We hope you were able to get your shiny chest in the last event! We saw comments expressing concern over missing out on the event rewards, so we’d like to clarify that these items will return to the game at some point.
The events have been a great way for us to test features and prioritize what needs to be worked on next. Once all of the systems are in place, then we can focus on reintroducing past rewards and events.
Offline Farming
One such feature that we have planned is Offline Farming. As requested by many of our players, Offline Farming would allow you to gather treasure/loot without running Stone Story.
As an incremental game, resource gathering is an important mechanic to progression and we want to ensure that players have plenty of options as they move forward.
Summer Solstice Event
The Steam Summer Sale approaches, and with it another special event for Stone Story RPG. For the two weeks that the sale takes place, the game will feature a special in-game loot event. Keep your eyes peeled and Stonescripts ready!
As always, we’re interested to hear any and all feedback from our players. Discuss gameplay strategies and keep up to date with development on Stone Story RPG’s official Discord server: discord.gg/StoneStoryRPG
An odd wind blows-- Stone Story RPG’s second Challenge Event is here! Challenge II brings quite a few important updates to the game, expanding upon in-game rewards, gameplay modes, and difficulty options.
Read below to see what this new set of challenges entails.
Challenge II - Hamartia
From now until Sunday, June 14th, you have a chance to earn a shiny treasure! As with the last challenge, Challenge II will operate on a milestone format. In order to upgrade your reward, you must defeat bosses and add those victories to the counter.
For the Hamartia Challenge, the game’s bosses will gain new resistances (while some will gain new weaknesses). Use the Sight Stone to aid you, but don’t get too comfortable: every day at noon (local time) these attributes change.
While boss immunities are random each day, they are the same for all players. Collaborate with others (either on the Steam forums or the official Discord server) to efficiently tackle these goals and ensure that a valuable shiny treasure will be yours!
For the duration of the event, rerolling enchantments will cost 90% less Ki. Use this opportunity to experiment with each new day of rotating boss resistances.
Higher tiered rewards will raise the threshold on the milestone requirements. At the end of the event, each player will receive their own shiny treasure. These shiny treasures will give players a random shiny item they don’t already own, in addition to other mysterious rewards...
May has been a very busy month for the team! Development of the Quest system has fully kicked into gear as we’ve begun laying down the foundation for the mechanics and story.
Behind the design of the Quest systems is the idea of taking all existing features (locations, NPCs, the Stonescript language) and remixing them in new ways, creating new connections between them and expanding where needed.
In a pragmatic sense, the quests are about exploring the existing space in the Dark World that perhaps was only seen briefly during the main story. This will also be an excellent way to test the capabilities of user-generated content for the eventual inclusion of player-developed Quests.
In the meantime, we’ve got a few things lined up to tide you over, like Lost Items, cosmetics, and the second Challenge Event!
Challenge II - Hamartia
Menacing monsters plague the Dark World. Icy giants, mad skeletons, and venomous serpents reign supreme over their dominions. However, a strange wind blows, filling these beasts with untold strength and draining it from others. Your Bardiche won’t be enough to help you for this Challenge. You must use your wits and cunning to take down these behemoths!
Challenge II - Hamartia goes live on June 6th with more details to follow.
Bashing Shield
Last time we shared The Blade of the Fallen God, a massive two-hander once wielded by Pallas, the Skinless. The next Lost Item we’re previewing is the Bashing Shield.
While not quite as flashy, the Bashing Shield nonetheless expands upon the design space for shields and Lost Items. Like other Lost Items, it will be a unique item that cannot be crafted. Challenge Events and Quests are just some of the ways we plan to integrate this into the broader scope of the game’s design.
Cosmetics
One of the most often requested features for Stone Story is greater variety in player customization. To address that, we’ve brainstormed a number of possible cosmetic items.
First on the list is name tags! With these one-time consumables, you can give custom names to any piece of gear. Enemies will learn to fear your Big Stick of Whacking or The Bardichiest Bardiche.
We’ve got several other cosmetic ideas brewing, but we’re always open to suggestions.
---
As always, we’re interested to hear any and all feedback from our players. Discuss gameplay strategies and keep up to date with development on Stone Story RPG’s official Discord server.
Check out some of the awesome artwork that our community has come up with! We've got a small but mighty team of talented artists on our Discord server, so if you're curious about how to work with ASCII art stop by and we'll help you get started.
Sharpen your Bardiches-- Stone Story RPG’s first Challenge Event is here! Read on to see what Challenge I entails, and just what it means for the citizens of Acropolis...
