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

[Wayfinder]

Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1926605606/stoneshard-open-world-roguelike-rpg-with-tactical

https://stoneshard.com




https://af.gog.com/game/stoneshard?as=1649904300

Spoiler

Hello everyone!

I’m the developer of Stoneshard – upcoming roguelike RPG with strategy and survival elements. This site seems like a nice place to collect opinions and feedback from dedicated RPG fans, so we’d be glad to share some info about development process here as well.

What’s Stoneshard?​

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.

Features​

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

Spoiler

 

[Iznaliu]

"Simple, but effective"? Seriously, I've seen that a million times.

 

[Wayfinder]

"Simple, but effective"? Seriously, I've seen that a million times.

This is our "lorem ipsum" description. It would be changed in the future.

 

[Nekot-The-Brave]

I'd prefer a game that uses AP, not single action turn based.

 

[Wayfinder]

If so, it won't be the roguelike though. It's one of the most important genre rules - each action takes one turn or more.
Actually we though about implementing AP system and moving more towards the dungeon crawler approach, but roguelike variant turned out to be more dynamic and fun.

 

[Infinitron]

Coming to Kickstarter in Q1 2018, apparently.

Crooked Bee DarkUnderlord Devtag for Wayfinder - Ink Stains Games

 

[Infinitron]

http://steamcommunity.com/games/625960/announcements/detail/1470852689307422982

Devlog: Knockback And Other News
4 DECEMBER - WAYFINDER

Greetings elves, dwarves and players!

Another devlog that sheds light on mechanics before we reveal interesting innovations. A fun, but quite important knockback mechanic is a necessary part of Stoneshard combat system. We will also show you the UI we are developing and take a little look forward.

======

So, the knockback. In a genre where correct positioning traditionally means half of the success, the "enforced" movement of the hero and enemies looks like an interesting opportunity, adding a challenge and making the player evaluate the situation carefully.

Knockback can be triggered by some skills after usage, as well as maces, two-handed hammers or simply by large creatures – in case of critical hits. By the way, if there is another enemy behind the knocked enemy, an impenetrable tile or some other object, they both receive additional crushing damage, the amount of which depends on the number of HPs of the colliding objects. Throwing an ogre on the back of a standing rat (or vice versa), you are most likely to crush a poor animal. This opens many interesting tactical opportunities, for example to watch how the collapsing enemies die, or how a heavily armored skeleton breaks the crates behind him, is hell a lot of fun.

======

Now a more complete teaser of what takes the most time from us last week. The new interface that came to replace the simpler previous one. Perhaps some players liked our old design much more, but we were prompted by the obsolete obsolescence of the previous UI. It was created at the very beginning of our work on the game, and now just doesn’t meet our requirements. Attempts to adapt turned out to be meaningless, and we drew again most of the menus and windows from scratch taking into account new features and capabilities. However, we will return to this topic in one of the following devdiaries when we finish the work.

======

And finally, a little announcement of our plans for the future. Many asked us if there would be a possibility of pre-ordering Stoneshard. No, we do not plan such an opportunity. However, if you really want to support our team at a pre-release stage, we are happy to announce that in the first months of 2018 we are planning to launch our Kickstarter campaign. For us crowdfunding is a great way to improve the quality of the game and hire new people, speeding up the development process. And for our potential supporters, Stoneshard's developers will give you a chance to leave a mark on the game world or even affect the developing process, as well as to receive various bonus content.

Stay tuned!

P.S. DarkUnderlord I think you didn't finish the job

 

[Beastro]

I really wished RPGswould go back to the old equipment outlays with two bracer and a shoulder slot or two alongwith more than 4 jewelry slots. Anything but the same old head, chest, gloves, boots, a couple jewely and primary/secondary hand slots and maybe a belt.

 

[vazha]

Remember Siege of Avalon? Best chardoll ever, period.

 

[Iznaliu]

http://steamcommunity.com/games/625960/announcements/detail/1470852689307422982

Devlog: Knockback And Other News
4 DECEMBER - WAYFINDER

P.S. DarkUnderlord I think you didn't finish the job

Those buttons next to the action bar, and the concept of an action bar in general, are highly reminiscent of D:OS2; looking at the character screen, the interface also seems quite similar; some of the tabs for the different stat pages literally have the same or very similar icons.

 

[Indranys]

Some good concepts but I'm just too tired of another run of the mill standard fantasy stuff mang.

