

Looks interesting. Just saw I have a coupon on Steam for 15% off cause I have darkest dungeon. Are they the same dev ?

 

[Klyka]

I think it definitely could and the developer or developers has been very receptive to feedback thus far even starting from way earlier in the process, the only thing that's a sticking point right now and they've been adjusting it slightly since the launch is the save system.

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Yeah they made saving at an inn WAY cheaper for now but in the future it'll go more expensive again as they add more save spots like your caravan and campfires and such. they released like 3 hotfixes day 1. seems the devs are pretty on point.

Looks interesting. Just saw I have a coupon on Steam for 15% off cause I have darkest dungeon. Are they the same dev ?

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They are not the same devs but I think they are very friendly with each other.
The Stoneshard devs at one point tweeted this fanart for Darkest Dungeon in the Stoneshard style

 

[GrrImAFridge]

I guess it's doing good. Dev's broadcast has 10k watchers and there are 10k concurrent players.

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Currently #2 on the Global Top Sellers list, too. Ahead of MHW: Iceborne but behind Wolcen.

 

[Klyka]

Seems to have some good numbers on Twitch as well.
Saw a japanese streamer with 10k viewers stream it last night and some others with 2-3k viewers each too

 

[Shodan14]

Currently #2 on the Global Top Sellers list, too. Ahead of MHW: Iceborne but behind Wolcen.

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Who'd have guessed that people were pining for a pretty roguelike?

 

[Iron Eddie]

Game sounds great but call me vain becausse I don't know why we see so many of these pixelated games still. Is it all because of development costs and releated to being indie? There are a ton of great games like Dead Cells, The Messenger, Axiom Verge, etc. but I still have a hard time getting past the visuals.

A great game is a great game which is why I will likely still try this but there seems to be some sort of resurgance in pixelated games the last decade or so.

 

[Klyka]

Game sounds great but call me vain becausse I don't know why we see so many of these pixelated games still. Is it all because of development costs and releated to being indie? There are a ton of great games like Dead Cells, The Messenger, Axiom Verge, etc. but I still have a hard time getting past the visuals.

A great game is a great game which is why I will likely still try this but there seems to be some sort of resurgance in pixelated games the last decade or so.

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I think it's because it allows great detail and distinct artstyle but in a way so it runs on underpowered hardware and needs a different kind of work to be made functional and good looking.
I think it also lends itself to games like this for example. Like, the amount of content you can create in this artstyle in a certain timeframe is vastly larger than if it was 3D.

Like, imagine they made this game in 3D kinda like Witcher 3. Now they actually have to compete with Witcher 3's graphics.
That's a bar an indie studio just can't reach. How could they?

 

[Iron Eddie]

I think it's because it allows great detail and distinct artstyle but in a way so it runs on underpowered hardware and needs a different kind of work to be made functional and good looking.
I think it also lends itself to games like this for example. Like, the amount of content you can create in this artstyle in a certain timeframe is vastly larger than if it was 3D

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You're probably right. I need to get past it because a lot of time and love are put into some of these games and it's not like they are asking $60 for them.

 

[Klyka]

You're probably right. I need to get past it because a lot of time and love are put into some of these games and it's not like they are asking $60 for them.

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I often also have the problems of certain graphic styles turning me off, but I can only give you the advice of trying to see past it and watching a game in movement properly or trying it out when you can.
Download the Prologue for this and test it, I am sure you'll see the game under the graphics is solid