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

[Bocian]

 

[Infinitron]

https://steamcommunity.com/games/625960/announcements/detail/1716320065659357616

Crowdfunding summary. Thanks everyone!

Hello!

Recently we finally closed our late backing service, so we’d like to sum things up in this post.

Firstly, many thanks to all who supported us in these two months! This campaign was a huge success for our team, and, frankly, we hardly hoped that we could ever achieve such results. Our Kickstarter backers have contributed $101,186, while late backers pledged for $12,695 – $113,881 in total. Thanks again!

Pitifully, we didn’t manage to achieve our next stretch goal at $120,000 – an add-on called "Of Wind and Sands", which was supposed to add new race, new locations and dungeons, new type of weapons and many other things. Right now we are not sure whether we will develop it in the future, but if it does happen, we will also make it free for all the backers as a token of our gratitude – since we were really close to reaching it.

So, crowdfunding stage is finally over, and this means we can wholly dedicate ourselves to development again. In a few days Prologue will receive a new update, which will add long-awaited options, tweaked boss fight and a variety of fixes, and after that we will concentrate entirely on working on the main game.

Stay tuned!

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Little teaser for all of you. Cheers!

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.kickstarter.com/project...rld-roguelike-rpg-with-tactical/posts/2264564

Devlog: Stats & Perks

Hello!

From now on we resume our regular devlogs. We successfully ported the game to GMS2, and while the rest of the team fixes some remaining problems, I decided to write about what changes of our attribute system should you expect in the full game. I emphasize that everything described below is so far mostly a concept and can change in the course of direct development.

So, what are the most important problems we have identified based on the feedback from the players?

• The system of attributes was too cumbersome and overcomplicated. Some of the stats could have been combined or completely removed without decreasing the overall depth.
• Imbalance (aka "level up Strength only"). Making an attribute that simultaneously boosts your health and damage was a mistake that will be corrected.
  
• Many stats were too situational. For instance, if you play as a pure warrior (I speak of the full game, where you won’t have Firewave from the very start) in the current system you have literally no reasons to level Intellect or Willpower at all.

And now to the changes. First, let's see how the new system of attributes will look like:

• Intellect and Willpower are combined into single "magical" primary stat, Willpower. Intellect was replaced by Vitality – a new primary attribute showing your survival potential.
• Mana was replaced by Energy (a temporary name very likely). Most "physical" skills will also cost Energy now, but less than magical spells. Due to this, most skills cooldowns will be decreased, thus making combat more dynamic and tactical at the same time. “Flee to reset your cooldowns” strat is no more!
  
• A number of attributes have been merged. Old Vitality and Fortitude are grouped into one stat, the same fate befell Critical / Miracle Chance and Fumble / Fizzle Chance. Finesse was removed. Instead Agility points will directly reduce Fumble Chance. Alertness was also cut out, so all attention checks will now be tied directly to Perception.
  
• Added some new stats – for example, Block Power, necessary for the blocking system rework.
  
• Some attributes will work differently. In short: Stealth and Health / Mana Restoration will no longer be chance-based, and are now strictly deterministic. I will tell more about their new mechanics some other time. Spell Power was renamed to Magic Power, since now it will affect any magical damage dealt by your character. Accuracy is called Hit Chance now, and it also became more transparent, since it shows your default to-hit chance.

Well, seems like everything was covered. Now let's move on to the main new feature – perks.

Perks are special traits and abilities that your character is guaranteed to receive after reaching a specific thresholds of the primary stats. They are intended to make levelling system more deep and variable, and also give players more meaningful choices regarding character development.

Many of these perks are not final (especially the numbers), and I even marked with asterisks those we are especially unsure about. Also, if you have carefully read all the descriptions, then for sure you will notice a lot of hints of unannounced new mechanics or changes to existing systems.

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Stay tuned, and also have this little pretty travelling merchant's tent as a bonus!