I love such settings where there're no magical shits or at least the greater mysteries are much more subtle than launching fireballs and magic missiles to the mobs' faces man.
I mean just look at how real yet subtle all the supernatural things in Tolkien's universe before it was raped by DnD and Hollywood folks mate.

IMO Sil the roguelike adopts such concept nicely in its mechanics, with those songs to give buff, inflict debuff or status ailments and stuff.

 

[Iznaliu]

Some good concepts but I'm just too tired of another run of the mill standard fantasy stuff mang.

It's not like this is exactly different from 99% of the other fantasy RPGs out there; all of them follow much of the same basic template. If you don't like generic fantasy, you might as well stop playing RPGs.

 

[Indranys]

It's not like this is exactly different from 99% of the other fantasy RPGs out there; all of them follow much of the same basic template. If you don't like generic fantasy, you might as well stop playing RPGs.

I was pretty ok with it in the past man, but recently I'm just too bored with it.


But at least I have Unreal World, Dwarf Fortress adventurer's mode and even BattleBros to some degree, if I want to fulfill my need on melee combat with lethal and realistic mechanics man.

 

[pakoito]

Stones Hard.


I'll see myself out.

 

[Infinitron]

http://steamcommunity.com/games/625960/announcements/detail/2730738399341725067

Devlog: First of 2018!
15 JANUARY - WAYFINDER

Hello!

We are back from our New Year's holiday, so the season of 2018 diaries is open. Vacation in our case was only de jure, de facto we continued developing the game and are ready to show you some interesting novelties. Let's begin.

Weather and time cycle

The first major change: we added global time to the game. Now there is morning, day, evening and night. Depending on the time of day, the illumination changes. So far, we have completed the work on the visual part, but in the future we are going to add various gameplay features as well. For example, light affects stealthiness and the field of view of the character and NPCs.

The speed of day and night cycle was 10x adjusted for this gif.

We also started working on the weather implementation. Sometimes the sky is clouded and the rain begins. The rain is divided into several phases: it starts with small precipitation, and gradually grows into a full storm with thunder and lightning. Standing in the rain, the characters begin to get wet and receive a special modifier, reducing their resistance to ice and electric damage. By the way, in the rain it is highly recommended not to walk in armor, it can start corroding.

Too bad umbrellas aren't invented yet.

New biome: Fields

We are slowly introducing diversity into biomes. Forests have fed us all, so meet the fields - beautiful with butterflies all around. However, it is better to see once, so here's your GIF:

You can easily die even here, however.

By the way, we also returned to the river and the lake generation, also slightly modified them. While the banks of the reservoirs look somewhat deserted, but this is only for now - in the future, reeds and other aquatic vegetation will be added to the game.

Ia! Even cultists got their beach bodies ready. What about you?

Identification

Well, the absolute classic for roguelikes and RPG: the system of identification. You find a mysterious item whose properties remain a mystery to you. Maybe this is a long-lost powerful artifact; maybe the ancient curse prevails over it. There clearly can not be understood without a scroll or an enchanter!

Better than expected!

That’s all for now. Stay online!

http://steamcommunity.com/games/625960/announcements/detail/1649874939469773820

Devlog: Cursed Items
22 JANUARY - WAYFINDER

Greetings!

In this devlog we will talk about the cursed items, which were casually mentioned in the past devdiaries.

Cursed artifacts are the subtype of rare items. Cursed items are always generated unidentified. Equipping an unknown item is always a risk, and now we will explain why.

Let's start a little from afar. Cursed items are a classic feature of many old RPGs and canonical roguelikes. Usually curses are various limitations, which make the player's life more complicated. Often they cannot be taken off after equipment, which makes the cursed weapons and armor even more undesirable. However, this approach always seemed rather boring to us: in the end, the whole essence of the damned objects is diminished to avoiding them at any cost.

Therefore, it was decided to implement this mechanic the other way, in order to give players the choice and a certain room for maneuvers. We left the impossibility of unequipping the cursed items, but in return compensated it with greatly enhanced enchantments and additional bonuses. The cursed artifacts will always be much better than its usual analogues, which give a powerful incentive to actively use them. However, not everything is so simple: after all, cursed items aren’t called cursed for fun.

