Couchpotato spotted a devlog about dungeon generation in Stoneshard:

Devlog: Dungeon Generation - Part I

Hello everyone!

In today’s devlog we’ll demonstrate the final version of the reworked Dungeon Generator and showcase the main principles that governed its development.

Let’s start with a list of reasons that led us to reevaluating our approach to dungeon generation. The player feedback we received about its current state revealed the following issues:

• There isn’t much visual variety to speak of - the only difference between dungeons of the same type is what enemies can spawn in them, not their layout or overall design. This quickly makes dungeons feel predictable and uninspired.
• All dungeons use the same generation algorithm, which limits the room for structural distinction and environmental logic.
• The overall room structure and the abundance of single tile passages facilitate the funneling of enemies into doorways, trivializing both combat and positioning.

Our new approach is based on dungeon tiers. Initially, tiers were an informal term used by players to refer to dungeons based on their difficulty - in RtR they will actually become an official form of categorization. So instead of using hidden, rudimentary mechanics built around levels, this new system splits everything, be it enemies, items, or dungeons, into 5 distinct tiers.

Let’s explore what it entails, point by point:

• Different dungeon types will use different generation rules: the structure of Crypts will have noticeable differences from the structure of Bastions or Catacombs.
• Dungeons will feature varying visuals and room presets depending on their tier: the higher the tier, the more opulent a dungeon will appear, and the greater diversity of rooms it will display. Tier 4 and 5 dungeons in particular will look especially awe-inspiring.
• All dungeons will be split into two categories: generic and large, the latter consisting of two floors. We don’t have plans to introduce dungeons deeper than that: three floors or more would be way too tiresome and draining in most scenarios. The visuals will change depending on how deep you go: lower Crypt floors, for instance, will appear more damaged and use alternative room layouts.
• Rooms with bosses or contract objectives will spawn in dungeons’ farthest reaches, with secondary rooms branching off from the main path rather than being a part of it, giving you options for additional exploration.
• The updated visuals for dungeon descents and ascents will make them easy to spot and separate from one another: descents will always be a part of the floor, and ascents will be built into dungeon walls, just like they are right now.
• We decided to almost completely do away with single tile passageways, which should bring additional depth to the combat system and positioning by making group fights more frequent or even inevitable in certain situations (obviously, this comes with tweaks to most enemies’ stats, especially high tier ones).
• Rather than remaining the same once they spawn (or respawn after being cleared), dungeons will be generated when you enter them for the first time, just like in the earlier versions of the game (the layout won’t change if you save your progress after discovering it though). This will make dungeon exploration more engaging and unpredictable, since the ability to familiarize yourself with the location of enemies and traps throughout multiple save-load attempts won’t be as easily available by default.
• Secret rooms will be generated once per dungeon instead of once per floor. The roster of available secret rooms and their visuals will also depend on a dungeon’s tier.
• Even though it’s not directly related to the Dungeon Generator, we decided to rework the Noise and Enemy Awareness Systems, as the old ones didn’t work well with new dungeon layouts.

[...]

Learn more about cooking in Stoneshard:

Devlog: Cooking

Hello everyone!

Today the topic is Cooking, a mechanic that will play a significant role in both your adventures and the Caravan System.

Important note: the effects, prices, and availability of most existing foods will be rebalanced in Rags to Riches. The numbers you see on the screenshots are also subject to change.

Cooking can be split in two parts: Basic Actions and the cooking of dishes.

Basic Actions include Roasting and Meat Salting. Roasting is basically the Cooking of the current version of the game. In Rags to Riches it’ll be performed through a separate menu with an option to roast multiple ingredients at once rather than going through them one by one.

Salting requires any type of meat and a few handfuls of Salt. Once preserved, meat loses some of its nutritional value but can be stored indefinitely, which is quite convenient during prolonged expeditions or when you want to preserve the spoils of your hunt for later.

The preparation of actual dishes is more complex. First of all, you’ll need a recipe. Some basic recipes will be available to all characters from the beginning. The rest will have to be found, bought, or earned through high Reputation in settlements. For instance, reaching Respect in Osbrook will make it possible to purchase the secret of preparing Osbrook Bread Bowl Stew, in Mannshire - Mannshire Fair Salad, in Brynn - Harpy Omelette à la Brynn. For now, we’ve created 37 different recipes, but their total number might grow by the time Rags to Riches is out.

[...]

Thanks Couchpotato!

Splattercatgaming checked out Stoneshard after the recent patch:

Stoneshard - Open World Medieval Mercenary Survival RPG

Ink Stains Games posted a new entry in their dev logs about magic mastery in Stoneshard:

Devlog: Magic Mastery

Hello everyone!