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More https://www.kickstarter.com/project...rld-roguelike-rpg-with-tactical/posts/2270755

Devlog: Health System Changes

Hello everyone!

In today's devlog we’ll continue to explain different changes we’re making to current game system. This time we will go through the health system (except for the system of injuries, as it will be described in a separate devlog).

The health system is one of the core features of our game, so we especially attentively analyzed players’ feedback regarding it. Most often people complained about unfair randomness and some other flaws (such as the interaction of injuries and pain system).

The chance-based system of health was introduced by us at a rather late stage of Prologue development. At that time it seemed like a good idea to us, since we thought it will make the health system a lot more understandable and accessible. However, playtesting showed it was a dubious change: on the one hand it indeed made the system easier to understand. On the other hand, it often worked not as it was intended to.

For example, similar circumstances could result into your character getting agony in 2 turns – or in 10, if you’re lucky enough. Such dispersion seems unacceptable to us, so we decided to return to a strictly deterministic system, where each health scale will depend on the actions of your character in linear fashion.

If earlier hunger and thirst worked randomly (although there was a mandatory interval between the ticks), now they will grow gradually. Skipping the turn will accumulate less hunger and thirst than moving, and moving – less than the attacking someone.

The same applies to pain with toxicity mechanics. Pain will also become a scale, the accumulation rate of which now will depend on how much damage (and which type of damage) your character receives. Fire damage, for example, will be more painful damage than frost damage, etc. By the way, you’ll aslo be able to check the exact values of your hunger, thirst, pain and toxicity levels on a separate Health tab, which we plan to add to the character's menu.

We’ve also slightly simplified the system of health conditions, so it may fit better with the new system of attributes. Now there’s only 3 stages of each health scale, instead of 4 – light, medium and severe.

That's it. Since this devlog didn’t really need any illustrations, have a look at a teaser of our next devlog, which we’ll publish next week.

Have fun!

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Also you can follow us on:

• Steam
  
• Twitter
• FFacebook
• Discord

 

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https://www.kickstarter.com/project...rld-roguelike-rpg-with-tactical/posts/2277919

Devlog: Art Rework

Hello!

Initially we planned to tell you more about settlement generation, but this system requires some more time to polish, so today’s update will be dedicated to the art rework.

When we first started developing Stoneshard, we planned it to be a small-scale coffeebreak roguelike, taking place in a fairytale fantasy world, kind of similar to Fable and Torchlight ones. Back then our lore was very vague, as we planned to finish the game in a year and move on to more "serious" projects.

However, with a course of time this initial barebones concept was reinforced with many fresh ideas and new mechanics. Then we began to understand that Stoneshard is already becoming that serious project we planned to work on later. So, both our vision and game setting have significantly changed and eventually became something you currently know: gloomy and quite realistic medieval world, torn apart by wars, epidemics and disasters.

Many enemies, items and objects that you may have encountered while playing the Prologue were created at the very beginning of the Stoneshard development back in 2016, when we were making literally a different game. The need to rework some of the art became a necessity, so when we started to revamp many core game systems after Kickstarter’s end, we felt like there’s no better time than now.

Let’s start with skeletons, which became much more gloomy and grim-looking. Previously, they looked like they weren’t wasting their time while being dead: their bones were perfectly white and armor looked new and shiny. Now they seem more dangerous, soulless and believable: we also removed the glowing effect from their eyes to give them more sinister and less magical look. An animated pile of faded bones looks much more threatening than a whitey glowing skeleton in sparkling armor, isn’t it?

These changes also affected the vampires. Previously, they did not look really frightening, and rather produced the impression of transformed people who were not particularly happy with their new vampire lives. Now their bestial origin has become more accentuated, so it will help to perceive them as something they are – dangerous monsters.

In addition, some weapon and armor sprites were also reworked, as their design became more realistic and detailed. We also finished working on the entire line of one-handed swords and moved on to the other weapon types.

Soon we plan to release an update, including fan localizations and many of the changes described above, so stay tuned and have fun!