So, curses. According to Stoneshard lore, cursed items are the confinement places of evil spirits, defeated in times immemorial. Their souls were shattered into hundreds of fragments, which were reliably imprisoned in many magical artifacts around the world. Each demon had its own unique power. Thus, cursed objects hold a part of ancient powers, which you can use… for a price.

Each curse in the game has a special negative effect, triggered with a chance. With every turn this chance increases until it hits its maximum possible threshold. To slower this process, you have to kill enemies – the more and often the better. When playing with a cursed item you have to constantly blandish your imprisoned demons, engaging in battles and emerging victorious.

Here are examples of different Curses by different Demons:

• Deceiver’s curse: up to 15% to obstruct control at every turn. +1 Savvy
  
• Gorelust’s curse: up to 7,5% to lose some health at every turn. +4 Melee/Ranged Damage
  
• Sufferjoy’s curse: up to 20% to increase pain at every turn. +4% Critical Chance
  
• Gnawmaw’s curse: up to 15% to increase hunger at every turn. 10% Lifesteal
  
• Mindwrecker’s curse: up to 10% to decrease sanity at every turn. +2 Psionic Damage

And finally, a small announcement. In the nearest future we will not be able to post devlogs on a weekly basis, since now we are completely focused on polishing the prologue, making balance tweaks and a lot of other important stuff. Due to this our devdiaries are going to be released a little less often – once in 2-3 weeks, when we have enough changes that can be shown without spoilering key prologue features. Hope you understand.

Until next log, see ya!

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

I expect death to be permanent, very difficult to finish and have full keyboard control.


You mentioned Angband and Tome (2.x was an Angband derivative) as inspiration. What about Angband do you take inspiration from and what about it are you looking to improve?

 

[Infinitron]

http://steamcommunity.com/games/625960/announcements/detail/1652130539554629465

Devlog: Status Update
4 MARCH - WAYFINDER

Greetings!

Not fueling your interest for a while. But don’t worry, we had our reasons and it’s time to tell more about them. We pretended dead for the whole month to concentrate on the prologue. That forced us to keep the best stuff in secret in order not to spoil your future experience.

More about details. We’ve done a lot and this devlog’s goal is to systematize all the significant news of the last weeks. First comes the most interesting part: Prologue.

Prologue

Sneak peek at one of the dungeon's sublevels.

Story-wise it will take you back a few months before the main game starts. You’ll be playing as Verren, one of the main Stoneshard characters. More specifically, for those who wants to know, Prologue will include:

• Tutorial level, teaching the basics of Stoneshard mechanics
  
• A few randomly generated levels with enemies, traps and stuff. By the way, we made brand new dungeon type you’ve never seen before.
  
• Several skill branches (though only the tier I skills will be available). The level hardcap will be around 5-7 levels, it’s still discussed.
  
• Boss fight. Won’t be easy to find the right approach from the first attempt.
  
• A “limited freeplay” stage, a part of the global map will be available (but no Caravan though).
  
• Approximately an hour of gameplay, depends on how roguelikeish you are. Also you’ll see why it’s called Stoneshard.

We are still working on the prologue, a bunch of stuff needs fixing and balancing, but we like the results and are motivated with the pace of our work. If everything goes well, you’ll be able to see it and play really soon. A little more about our progress further.

Kickstarter

Meet Ahruz. Everytime is time to cook.

The Prologue will be released together with the crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter. Still no exact date, but for sure end of March – beginning of April. You’ll be able not only to try out our game’s demo, but also to become our early supporter. As a reward you’ll get the full game after release (that’s the way to preorder for those who asked), and a bunch of pleasant bonuses: extra digital materials, soundtrack and a possibility to make a cameo in the world of Stoneshard as well as a chance to participate in the development process.

Other news by now

Reworked visuals of pathfinding.

We haven’t added any new mechanics, but have polished the existing instead. Displaying context menus has been reworked for good, making it more user-friendly and easy to use. So was the pathfinding system, and now it is perceived much easier with tile selection made more visible. Other changes are numerous: you can change gear loadouts, light processing got better, many annoying bugs were exterminated... By the way, did we reveal the new Skills menu?

You'll get to try some of these during the Prologue.

Also we had a health mechanics overthought: thirst, hunger, pain and intoxication. Using the 0-100 scaling system proved complicated. Even though all the changes were mechanically determined and justified, from the player’s point of view it looked like jumps and twitches forced by RNG that couldn’t be prognosed or analysed.