In today’s devlog, we’ll tell you more about the second ability tree, Magic Mastery, which will be a part of the next major update - “Forgotten Lore”, to be released on August 5th.

Magic Mastery is designed to be a highly impactful support tree, useful to any mage build. As a result, its abilities are mostly focused on two things: increasing the effectiveness and safety of your own spells and countering enemy magic.

To better understand our design choices, we highly recommend you to check out the previous devlog - it contains important details about the upcoming changes to the Magic System.

OVERALL STRUCTURE
Magic Mastery consists of 12 abilities: 6 actives and 6 passives. The ability tree can be roughly divided into two paths: the left one mostly targets pure mage builds, while the abilities on the right have a lot to offer to hybrid characters.

Active Abilities

Seal of Finesse
Activates an effect that lowers Fumble and Backfire Chances, reduces Cooldowns Duration, and speeds up the decay of Backfire Damage. When used, this spell also vents a large amount of already existing Backfire Damage.

The Seal works similarly to Weaponry stances: the number of the effect’s stacks increases with every passing turn, but decreases when your character moves to another tile.

Seal of Power
Activates an effect that grants major bonuses to Magic Power, Weapon Damage and a bit of Bonus Range. But that’s not all: whenever your character uses a specialized spell, the effect transforms into the Seal of a corresponding Magic School with its own unique bonuses and has its duration slightly prolonged.

For instance, Seal of Pyromancy grants Pyromancy Power, a fiery enchantment for your weapons, and a boost to Crit and Miracle Chances. In addition to Electromantic Power and Shock Damage on strike, Seal of Electromancy reduces Backfire and Fumble Chances. Seal of Geomancy comes with a bonus to Geomantic Power and Block Chance as well as faster Backfire Damage decay and lower Damage Taken.

Seal of Insight
This Seal reveals a few places of power in a small area around the caster. When the character occupies an empowered tile, they gain Magic Power, Miracle Chance, Energy Restoration and have their Spells’ Energy Cost reduced. The effect persists as long as the character remains in place, growing in power with each passing turn and getting weaker with each cast spell.

This means that if you plan to cast a lot of spells within a short period of time, it might be a good idea to make use of places of power along with Seal of Finesse. This tactic comes with a price though - you’ll have to sacrifice your mobility for it to work.

Seal of Cleansing
This spell allows you to remove all magical and physical effects, both positive and negative ones, from the main target and everyone adjacent to it. Additionally, the spell extinguishes burning tiles, clears puddles of acid, unholy blood, and magma, and also removes runes and other magical entities. Each removed effect or object replenishes a small amount of energy to the caster and reduces their active Cooldowns.

If the caster targets themselves with the Seal or is affected by its AoE, they gain Miracle Chance and reduced Damage Taken for each removed positive effect and are applied with reduced damage Resistances for each removed negative effect.

Using the Seal on magical creatures, such as the Undead and Wraiths, temporarily increases the damage they receive.

Seal of Reflection
This powerful defensive buff not only increases your character’s Resistances to all types of damage but also reflects* half the damage received from melee attacks. And most importantly, while under the effect of the Seal, all spells aimed at your character will be redirected to a random target within Vision (if there is one).

* - there were some tweaks to the Damage Reflection mechanic: the damage will now be reflected before Protection or Resistances are applied, which greatly increases the effectiveness of this stat.

Seal of Shackles
The ultimate Magic Mastery spell applies a powerful Seal that significantly reduces the target’s Energy Restoration and increases its Skills’ Energy Cost, Cooldowns Duration, and Fumble Chance.

While under the effect of the Seal, enemies can’t use spells, and each ability that comes off cooldown will burn their Energy (scaling with its Energy Cost) and deal Arcane Damage for the same amount.

[...]

Thanks Redglyph!

A new Stoneshard devlog explains the fatigue and magic system:

Devlog: Fatigue and Magic System

Hello everyone!

We'd like to begin today's devlog by making an important announcement. The upcoming major update, titled as "Forgotten Lore", will be released this year on August 5th.

It will include the following:

• The long-awaited surprise that we promised some time ago - a new boss! Similarly to the Ancient Troll hunt, this quest can be acquired in a location of questionable repute after you reach a high enough level.
• A new quest, “Gwynnel’s Answers”, which will conclude the opening sequence of the main story and send you off to explore the open world.
• A quick reminder - for the time being, this quest will be the end of the main questline. We plan to focus on the overarching plot only after we finish implementing the necessary systems and mechanics.
• New magic school, Electromancy, which will allow you to master dangerous and unpredictable lightning spells.
• New utility tree - Magic Mastery. We’ll tell you more about it in the next devlog.
• Several new points of interest.
• A large portion of the remaining Brynn buildings: the printing house, the House of the Azure Thread, the Bank of Brynn, the Golden Grain Inn, the Cathedral, the University, the Close Harbor Tavern, the Alchemical Emporium of Curious Goods, and a dockside store.
• New enemies: 13 new types of Proselytes (including two minibosses), as well as Gulons and Young Trolls.
• New mechanic: Fatigue. More details below.
• New magic mechanic, Backfire, and a few additional magic stats. More details below.
• New loot type: Folios. These texts provide information on various aspects of the game’s lore. Reading them also grants some Experience.
• Caravan Stop that can be used for resting and storing your items. Caravan travels will be added in subsequent major updates.
• New biome, seashore.
• New items.