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Also you can follow us on:

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[PrettyDeadman]

They have really good art assets. Much better than Tome (which were also used for Low Magic Age games).

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.kickstarter.com/project...rld-roguelike-rpg-with-tactical/posts/2301230

Devlog: Settlements. Alpha & Beta Shift.

Hello!

Long time no see, eh? But there was a good reason behind that: we’re busy developing a really cool and important feature, which we didn’t want to show ahead of time. As you could’ve guessed from the previous devlogs, it’s a

Settlement Generation

Initially, we wanted to develop a special complicated algorithm to procedurally generate all streets and buildings locations, so each settlement would look really unique. However, we quickly realized that this approach conflicted with our other goal: make settlements as much detailed and realistic as possible.

Making the algorithm capable of generating plausibly planned villages without weird bugs and illogical chunks turned out to be a daunting task. As a result, we decided that it would be better to make a certain amount of several village structure presets, which will be randomly selected for each individual settlement.

This approach combines the best of both variants: all settlements will look more wholesome due to the manual level design, and at the same time differ from each other. During one single campaign, the same template will not be re-used in any way, since each settlement will have many possible variations unique to it.

Now about the villages in general. Every settlement will have its own set of special buildings, with each offering some unique opportunities for your character. So, a few examples:

That’s it, a smithy. You guessed it – this is the place to quickly repair battered equipment or to purchase some quality weapons and armor.

Herbalist is a rural analogue to city healers. He (or she) will not only help you to treat ailments and wounds, but will also sell some alchemical ingredients from his/her stocks.

Stables is a place where your horses can take a break from the road, receiving a temporary bonus to the caravan movement speed.

Also it’d be possible to enter most of the buildings. The interior inside is also generated procedurally and is fully interactive. If you are a bad person (I hope you’re not), you could steal the last potato from some poor peasant’s family when nobody’s around. Aldor’s having hard time anyways.

So far, the settlement system isn’t anywhere near being finished: there’s still a lot to do to make them fitting our vision. Later we’ll add NPCs, special global map settlement mechanics and many other things, but the foundation was finally laid. So stay tuned, as there will be much more info on this topic in the future devlogs

Alpha and Beta Date Shift
Now to the other news. After the Prologue’s release, we’ve received a huge amount of complaints, ideas and suggestions; since it’s extremely important for us to consider our playerbase opinion, we also conducted a mass survey of our Kickstarter backers, targeting key issues and problems of Stoneshard. As a result, we realized that almost all aspects of our game need to be corrected or even completely reworked – and that’s what we’ve spent the last three months on. During this period we’ve:

• 
  
  • Changed the attribute system – many attributes have been tweaked, merged or removed to create a more optimized and intuitive experience.
  • Partially implemented perks system.
  • Smoothed some rough edges of our turn-based and collision systems to prevent “evading” AoEs, mob stucking, endless kiting and other similar problems in the future.
  • Changed the balance by stretching up the stats for better scaling of the percentage-based effects.
  • Made many changes to the combat system (e.g. replaced Mana with Energy, which is now required to use even non-magical skills).
  • Changed the hunger, thirst, pain and intoxication systems, replacing the random increases with more transparent and consistent scales.
  • Injury system was completely revamped. Now RNG doesn’t affect them at all, and you’ll be able to check the risks anytime (more on this in some future devlog).
  • Changed the hit algorithm, as well as resist/armor systems. Yes, piercing weapons are no longer effective against skeletons.
  • Speaking of resists: we’ve finally introduced a system of different damage types with their unique effects and properties.
  • Completely reworked and reconstructed many UI elements.
  • Made quite a few edits to improve the game’s usability. For example, fulfilled a popular demand to loot single items without opening a separate loot window.
  • And many, many other changes.
  To make it possible we had to make changes to our initial development pipeline, devoting time reserved for main game’s development to all these reworks. Nevertheless, we believe that such measure were definitely necessary and worth it, and in the end will benefit both the game and our players. Therefore, we decided to shift the initial Alpha and Beta test dates by about a couple of months: the release of backers alpha should be expected in December 2018, with Beta and Early Access being postponed as well.
  