Adding 4 phases system seems a better way to do it. Each phase activates specific debuff, thus all the shifts are instantly visible and controllable. This system is much easier to understand: if earlier you had to count arithmetically how to satiate 47 points of hunger, now you just have to identify the phase. For example, if you have the second phase, you have to eat a steak which satiates 2 hunger phases, or two apples which satiate 1 phase each. Simple as it goes.

======

That’s all for now, folks. We will try to do much better with communication from now on without losing developing pace. Our silence didn’t mean that we forgot about Stoneshard even for a moment. See you soon!

 

[Infinitron]

http://steamcommunity.com/games/625960/announcements/detail/1653259067061568705

Devlog: Skill System
3 APRIL - WAYFINDER

Greetings, travellers!

Stoneshard devteam is back online with a new devlog! Still working on the prologue, but we have good news: soon it’ll be ready. We’ve got through a lot of stuff for the past weeks, while some other things still need tinkering. Anyway,this log is not about our general progress, but about one of the most important changes we’ve made this year – skill system.

There could be only one!

We based our skill tree developing process on two immutable principles: it should be intuitive, so that new players could get on immediately, and it should give a huge experimenting field. Path of Exile skill system happened to be the best variant at first, but we declined it, because it broke the first principle, even though it looks impressive and stylish. We’ve developed a bunch of concepts before finding the right solution.

Final variant represents several dozens of skill branches separated in three categories:

• Weaponry. These skills empower some weapon types. Active skills become available only with the right weapon equipped. They demand no resources, but have cooldowns.
  
• Sorcery. All that spell stuff is here. Cast whatever you want until mana ends. In case you don’t want to find yourself mana-exhausted in the middle of the fight – sign up for mana management studies.
  
• Utility. Everything that can’t be divided in previous categories. Dual Wielding, Survival, Sabotage etc. belong here.

Our in-game skills menu as it is (WIP).

Each branch has 8 skills: four actives and four passives. You need to activate active ones (surprisingly), and passive one provide some valuable enhancement (along with small obligatory stat bonus).They are separated in 4 tiers, with two skills per each tier. Upon reaching even levels your character will gain 1 SP (Skill Point) to unlock any tier available. And yes, this means you get two skills at once. By the way, you won't be able to get to the top tier skills right on level six: most high tier abilities need to be unlocked first. Find a certain mentor or read a treatise to do so.

Playing as tanky-lightning-enchanted-stunlocking-don't-come-at-me battlemage is already pretty fun.

At level 30 – the highest possible level – your character will be able to master 4 skill branches, or unlock half of the tiers for 8 branches, or any other combination. Just don’t forget that you’ll have only 16 SP. We plan about 30 skill branches in total, which means thousands of possible combinations. First tiers of 11 different branches will be available in the prologue, by the way.

It's worth mentioning that different classes start with different skills unlocked. Berserk can immediately start levelling his Dual Wielding along with Axes mastery, while Nomad can learn Survival and Bows right from the start. Just a reminder: there aren't any strict class requirements for different skills, so the starting branches just show which skills are the most suitable for this class from the developer's point of view. You still can choose your own way and master Psimancy as a Berserk, it’ll just take a little longer.

The dessert: fire-spewing sorcerer. Pretty good against the vampires. Also note the notorious blood golem.

That’s all for today. Stay online!

 

[Infinitron]

https://steamcommunity.com/games/625960/announcements/detail/1652136246525943787

Devlog: Prologue Details & Other News
8 MAY - WAYFINDER

Hey everyone!

It’s been a while since our last update, so let’s talk news.

TL;DR

1. Prologue is coming soon, it’s tied to the launch of our Kickstarter campaign. It is set before the game itself, introduces one of the main characters and contains some key mechanics, but by no means does it represent the final state of Stoneshard. Most of the features are missing, and there are bugs/crashes. That’s because we cannot afford to polish it and we focus on developing the full game. It’s a playable alpha for everyone who wants to support the game on Kickstarter, so they can understand our vision for Stoneshard.
   
   
2. We’ve teamed up with HypeTrain Digital indie publisher. We’ve already been working together on 12 Is Better Than 6, and they are cool guys. HypeTrain Digital will help us with Kickstarter campaign and full release, including porting Stoneshard on other platforms aside from PC.

Prologue

If you’ve been following our project, you probably know that we’re working on a free playable prologue that will be out when our Kickstarter campaign launches. Good news — everything’s almost ready, and these two things will happen soon. So we’d like to tell you about the prologue once more — just to make everything clear and let you know what it’s going to be like.

