From his earthen tomb emerges the Fallen God, the once-feared-now-flayed titan, Pallas. His impenetrable skin long since peeled away by the giant spider Bolesh, replaced by patient vindictiveness.

Your arrival and evident thirst for loot presents a unique opportunity. A gift is forged! Will you take the Blade and embrace its power?



From October 10th until October 18th, Stone Story RPG will be running a 20% discount as well as our third Challenge Event - The Titan’s Trial. All players who participate in this event will receive The Blade of the Fallen God, a powerful Lost Item that further deepens your arsenal’s synergy.

1. Begin the trial by visiting Pallas to wield the sword.
   
   
2. Activate the Blade's power to defeat foes. Earn a Smite buff for each foe defeated this way.
   
   
3. Change to weapons that apply debuffs. While you have Smite buffs, each time you apply a debuff extra damage is dealt and progress is made on the reward.

Explore possible combinations with other items and bring utter devastation to your enemies. At the end of the event, depending on your progress, you’ll receive an accordingly upgraded Bashing Shield as a reward. (Edit: To clarify some confusion, if you are unable to participate in the event, don't worry! The Lost Items promoted through Challenge Event III will simply be added to existing loot tables after it finishes, so you can grab them in-game once the event is done.)



In addition to the new Lost Item and Challenge Event, this update also brings:

• Updated loot tables for all locations in order to provide rewards more aligned with time invested.
  
• Heavy balance changes to Caves of Fear, Mushroom Forest, Temple and Rocky Plateau.
  
• Changes to the stats for Swords and Crossbows as well as some abilities.
  
• A massive boost to Fire Runes.
  
• New player-created Stonescript mods.
  
• Over a dozen new Stonescript commands.

For the full list of additions and changes, please refer to the official Steam forum post: https://steamcommunity.com/app/603390/discussions/0/2974023280305497523/

But that’s not all! After the end of Challenge Event III we’ll quickly be jumping into this year’s Halloween Event. Much like last year’s, you can expect some seasonally spooky changes to come to the Dark World, with plenty of treats to go along with those tricks.

Following that, in early November we’ll be hosting our third StoneJam! Create awesome ASCII art or flex your programming muscles and start thinking about Stonescript projects.

Still figuring out how the language works? We’ve written up a Stonescript tutorial to help you get started! Check it out here: https://stonestoryrpg.com/stonescript/intro_tutorial.html



Several cycles have passed since you last heard news from the floating city. Now, another missive has found its way down from Acropolis. What awaits from the metropolis above the clouds?



We continue to be impressed and astounded by the fantastic artwork our community has put out. Not only have we received some wonderful fanart of Stone Story RPG, we’ve also got several people in the community working within the ASCII and ANSI mediums!

It truly is inspiring to see text art getting the love it deserves, and we’re happy to share these amazing pieces with all of you. These were some of our favorites from the Discord community, but there are plenty more works that these ASCII art wizards have cooked up. Stop by the server to check them out!

-SSRPG Team

by Skarrdix



by Flanbi



by link2_thepast



by Agerak



by Rossil Fuel



by Matthew Barber



by Mind Stone Thief



by Tai

Has it been weeks? Months? What is time? Well, quite a bit of it has passed since our last update!

Like all of you, the ongoing pandemic has affected our daily lives and livelihood. Just like time blended together, so did our work, and it became harder to separate our regular responsibilities from Stone Story RPG.

As a result, development cadence and routine were heavily disrupted. We still managed to get some work done on the game, but it took a bit of time to reevaluate our situation and change gears to get the project moving at a steady pace again.

First, we’ll start off with some tangible changes to the game. If you’re interested in a deeper devlog, keep reading after!

• All the locations in Stone Story RPG have been reworked and rebalanced. Basic enemy and boss stats were adjusted to provide a spread of duration with loot quality proportional to the amount of time each location takes to clear.
  
  
• The choice of where to place enchantments on your weapons is now more fair.
  
  
• Treasure drop rates have been changed to better accommodate the difficulty balances and the inclusion of Offline Farming.
  
  
• A new Challenge Event approaches! The fearsome blade of the Fallen God, Pallas, the Skinless will make an appearance later this month. Master its terrible power and reign supreme over your foes with your martial prowess. Challenge Event III begins on October 10th.