  That's all. Our follow-up plans should not take as much time as the settlements did, so we will try to post devlog on a weekly basis just as before.
  
  See you soon!
  
  ======
  
  Also you can follow us on:
  
  • Discord
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[Darth Canoli]

Amazing, 3 month spent working on their fan-base feed-backs, if only most of the devs were doing the same, we would have so many good games out there ...

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.kickstarter.com/project...rld-roguelike-rpg-with-tactical/posts/2321236

Devlog: Biomes

Hello everyone!

Stoneshard team is back in action, and in this devlog we will talk about another aspect of the global map – biomes.

The global map (alongside with the tiles it's composed of) is generated procedurally. The map is also divided into several climatic zones, which will affect the biomes and the order in which they may be encountered. When moving to the north, the climate conditions will gradually become more harsh: the southern steppes will be replaced by fields and deciduous forests, then pinewoods will take their place, which will finally turn into the snow-covered expanses of taiga and tundra.

Almost every climate option will have a unique visual and some different gameplay features. For example, in fields with their lack of vegetation, it is easier to spot enemies from a distance - which is not true in forests, where trees and complex landscapes make exploration and movement much more difficult.

It's time to show how these biomes look like. While working on the design of the environment, we temporarily turned off the spawning of animals and emeies, so we could enjoy the beauties of Aldor nature in splendid isolation.

Field environments are rather laconic: green meadows, flowers, butterflies, small bushes, boulders, and very rarely – some saplings.

Most of the Forest sprites were completely redrawn to create a more holistic and dense forest feel. Small glades here alternate with areas of dense vegetation.

Pinewoods consist mainly of fir trees and centuries-old pines. The soil here is also different, more dark and stony. Due to the proximity of the mountains, boulders and rocky areas are more common here.

Well, finally the Taiga biome. The main difference from pinewoods is - yes, you’re right – snow. We also plan to introduce some unique gameplay mechanics to this biome, but they are still under discussion.

As you can see on the GIFs above, the weather and lighting will also dynamically change depending on the time of day and the biome. The day gives way to night, the rain got replaced by the fog, and in the northern regions of Aldor you can experience the snowfall.

Some biomes (like the Swamp or the Seashore) are not ready yet, so we will show them next time. That's all for today, see you soon!

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https://www.kickstarter.com/project...rld-roguelike-rpg-with-tactical/posts/2334168

Devlog: Improvements & Fixes

Hello!

Yup, it's new devlog time. Currently our team is working on some big features that we aren’t yet ready to showcase, so therefore in today's development diary we will discuss several small improvements and fixes we’ve accumulated. Most of the targeted aspects are probably well known to you because of the Prologue, so I guess today's blog will be pretty interesting.

Destructible Environment

You don’t have to fix the impassable objects being generated if you can make them destructible.

Firstly, we’ve added the ability to destroy most of the dungeon environment objects. Yes, all those beds, bedside tables and chairs, which previously were purely decorative, now can be properly broken, burnt or blown up. This small innovation introduces a significant variety to tactics, making you to take a different look at the use of the environment in battle. In addition, each environmental object is made of a certain material that sets the level of its resistances to different damage types. For example, wooden furniture can be easily crushed by slashing and blunt weapons, but, let’s say, iron maidens are way tougher.

Enemies & Door Interaction

Verren gets he's probably screwed, but prefers to remain optimistic.

Mysterious vampires doorphobia has long been a target of our community’s mockery. In the public version of the Prologue, timely escaping behind a closed door was an unbeatable strategy: it gave you unlimited time to heal.

Of course, it was an obvious exploit, not intended by us. So recently we’ve told the mobs that doors don’t present any threat to them and can be actually interacted with. However, the type of door interaction depends on enemy’s type.