Challenge I - Executioner
From now until Sunday, May 17th, you have a chance to earn a uniquely enchanted shiny Bardiche. In order to obtain the item, you must last-hit at least one boss during the event's duration. The shiny Bardiche will appear in your inventory after the event ends.
However, you also have the opportunity to earn a more powerful reward! Similar to the event that took place in The Stunning Update, Challenge I will operate on a milestone format. In order to upgrade your reward, you must defeat bosses with the Bardiche’s activated ability.
Deceptively simple at first glance, you’ll quickly find the Challenge become true to its name. Higher-tiered rewards will call for higher requirements. Collaborate with other players (either on the Steam forums or the official Discord server) to efficiently tackle these goals and ensure that a powerful shiny Bardiche will be yours.
The Acropolis Herald Vol. IV - Executions by the Number
An ominous black scroll appears before you. You unfurl it, revealing a long parchment covered in stark white print. It appears to be some sort of document from Acropolis. Upon further reading, you see that it’s some kind of editorial. Within, you find an in-depth account of various news, changes, and goings-on within the city in the sky.
We hope you enjoyed The Stunning Update and were able to get your suped-up shiny Compound Shield. The event made for a lot of fun discussion and strategizing amongst our community; so much so that we’d like to make it a regular thing!
We are pleased to announce the arrival of Challenges in Stone Story RPG, with the first official Challenge starting next Saturday, May 9th.
What are Challenges exactly? Read below to find out!
Lost Items
In order to explain Challenges, we must first discuss Lost Items-- a planned feature for Stone Story. Think of them as unique, named gear similar to Legendary items in ARPGs or MMOs. They are unable to be crafted like the rest of the game’s armory. Instead, they are earned through other means, like Quests (also planned) or special events.
The design intent with Lost Items is to further promote novel strategies. They’re created with a “Build Around Me” mentality, best exemplified in how they generate buffs. Lost Item buffs last for a set period of time, during which players can take advantage of it by swapping out for different items, discovering powerful synergies in the process.
Challenge Events
How does this factor into Challenge Events? As we move forward with development, we want to work with our community to explore the game in new and interesting ways. Key to Stone Story RPG’s design philosophy is the idea of maximizing gains as efficiently as possible.
This is where Challenge Events come in. Every few weeks, we will be holding limited-time events where you can obtain powerful, unique pieces of gear. As we iron out the kinks in the system’s implementation, we will be in a better place for when we eventually include Lost Items.
The first Challenge will take place on May 9th, with more details to follow. In the meantime, make sure you sharpen your Bardiches!
With a shining brilliance comes The Stunning Update!
This update brings a host of balance and quality-of-life changes, in addition to a brand new item and some much needed buffs to old ones.
The best defense is a good offense - take the reworked weapons out for a spin and wreak havoc!
However, an even better defense is a good defense. Face enemies head-on with the Compound Shield, a new item that will stop foes in their tracks. Until 4/26, Stone Story RPG will be running a special event (and accompanying 20% discount) where you can obtain a cosmetically unique enchanted Compound Shield. Read below to find out more.
And after much silence from the city above the clouds, a message from Acropolis has found its way down once more. Open it and read to see what news awaits!
The Compound Shield (and Special Event)
Your ASCII arsenal expands even further. The Compound Shield is the latest gear addition to the game and will stun attackers for a short period of time. This item continues to open the existing design space for shields, allowing us to dig deeper into both new and existing mechanics.
To commemorate the occasion, Stone Story RPG will be running a special loot event where you can obtain an enchanted shiny Compound Shield. The event will take a milestone format, where you can progressively receive better enchantments by stunning more foes with the Quarterstaff. This limited-time event will take place until 4/26.
Quarterstaff’s New Ability
The Quarterstaff has received a new activated ability! Use it to pull off a mini-dash attack that will stun enemies, giving you an opening in the frantic flow of combat. Find creative ways to include them in your combat scripts to unlock new combos.
Balance Changes and Quality-of-Life Improvements
Much of this update was focused on polishing existing systems and mechanics. Thanks to the tireless efforts of our community, we’ve been able to iron out several of the kinks in combat, progression, and crafting.
Weapon Buffs
Several items have received buffs including: Staffs, Wands, and Hammers. These weapon categories received a mixture of damage and attack speed increases, which should in turn lead to a greater variety of gear usage amongst players.
A long-requested UX feature from our players, we’ve added a “Fuse More” function within the enchanting workflow. Users who farmed the endgame often found it tedious to navigate their inventory each and every time they wanted to fuse enchantments.