Now that business is out of the way, we’d like to talk with all of you about how we’ve been working on the game over these last several weeks.

Much of our efforts over the past couple months have involved revisiting every location to tweak and adjust their difficulties. Through the lens of data-driven design, location balance’s priority was to hit the right feel for optimization of the core gameplay loop and, ultimately, resource gathering.

(If you’d like to get an idea of how we balanced values, you can take a look at this enemy data template we used here.)

As we worked on balancing Stone Story, we tackled the effect that the treasure limit has on the core gameplay loop. As far as over a year ago before Early Access, players would consistently report that treasure limits were too low. They wanted to leave the game farming for longer periods of time and collect loot proportional to that time without having to intervene every few hours or hack the memory to allow more treasures.

When your game is built around optimization and grinding, it's a continuous effort to figure out what the solutions are that go beyond simply raising a given limit. Granted, hoarding is an inherent part of progression/loot-based game but we were interested in giving that hoarding more dimensionality.



Offline Farming was a large part of the solution. When combined with this current balance rework on duration and loot tables, the solution for treasure limit takes its form. You can farm a larger location and collect higher quality 400 treasures, or farm a fast location for just a few hours and collect lower quality 400 treasures. The total quality gathered is proportional to the time invested.

Instrumental to this process has been one of our community members, DarkLucifer69. He’s used his deep knowledge of the game as a longtime tester and collaborator to help achieve the right feel for weapon values, enemy stats, and the resulting clear times.

The clear times are sure to be different per player, and so it's up to each person to figure out which location works best for them. Now there is more choice and that's always the goal.


Aside from balance changes, we took some time to reevaluate the development pipeline with the current circumstances and have come away with a solution that we feel works best.

Up to now, we were engineering-focused, placing priority on further fleshing out Stonescript in order to better support incoming needs for the Quest System. Gene, who we hired to develop Stonescript and its systems, has done a great job of implementing a multitude of systems and mechanics.

However, by placing that as our priority we ended up bottlenecking development on the narrative side of the Quest System. Henry, our resident Narrative Designer, had already laid down the foundations for the story arcs and general content flow, but the way the production pipeline was set up, we were waiting on systems to get fully situated before we tried to actually put the quests into the game.



The resulting state of limbo dragged things around until we realized that by putting the narrative content first, we could triage our systemic needs and work them in piece-by-piece as the story content came in quest-by-quest. We’d been gating development with Stonescript milestones when really it should have been more holistic, similar to our approach with the Challenge Events.

We’ve still got a long road ahead of us, but we’re confident in both our team and you, our players. Your feedback and support have been utterly crucial to the health and success of the project. Great games aren’t built in a vacuum, and we’re thankful that we get to share our work with all of you.

If you’ve read this far: Thank you! As always, we invite anyone interested to join our community on Discord and be a part of the development with us. We hope to see you on October 10th for the next Challenge Event.

After that? Well, you’ll find out soon enough.

-SSRPG Team

July 29th marked the sixth year of Stone Story RPG being in development! It really is incredible how far this game has come, from its beginnings as the brainchild of standardcombo to an award-winning game in its first year of Early Access.




As a small team working on a passion project in our (limited) spare time, our goal has been to stay true to a specific vision. That often meant delaying features, spending more time on others, and figuring out how to navigate the quagmire that is indie development and self-publishing.

Despite it all, we’ve never conceded on what we believe Stone Story is and should be. An auto-RPG built on idle mechanics with an ASCII artstyle is something that we recognize is incredibly niche.

However! Our amazing players have proven to us that people want that niche to be filled. Early Access has gone on longer than we anticipated, but the support of our players since we launched into EA nearly a year ago has helped us refine Stone Story in extremely valuable ways.

With our community’s help, we’ve expanded Stonescript, designed and implemented Lost Items (which got its name from our players!), fleshed out new mechanics, and polished game balance to ensure that Stone Story RPG is the best it can be.

One such requested feature from our Discord community was Offline Farming, which we’ve now launched onto the live branch with today’s update.


Key to incremental/idle design is the ability to stockpile resources. Up until now, players have had to leave the game running in the background in order to farm. No longer! Offline farming allows you to loop through locations and farm loot even while the game is closed.