Small-sized beasts like bats will need looots of time to break the door, however.

For example, vampires have no problems simply opening unlocked doors, while the undead or beasts will try to break them – which means you won’t have that much time to take a breath anymore. By the way, the same goes for any environment objects that prevent mobs from getting to your character.

All this was made possible by changing the door system as well. Now, like the rest of the environment, they have a durability pool, which can be depleted by attacking or using spells. Which means that now you can get injured only when trying to break the door down with your bare hands.

Attacks of Opportunity

Some pretty angry skeleton.

Another feature added to counter The Most Popular Tactic #2, the scourge of many turn-based roguelikes – endless kiting (referred to as “tactical retreat” by some people). If a player is sure the back areas are secure, he can start to run away – and, because of the turn-based system and the “1 move = 1 action” rule, his enemy will chase him potentially endlessly, unless he has some long-range skills. Usually it was used to reset cooldowns on powerful skills or to lure an opponent to the right spot – for example, closer to the ashfire barrel or spike trap.

Therefore, we’ve added the so-called attacks of opportunity: whenever you try to retreat, the enemies surrounding you may receive a chance to deal a bonus hit. In addition, thanks to the change of the movement system, now enemies will no longer wait for one turn before taking the tile of the retreating player, but will do this instantly. In sum, this makes kiting a disadvantageous strategy, forcing you to rely more on movement/knockback skills if you want to escape some sticky situation. Or, alternatively, level up Agility: high Agility unlocks the perk allowing you to avoid attacks of opportunity.

Durability System Change
And finally: some changes were made to the durability system. Previously, durability penalties were calculated dynamically depending on the percentage of lost durability, so your equipment started to get debuffs from the very beginning, which was pretty annoying, honestly.

Now the penalties are divided in tiers: when at > 50% durability, your items won’t receive any penalties; at >25% <50% durability, items will receive a 30% stat penalty; at <25% durability, items will receive a 60% stat penalty. This will make it easier to determine the state of the equipment just by taking a look on its appearance: depending on the durability tier, the sprites of the equipment will become more shabby and battered.

Realms Beyond
Also, if you're a fan of both D&D and some good old classic party-based RPGs, make sure to check Realms Beyond - an upcoming single-player experience with a heavy focus on story, tactical combat and detailed lore. They currently need your support, and there're only 12 days left, so make haste if you like what you see!

That's all for today. See you soon, until the next devlog!

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Also you can follow us on:

• Discord
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[PrettyDeadman]

Not sure about lack of kiting. Taking it out seems to be and act of killing fun in the name of balance.

 

[Darth Canoli]

I agree, if there's no other way to escape (like all the teleport/invisibility skills in Cardinal Quest 2 ), it's a terrible idea.
Only the masochists are going to stay on-board.

Also, would have been fun if the vampires alone were not able to open a door without being invited in.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Also, would have been fun if the vampires alone were not able to open a door without being invited in.

But that would only make sense if the vampires themselves were trespassing.

 

[CyberWhale]

Attacks of opportunity should always deal less damage than they normally would. I know it's not realistic, but otherwise you are discouraging movement too much. With reduced damage, you're only punishing it.

 

[moraes]

Really not sure about the lack of kiting. Escape tools are the most important thing in most roguelikes, this only makes it more so. Maybe keep the AOOs but allow for limited sprinting like in Cataclysm: DDA so you can put some distance between you and the foe at the cost of some initial damage.

 

[thesheeep]

Attacks of opportunity should always deal less damage than they normally would. I know it's not realistic, but otherwise you are discouraging movement too much. With reduced damage, you're only punishing it.

Why not just decrease the chance to hit?
Makes more sense (someone trying to get away is harder to hit than someone not trying to get away) and the result is the same, on average.

 

[CyberWhale]

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.kickstarter.com/project...rld-roguelike-rpg-with-tactical/posts/2347193

Devlog: Psyche System. Part 2

Hello!