• First of all, this will NOT be a demo of Stoneshard. It’s a distinct game, a playable alpha which will get you familiar with some of game’s core mechanics in their current state. While story-wise, it’s, well, a prologue, so it is set before Stoneshard and it will introduce one of game’s main characters — Verren. You’ll be able to explore several levels, including tutorial, and fight a boss. By our calculations, it’s several hours of gameplay.
  
  
• What’s in prologue: combat system, health system, character progression, tutorial, procedural generation of dungeons. The prologue will NOT contain open world, Caravan and its followers, full character customization and creation, quests, trading, Pantheon and other key features that will be present in a full game.
  
  
• There’re a lot of cool stuff missing from the prologue. We would love to make it as polished and big as possible, but eventually we decided that less is better, if it’s about quality. And, what’s more important, we’re a very small studio, and every day spent on prologue is a day not spent on developing Stoneshard itself. So our focus is on the full game. This is the same reason for why there are bugs and other issues with prologue.
  
  
• Also, we don’t have time to fully test the game on different resolutions, so the prologue will be set to default at 1366x768. And some aspects of keyboard controls are missing (which means that, for example, you can move your character only by clicking on tiles).
  
  
• Many mechanics and gameplay aspects of the prologue do not meet our quality standards and by no means represent the final state of the game. It’s not even a beta. Enemy AI is clunky, and there are plans for reworking the turn-based movement, potions, injuries, weapon wielding and other stuff. Remember — it’s a very-very little glimpse inside our idea of the game, made first and foremost for our Kickstarter campaign and potential backers. People would like to know what our vision is like (and that the game is actually already in development) before giving us money, and it’s only right.

Modes


And now to the devlog itself. In the past, we’ve talked about the positioning system (known as Attitudes). We’ve tested this mechanic and decided that we should rework it, because there are too many of them, and most of them are pretty much useless. We renamed this mechanic to Modes and got rid of 7 positions out of 9. Now there are two of them — stealth and rest. We’re working on this system and have some new ideas. For example, we are planning to let stealth-based characters see the viewing angles of enemies and zones of lighting.

New partnership

More good news. We are teaming up with HypeTrain Digital indie publisher. We’ve already been working together on 12 Is Better Than 6, and we were satisfied with the results, so eventually both parties decided that this collaboration should go on. HypeTrain Digital will help us with Kickstarter campaign, promotion and full release, including porting Stoneshard on other platforms aside from PC.

======

That's all for today. Stay tuned!

 

[Alkarl]

This absolutely, positively, majestically, unequivocally, undeniably, ostentatiously, with out a doubt, unabashedly, incomprehensibly, unironically, generally, unquestionably, ironically, eternally, immaterially, invariably, metaphorically, literally, disingenuously, dangerously, quietly, garrishly, abhorently, ingloriously, empirically, infinitesimally, righteously, sounds boring.






imo, of course

 

[Lagi]

visuals are awesome

 

[PrettyDeadman]

If you added squad combat, firearms, grenades, mines and detructible environments - this game would've been awesome.
Going to buy it anyway.

The problem with pretty roguelikes that they are *usually* very shallow and boring. Hopefully this one will be a bit more complex.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Man that equipment screen looks good.

 

[CryptRat]

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1926605606/stoneshard-open-world-roguelike-rpg-with-tactical

Stoneshard is an open-world roguelike RPG with immense tactical freedom, survival elements and in-depth follower system, set in a grim medieval world.

Inspired by legendary classic titles such as Diablo and ADOM and modern games like The Banner Saga and Darkest Dungeon, Stoneshard invites you to shape the future of the kingdom of Aldor… And die a lot.

We need your help to bring Stoneshard to every modern platform with Steam Early Access as a starting point.

• Embark on the adventure through a vast procedurally-generated medieval world
• Lead a Caravan of valiant allies and expand your following
  
• Struggle with physical or psychological traumas and aid them with medicine or drugs
  
• Upgrade and customize your character any way you want to
  
• Wage war to vampires, undead and mercenaries with 100+ weapons
• Follow the will of ancient Gods and gain some of their power in return
• Return to the journey with a new hero after your character dies in battle

Prologue contains 2-3 hours of gameplay and introduces Stoneshard’s world and combat system. Windows only.