As you may see, one of the largest Stoneshard updates is almost upon us. To ease the wait, we’d like to share more details about two new systems that will be added in “Forgotten Lore” - Fatigue and Backfire.

Fatigue
is one of the few remaining survival mechanics that we plan to implement. It has a number of important gameplay functions:

[...]

Backfire
occurs in situations when a mage fails to cast a spell by mumbling the magic formula, performing a wrong gesture, or just losing concentration. When something like this happens, they take a bit of damage - the exact amount depends on a separate stat, Backfire Damage. Additionally, miscasting a spell drains Sanity and generates more Fatigue than usual.

[...]

Thanks Redglyph!

Ink Stains Games presented the survival ability tree in Stoneshard.

Devlog: Survival

Hello everyone!

Over the last couple months, we’ve received a lot of feedback and justified criticism about drastically increased travel times and long distances between Points of Interest.

We’d like to assure you that the current version of the global map is far from final. In addition to obvious tweaks to distances between locations, which will happen in the next major update along with the saves wipe, we also plan to implement a number of systems and mechanics focused on making the open world exploration less time-consuming and tedious. One of these additions is the Survival tree that will soon be introduced to the game.

The main purpose of this ability tree is to help your character weather the hardships of mercenary life, giving them a better chance of surviving the wilderness without a sizable stash of supplies. It’s worth mentioning that over the course of development Survival and Medicine ability trees were merged together, allowing us to remove unnecessary fluff and fully focus on the synergy between some of their skills.

Let’s start with the ability tree’s overall structure. It consists of 6 active and 5 passive skills:

[...]

Stoneshard has received a major update.

0.7.0.0 "City of Gold" is out!

MAIN ADDITIONS

• Global Map and Rumor System

The size of the game’s world has grown almost 10 times - from 17x10 tiles to 40x40. You’ll be able to track your journey across it with a new global map menu that will also feature a character marker.

In your travels you’ll have a chance to encounter many Points of Interest, including monster dens and a handful of new unique locations.

• Brynn

The first major city will open its gates before you. It consists of four separate districts, each with their own vibe and special traders.

• Rumor System

Instead of being marked on the map from the get-go, Points of Interests are now discovered by learning rumors about them. You’ll be able to learn gossip and news from certain characters - some of it will end up leading you to an interesting location.

• Bodies of Water

The game’s world will now feature rivers, allowing you to fill a waterskin in the wild or just take a dip.

• [...]

Ink Stains Games share their progress, new features and their future plans as Stoneshard is about to release City of Gold.

Devlog: Final Preparations

Hello everyone!

The City of Gold update is soon to be released: the approximate time is 21:00 MSK, November 18th. Right now is a good moment to give a summary of the progress we’ve made, talk about the update’s new features and what will be added to the game until the end of the year, and also discuss our plans for the future development of Stoneshard.

[...]

What’s next?

We plan to release a series of patches and small updates over the course of December and January to polish the existing content and add some new stuff. This will mostly affect Brynn: we want to introduce interiors to every house and add at least half a dozen extra buildings. In February you can also expect a small surprise on the second anniversary of the game’s Early Access release - but more about it later...

After we finish all that, we’ll start working on the Rags to Riches update, which will flesh out the global map and introduce two new Ability Trees to the game - Armor and one of the magic schools (we'll share the details later).

Wizard’s Fate, the update coming after Rags to Riches, will almost be entirely dedicated to magic - other than new magic schools, Wands, and Magic Mastery, we’ll also implement new systems that will make playing as a sorcerer not as easy and serve as a foundation for the full-fledged character generator. [...]

A progress update for Stoneshard dubbed Trollslayer promises to be available April 14th.

@PC Gamer The launch trailer for Stoneshard which will be releasing on Early Access.

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A demo, Stoneshard: Prologue, is available on Steam (the old demo on Itch.io is gone) and while it doesn't have the scope of the full game it does provide a pretty good look at some of the complexities, and oddities, in store. Playing last night, I tripped a spike trap (twice, because I was too busy bashing barrels to notice what I was stomping on) that did a real number on me. I then tried and failed to disarm it, triggering it yet again. My legs were absolutely chewed to bits. I had no splints and nothing to make them, having wasted them on minor hand injuries earlier, so I applied healing salve—not very useful for broken bones, by the way—and sucked back every painkiller I had.