In this devlog we will continue to discuss Stoneshard’s psyche system . In the Prologue the psyche system was limited only to positive effects such as Optimism, Heroism, Second Wind and Prudence. You can read more about their mechanic in this devlog. However, these are only the tip of the iceberg – a reward for keeping one's mind in good shape. The rest of the mental states arent’t that nice, and this devdiary will be dedicated to them.

I repeat: these are NOT political coordinates.

I think it’s worth to recall how psyche works in our game in general. Your character has two scales: Sanity and Morale. Sanity is responsible for how adequately your character perceives the world around. Morale show the willingness to perceive the world as it is. The psyche of the character in Stoneshard is based on the interconnection of these two scales, which determine the general pool of possible moods and states, and the various triggers that activate these states.

Spoiler

High Morale + Low Sanity

This combination gives states that are generally harmful, but can be useful and even powerful in some situations. They simulate various conditions in which a person loses control, letting outside his inner beast.

Sadism

This state increases the survivability of the character in battle, but severely cripples your recovery speed when not in combat.

Trigger: the activation chance can be increased with damaging and killing enemies.

• Critical Chance +15%
  
• Critical Damage +30%
  
• Lifesteal +25%
  
• Energysteal +25%
  
• Health Restoration -35%
  
• Energy Restoration -35%

Masochism

This state allows the character to draw strength from his own suffering – but it lowers his survivability.

Trigger: the activation chance increases depending on how low your health is, and how high your pain level is.

• Damage Received + 33%
  
• Pain Limit +25
  
• Pain Resistance + 30%
  
• The higher the pain, the more energy is recovered at the end of the turn.
  
• Each point of pain slightly lowers Abilities Energy Cost.

Frenzy

Your character throws a tantrum. It causes him to destroy everything in its path, paying very little attention to any resistance he may face.

Trigger: requires active Sadism / Masochism / Megalomania. High pain level, as well as taking and dealing damage, increases the activation chance.

• Decreases Sanity, but increases Morale.
  
• You lose control of your character for 10 turns.
  
• Your character have a chance to apply “Consecutive Blows” skill instead of an ordinary melee hit (even if it isn’t learnt)
  
• Damage Received -50%
  
• Pain Resistance + 90%
  
• Weapon Damage + 33%
  
• Critical Damage + 75%

Megalomania

At low Sanity your character tends to pay way too much attention to his own successes. Sometimes it takes morbid forms.

Trigger: the activation chance increases due to successful hits (especially critical ones), killings of multiple enemies and leveling up. Misses and fumbled attacks reduce the chance.

• All player attributes are falsely increased when displayed. The narcissistic character considers himself flawless and therefore is inclined to overstate his real abilities.
  
• Physical, mental and magical debuffs (except for injuries and psyche states) become hidden. Such flaws are way too insignificant to be concerned about.
  
• Bonus Experience -75%

Low Morale + High Sanity

Now we can turn to the next set of states, caused by a combination of low Morale and high Reason. This is reflected by the mood cycle: the longer your character stays depressed, the more disheartened he becomes.

Apathy

The beginning of a long journey right into the abyss. The character loses the motivation to move on.

Trigger: skipping turns, Rest Mode overuse, no challenges (like enemies in sight) increase the activation chance. The fastest way to shake a character a bit is continuous fights. Don’t let your character to be idle!

• Willpower -10%
  
• Vision -1
  
• Fumble Chance +7%
  
• Fortitude -10%
  
• Sanity Change -0.05 every turn
  
• Bonus Experience -25%

Anxiety

Anxiety is reinforced where apathy has taken root.

Trigger: requires Apathy. The lower your health and the lower your morality - the more worrying your character is and the higher the activation chance of this state.

• Willpower -20%
  
• Vision -2
  
• Fumble Chance +15%
  
• Fortitude -20%
  
• Sanity Change -0.1 every turn
  
• Psionic Resistance -25%

Despair

A character who has succumbed to despair no longer believes in his own success and just wishes to bring the inevitable end even closer.