Now, you need only have at least 13 enchantment stacks (including enchanted items), and the Triskelion will automatically factor those into your fusions. Less time clicking, more time looting!
Community Scripts
In the time since we held Stonejam 2, we’ve had an incredible variety of scripts by our amazing community members. We chose some of our favorites to be included in-game. Load them up in your Mind Stone using a simple “import” command!
Another scroll? You are starting to question whether or not someone has intentionally been leaving these for you to find. Regardless, your curiosity once again takes hold as you unfurl the peculiar black parchment and pore over the stark white script within.
---
We hope you all have fun digging into these new changes to the gameplay!
Be sure to join the Stone Story RPG Discord server to keep up with the game's development and chat with other members of our community! - discord.gg/StoneStoryRPG
We hope you've all been safe and healthy these past few weeks. Things have been busy on our end as we work with our awesome beta testers towards pushing updates out onto the live branch. Keep reading to see what we've got coming up.
Balance Update and New Item
This weekend Stone Story RPG will be getting an update that addresses a wide variety of balance issues and much needed QoL improvements. These include things like a reworking of wand stats, streamlining the enchantment process, and even more additions to Stonescript.
The update also brings the Compound Shield into the game, which further explores new edges of the existing design space for shields. We think it will be a stunning addition to your arsenal. :y
To celebrate, Stone Story RPG will be running a limited-time event where you can obtain a powerfully enchanted Compound Shield. The update, event, and accompanying sale will go live this Saturday, April 18th.
The Quest Stone
Our next big content update will be 3.0, which adds the Quest system to the game. Up until now, the Quest Stone has been a placeholder for a long-planned feature that willl greatly expand the amount of narrative content in the game.
The way it works is that quests will function as their own self-contained storylines. Each quest is split into 4-5 parts and will take players on journeys across the Dark World as they revisit familiar locations, talk to old acquaintances, and dive into dangerous new mysteries.
To help us crank out content for the Quest system, we've brought on additional writing talent! We're extremely thrilled to be working with them and can't wait to cook up exciting adventures for new and returning players alike.
Not only will the Quest system add more to the base game, it also opens up further possibilities for community-made content. The modular framework will be designed with the intent to support custom quests, allowing players to create their own adventures or share them with others. That feature is a ways off, but adding the Quest system to the game is a big first step.
---
That's all for now! To stay current with Stone Story RPG's development, join our Discord server to get insights on the design process, chat directly with the devs, or share scripts with other players.
We hope you've been staying safe and healthy! With everything going on right now, many events have been cancelled. However, the folks over at IGF and GDC are working to ensure that as much of their respective shows will continue as planned.
IGF/GDC Sale
Finding yourself cooped up at home like so many others are? Now's the perfect chance to finally play that ASCII-animated game you've been eyeing! Until March 23rd (10 AM PST), Stone Story RPG will be on sale at a 20% discount. See for yourself the game that was nominated for IGF's Excellence in Visual Art Award.
IGF and GDC Virtual Awards Ceremonies
Although the physical shows were cancelled, many GDC speakers have been streaming their talks this week. That also includes the IGF and GDC awards! Tune in today (3/18) at 5 PM PST to cheer us on as we join other awesome games like Knights and Bikes and Void Bastards in contention for IGF's Excellence in Visual Art award.
We hope you're staying healthy and safe with everything going on right now. It's been a rather rough time for Stone Story RPG. With the cancellation of both GDC and SXSW, we've lost invaluable opportunities to share the game with a wider audience.
However, our plans moving forward have not changed. Work continues on additional content and other features. We ask for your patience as we reevaluate the weeks to come.
In the meantime, we've got some exciting stuff to share with you!
Spring Loot Event
The Spring Equinox is upon us!
From now until Sunday, March 15th (11:59 PM PST), the Mushroom Forest will be dropping 2x loot. Pay a visit to the Angry Shroom and see what they have in store for you~
StoneJam 2: Return of the Script
Last weekend we hosted our second StoneJam and the turnout was incredible! Here are a few entries to give you a taste of what our community submitted.
We hope you've been enjoying the newest additions to Stonescript. Keep an eye out this weekend for updates on our StoneJam winners. There were lots of great submissions that we're sure you'll love.
If you haven't yet picked the game up, we're excited to share that we've partnered with Chrono.gg to offer you Stone Story RPG for $13.99 - its lowest price ever! The sale will end tomorrow at 9 AM PST, so be sure to grab the game while you can.