[...]

A new Kickstarter update for Stoneshard announces an Early Access release of February 6th and an updated prologue.

Remastered Prologue is Here!

Hello everyone!

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

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

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

https://store.steampowered.com/app/869760/Stoneshard_Prologue/

 The list of changes is too expansive to be presented in detail – after all, this update includes a year and a half of hard work. The Prologue’s structure remains the same, but if we are to list the most important changes, here is what you should expect from this update:

• An improved tutorial with detailed advice on main game mechanics.
• Vampires were swapped with Proselytes – a new group of enemies with their own set of abilities.
• A reworked boss fight, which now consists of two consecutive phases instead of two parallel outcomes.
• A reworked health, injury and needs system. The old Prologue had it functioning based on RNG. Now it’s a transparent, deterministic process which you can assess at any time.
•  More weapons, equipment and all kinds of items.
•  Abilities from the closed beta are now available in the Prologue.
•  Destructible environment. Press CTRL to attack environmental objects!
• Reworked Dual Wielding system.
• Lots of QoL improvements: better controls, more hotkeys, item comparison, inventory auto-sorting, pop-up hints and more. Though keep in mind that the game is designed primarily for mouse controls.
• Most of the game art was reworked.
• Dialogues and lore notes were rewritten to better clarify the opening events of the story. New voice-overs for the characters.
• Lots of changed and added mechanics (reworked Attributes, for instance).
• A reworked UI.
•  Fullscreen support for 1366Ñ…768, 1440Ñ…900, 1600Ñ…900, 1680Ñ…1050, 1920Ñ…1080 and 1920Ñ…1200 resolutions.
• Added an event log.
• “Last Hope” and “At What Cost?” achievements were replaced by “The Bitter Beginning” and “Eternal Hunger” achievements. The rest of the achievements were updated to fit with the content changes.
• Enemies learned how to open doors.

It’s worth to remember that many of the planned mechanics are still missing. On February 6 the game is just being released for Early Access, during which we plan to continue developing it for another couple of years, gradually implementing our vision.

The release date for Stoneshard is November 7th.

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Stoneshard is a turn-based RPG about exploring a vast, procedurally-generated medieval world, managing your own caravan and surviving by managing both physical wounds and trying to stay sane. Embark on an epic journey and decide the fate of a kingdom in this grim adventure!

Check out the free prologue of the upcoming RPG Stoneshard:

Stoneshard

You start out as an ordinary mercenary, travelling across the medieval world of Aldor. The kingdom is about to fall, when a mysterious stranger makes you an offer you can’t refuse. Set off on a dangerous journey, explore beautiful lands as the leader of your own caravan, recruit new allies and fight hordes of monsters. This adventure won’t be easy, as you will have to deal with physical diseases, psychological traumas and disputes within your party.

Inspired both by classic roguelikes and modern RPGs, Stoneshard invites you to shape the future of Aldor… and die countless times along the way. Explore the grim medieval world in this epic turn-based adventure, welcoming and challenging both for roguelike veterans and newcomers.

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Features:

• Explore the medieval kingdom - Embark on a journey through the vast procedurally-generated world of Aldor. Explore the dungeons, cities and forests of this once magnificent land, now ravaged by war.
• Lead your caravan - Recruit new allies to your own caravan. Be a true leader and keep morale high, so you can get help and unravel the mysteries of your loyal followers.
• Treat your wounds - Take medication or even drugs to treat physical wounds and diseases. Spot symptoms early and don’t let your hero die of fever, blood loss or broken bones.
• Fend off insanity - The horrors of a decaying, war-torn kingdom can maim your mind. Take care of your mental health and use different ways to fend off insanity and fear during your journey.
• Build an unrivaled hero - Develop your hero however you like, be it an axe-wielding mage or a potion-brewing ninja. Choose from more than 100 weapons and build a unique skill set for your character.
• Get tactical - Create your own play style, marching to victory with sword, sorcery or stealth. Study your enemies, learn to use the environment to your advantage and emerge victorious.
• Decide the fate of Aldor - Pledge your allegiance to different factions fighting over Aldor. Your choices will decide the fate of the whole kingdom. Will you save Aldor or turn the kingdom into ashes?
• Pray for victory - Follow the will of ancient Gods and gain some of their astounding power in return… if you are ready to pay the price, of course.
• Die to fight another day - Don't let death frighten you. Should your hero perish, another shall rise up and take over the caravan, continuing your quest.