Trigger: requires Anxiety. The activation chance depends both on the health and morale levels, as well as hunger, pain, thirst and toxicity levels. The worse your character feels in general, the faster he will fall into despair.

• Willpower -30%
  
• Vision -3
  
• Fumble Chance +25%
  
• Fortitude -30%
  
• Sanity Change -0.2 every turn
  
• Damage Received +20%

Hypochondria

Hypochondria is an obsession with one’s own health. When hypochondriac receives even the slightest reason to worry, he starts to think he got gravely sick with every possible disease ever. With the exception of prenatal fever maybe.

Trigger: every untreated disease and every undiagnosed symptom increase the activation chance.

• Willpower -10%
  
• Fortitude -30%
  
• Health Threshold -10%
  
• Pain Resistance -25%
  
• Sanity Change -0.05 for each active undiagnosed symptom
  
• Every turn there is a chance to discover a false symptom. Or maybe a true one? Or maybe a false one though?

The effects of the most terrible combination, low Sanity and low Morale, shall remain a secret so far - because of their complexity, they still require some more work and polish. In the meantime, you can turn on your imagination and try to guess how they will work in our game by their names.

See you soon. Until the next devlog!

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https://www.kickstarter.com/project...rld-roguelike-rpg-with-tactical/posts/2375196

Devlog: New Interface
Posted by Ink Stains Games (Creator)

Hello!

Firstly, we would like to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year (we hope you’ll have great holidays) and take stock of the past year. The 2018th was full of events: the Prologue’s release, a successful Kickstarter campaign, porting to a new engine’s version, huge revamp of many game systems and implementation of many new features. Without your support all of this would hardly have been possible, and it’s an awesome thing our community consists of so many cool people! 2019 should be decisive due to the planned release, so all the most interesting is yet to come!

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Now let’s turn to the current news. This devlog was preceded by a long period of silence. The reason is simple: we simultaneously worked on many different features, but until recently, they were all too rough around the edges to show them publicly. Now the situation has changed, so in the coming weeks devlogs will be published much more often and stably. And today’s Saturday will be dedicated to the updated UI.

Initially, we did not plan to change with the interface before the Beta. However, when it came to the introduction of trade and the dialogue system, it became clear it's impossible to continue on without the total rework of the entire UI. So in this iteration we tried to take into account the most frequent problems and suggestions of the community.

First let’s inspect the general points. The GUI design has become more dark and monumental in order to better match the game world’s spirit. For example, we’ve added two atmospheric statues to support health and energy scales – they will constantly remind you of how close death is in Stoneshard.

Inventory has undergone notable changes as well. First of all, we’ve added a new equipment slot – the back. There’s a choice what to equip there: a bag for some additional inventory slots or a cape for extra stats and resistances.

Small changes have affected the old weapon slots too. They were increased to a size of 5x2 – so the especially large types of two-handed and polearm weapons could fit. The amulet slot was increased to 2x1 – thanks to this, talismans and necklaces would become much more detailed.

We’ve also added autosort button, which was requested by many players. Upon clicking on it, all items in your inventory will be optimally arranged to leave as much free space as possible. This should ease the management of all your hard-won loot. Weapon loadout switch has moved to the upper panel as well.

Another new feature – gold counter: it allows you to quickly track the number of coins in your inventory, which is very useful when trading.

By the way, as you can see, we’ve changed the font of the game too. The old pixelated font had its own charm, but we were forced to abandon it for the sake of better text readability. Also, this is necessary for future localizations: some European and Oriental characters turned out to be impossible to be adequately pixelated.

Alpha Shift

We want to fit as much content into the closed alpha as possible, so, unfortunately, we won’t be able to release it before the New Year. By a rough estimate, we need a few more weeks to bring all current systems to acceptable state, connect them into a stably functioning whole and add some new content as well. We don’t go on New Year/Christmas holidays, so we’d continue to work at the usual pace without any breaks.