This addition should help both new players and veterans alike, whether you’re trying to overcome a difficult location or finding the best way to optimize your runs.




So where is Stone Story’s development at right now?

We’ve decided to take a small break from events. Events were a nice way to test out various mechanics, but now we want to focus primarily on getting the Quest System up and running as soon as possible. They will most certainly make a return, however! The systems they helped establish are now simply part of the game, meaning we can approach further design options with them in mind.

The upside of being in Early Access is that we have the freedom to pivot development should priorities change (which they have!). We took stock of where the game was at and determined a number of essential tasks, such as bug squashing and quality-of-life improvements.

With those out of the way, our full attention is now on expanding story-based content for Stone Story RPG.




Much of our time lately has been spent on further developing the Quest System. The work thus far has been to establish the framework, as the Quest System was built entirely within Stonescript.

Designing around Stone Story RPG’s in-game scripting language ensures a high degree of modularity, which will be incredibly important for when we eventually work in user-generated content (UGC).

Players will have access to three quests at any given time, which can be broken down into two categories: Basic and Epic. Basic quests typically involve some kind of tracked task, like “Kill X Fire Foes” or “Craft X Basic Swords”. After a quest is completed, a timer kicks in that will tick down until the next quest takes its place.



However, once in a while you may have an Epic Quest pop in! Epic Quests are vignettes that take you on standalone adventures where you’ll meet new characters and uncover new mysteries in the Dark World. This is where the modular design philosophy really shines.

For example, in one of the Epic Quests, “Ascension”, players will cross paths with an escaped Pusher trying to make their way up to Acropolis. Several modular systems were developed using Stonescript, including dialogue boxes, animation and location layouts, event triggers, and quest rewards to name a few.

The modularity means that once UGC is live, players will be able to create custom quests with an easy-to-use established framework. Everything you’ll see in Epic Quests you’ll be able to create yourselves!



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We can’t thank you guys enough for supporting us. We’re extremely lucky to have dedicated players who have been and continue to be there with us every step of the way!

As always, we welcome anyone and everyone to stop by the Discord server and be part of the active effort to help the game's development-- http://discord.gg/StoneStoryRPG

For the the full release notes on the current patch (v2.18.3), please visit: https://stonestoryrpg.com/releasenotes/

-SSRPG Team

The Summer Solstice has enveloped the Dark World! For the duration of the Steam Summer Sale (June 25 to July 9), the final boss will have its loot drops tripled.

During the event players will also be able to earn the Bashing Shield, a powerful Lost Item that can stun foes and protect you from harm. Defeat the final boss during the event and you’ll receive the Bashing Shield when it ends (July 9)!




We’re pleased to offer the Stone Story RPG Soundtrack Bundle! Take a musical journey through the Dark World with 28 vibrant tracks composed by Rafael Langoni Smith, as well as 8 bonus tracks not found in-game.

To celebrate the Steam Summer Sale, we will be offering both the game and soundtrack for 20% off each. However, if you buy the soundtrack bundle (or already own the game and want the soundtrack), you’ll get an additional 20% discount!

Click the image below to go directly to the bundle.



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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: http://discord.gg/StoneStoryRPG

-SSRPG Team

Hey everyone,

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.




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.




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!


Our Discord community members continue to draw up some really cool ASCII art. Check it out!

Whispy by Agerak



My Avatar by Skarrdix



Sketches by Zhaohaozhe99



Odyssee by Flan Bi



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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

-SSRPG Team

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.


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...

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For a full list of patch notes thus far, please visit https://stonestoryrpg.com/releasenotes/


-SSRPG Team

Hey everyone,

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!


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.





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.


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.




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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.

Link: discord.gg/StoneStoryRPG


-SSRPG Team


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...

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.



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.



For a full list of patch notes thus far, please visit https://stonestoryrpg.com/releasenotes/

-SSRPG Team

Hey everyone!

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!



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.
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!



-SSRPG Team

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!





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.





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.

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.



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.

For a full breakdown of the numerical changes, please read the official patch notes: https://stonestoryrpg.com/releasenotes/



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!

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!



For help on how to work with Stonescript mods, please consult the following guide: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2003221477

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.



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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

For the complete patch notes, follow the link here: https://stonestoryrpg.com/releasenotes/

-SSRPG Team