Therefore, the new alpha release date is mid-end January. During this period we will show our progress in detail in regular devdiaries, so the development process will be much more transparent. Anyway, we guess no one is interested in receiving raw alpha in the end, so hope you understand this.

That's all for today. Stay tuned for more devlogs in the future!

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[Infinitron]

https://www.kickstarter.com/project...rld-roguelike-rpg-with-tactical/posts/2378305

Devlog: Trade System
Posted by Ink Stains Games (Creator)

Hello!

In today's devlog we will show another new feature, and this time it’s quite a massive one: trade system. Trade is the vital force of our game economy, so we paid a lot of attention to its development. We faced a difficult task – to make trade system both user-friendly and moderately realistic, and we’re quite happy with the result.

Let's start with the context. The game takes place in a country ravaged by a bloody civil strife. But the war is still not over: due to some unfavorable events, all factions were forced to declare a temporary truce, thereby securing a precarious status quo. But at any time their confrontation may resume again. All this impacts the economy: currency is devalued, because of the chaos and production slump many commodities are in acute shortage, and the prices of essential goods are greatly inflated.

Trading with merchant.

In Stoneshard you can trade with almost all neutral and friendly characters: from merchants to simple peasants and city guards. But at the same time, it is worth remembering that the wartime economy is pretty brutal: because of limited resources, everyone is primarily interested in securing personal gain – so NPCs tend to overprice their goods a lot and prefer to buy your goods far below their true value.

NPC role also influences trade prices. Depending on what craftsman you’re dealing with, you may expect some price fluctuations on goods he’s interested in. A blacksmith, for example, works with metal, so he’d buy iron equipment more expensively and also sell it cheaper, while merchants and wandering traders, due to their versatility, tend to trade at less favorable tariffs for you. In addition, your reputation level with a particular settlement and faction, some local and world events, and the quality and condition of the item itself will have their impact on the final price too.

Trading with common folk is mostly about bartering few cheap items like food.

Other important aspects of trade are NPC interests, their stock and wealth. These parameters are different for each NPC, depending on its role, settlement and faction.

Ordinary peasant possess very few items: usually, food, drinks and tools. They tend to buy the same kind of stuff from your character and won’t be interested in buying armor or potions. They’re also very limited in their funds, so you should probably seek some another person to sell an expensive gem to – peasant won’t have enough money to make this deal possible.

However, the blacksmith's stock is much more impressive: he sells a huge variety of various equipment, is quite wealthy and is willing to purchase some of your spoils of war, though he won’t be interested in buying scroll and potions too. It’s worth mentioning that there are some items which are demanded by almost everyone due to wartime conditions – such as food, alcohol and different valuables.

Trading stock will be regularly refilled: NPCs will purchase new goods instead of the sold ones, and the speed of this process will also depend on the situation in the settlement and the world around.

Repair in action.

And finally, repair function. Now battered items can be repaired by a certain artisan for a fee: metal equipment can be fixed by blacksmith, while carpenter and tanner would work only with wood/leather and cloth items respectively. The repair cost depends on the item’s condition and its base price. By the way, you’ll also have an opportunity to fix the item by yourself using a repair kit or an appropriate skill, but the efficiency of such amateurish repair is much lower, and item’s max durability will degrade a little too. Therefore, it’s a good idea to have your most valuable equipment to be repaired by professional craftsmen only.

That's all for today. Until next Saturday!

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[Modron]

This needs to come out already.

 

[Infinitron]

This needs to come out already.

Not sure if you know about the free prologue:

 

[Modron]

Yeah it is why I want more.

 

[Zep Zepo]

Well, appears to be in 2D. Let's see if it will run on my potato.

Zep--

 

[Zep Zepo]

Well, appears to be in 2D. Let's see if it will run on my potato.

Zep--

Runs on my potato successfully.

UI is kinda weird..left button, right button, no dbl click? no loot all?

Zep--