Stone Story RPG - Martian Rex
Stonescript

This patch introduces a new system for building complex and performant user interfaces. This is comprised of four object types: Panel, Button, Text and Anim. All of them inherit behavior from the common 'Component' type. The top-level UI namespace has also gained a few functions. See the Stonescript manual for details. Additions:

UI: ui.root, ui.AddPanel(), ui.AddText(), ui.AddAnim(), ui.AddStyle().

Component: x, y, w, h, absoluteX, absoluteY, anchor, dock, ax, ay, dx, dy, parent, visible.

Panel: children, clip, color, style, Clear(), Add(), Remove().

Button (Pre-existing type). Additions: hcolor, SetDown(), SetUp().

Text: align, color, bgColor, lines, text.

Anim: color, duration, flipX, flipY, frame, gamePause, isPlaying, isPaused, pivotX, pivotY, Load(string), playOnStart, loop, Pause(), Play(), Stop().
Stone Story RPG - MintyFresh
2x Ki Event
Has your inventory felt light lately? Perhaps it could use a second Skeleton Arm. Maybe a shiny new Name Tag…?

For a more premium stock of item, visit Uulaa’s Hotspring Shop and spend all that Ki you’ll be getting this weekend!

From now until Sunday, earn twice the Ki from all sources (this includes both @ and Crystals).



Ki can be earned from:
  • Defeating enemies
  • Unmaking items
  • Daily Crystal from the Hotspring Shop
  • The Weekly Challenge Crystal Treasure
  • Crystals from Delta Treasures


Researching & Developing the R&D Book

Recently we added the R&D Book to Stone Story RPG, a compendium that encourages players to experiment with Lost Items to earn enchanted rewards, and we'd like to talk about how we got around to making it.



As we’ve developed the game, we’ve launched events to accompany new Legends, experiment with mechanics, and celebrate the game with our community. It’s that same community that continually helps us make Stone Story the best it can be!

The R&D Book is an important step in creating a complete experience for as many players as possible. The core idea was to create a system that would scale with our pace of development. Events have been a great way to challenge players and keep things fresh with content updates through Early Access, but we lacked a way to make use of them outside of an event's original run. That’s where our handy dandy book comes in.

We added the R&D Book to keep record of limited events and allow players to complete ones that they might have missed. This way, even new players can enjoy content without feeling like they’ve missed out on past events!



What’s Coming Next

Though we’re still cranking away at the mobile port, we’re doing our best to keep things active for our community and have plenty of stuff coming down the pipeline.

Like quests! We’ve got 4 more Legends in the works alongside 3 new Lost Items (such as the Crusader Shield below) and more Challenge Events, but everything requires time to reach a good state of polish. Thank you for your patience as we try to juggle ports, content, and other crazy stuff on our end.



Meanwhile, if you want a chance to flex your Stonescript skills, get ready for the return of StoneJam! Our community has submitted so many cool and creative scripts in the past and we can’t wait to see what people come up with this time.

Got a suggestion for a StoneJam topic or theme? Let us know what you think would be fun to make a script for! From fishing to flower picking and anything in-between~



That's all for now, we'll see you folks in the next update!

-SSRPG Team

Stone Story RPG Twitter

Stone Story RPG Discord

Stone Story RPG - MintyFresh
Challenge Event VI Ending Soon

Hey Stoneheads!

We hope you've enjoyed The Initiate and have found ways to make use of the new Lost Item! The Cult of Nagaraja is certainly a tough bunch, but we know you can handle it.

Remember to complete the Challenge Event before time runs out; it ends after March 23rd!



2x Ki Event Weekend

Mark your calendars: starting this Friday we'll be running a 2x Ki Weekend!

During the 2x event, earn twice the Ki from all sources (this includes both @ and Crystals).

Ki can be earned from:
  • Defeating enemies
  • Basic Ki can also be earned from unmaking items
  • Daily Crystal from the Hotspring Shop
  • The Weekly Challenge Crystal Treasure
  • Crystals from Delta Treasures


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We're still chipping away at stuff behind-the-scenes, but we're eager to share more with you all soon!

As always, thanks for playing and supporting our weird little ASCII game :D

-SSRPG Team
Stone Story RPG Twitter

Stone Story RPG Discord
Stone Story RPG - Martian Rex
- Upgraded Steamworks.NET to v20.1.0
- Cultist Mask added to loot drops.
- Fixed localization of foe names in Blade of the Fallen God's second goal.
- Fixed the random distribution of Ki Crystals found in a Lost Treasure, so the average gained corresponds to the cost.
- Fixed bug where selecting a resolution in settings would sometimes result in a different resolution being used.

Known issue: Crash in R&D Book, page 4.
Stone Story RPG - MintyFresh
The wicked Cult of Nagaraja is shrouded in secrets, their foul deeds carried out within the serpentine depths of The Temple. Only those brave and lucky enough can hope to endure the trials of The Initiate.



The Initiate
Stone Story RPG adds its newest Legend, “The Initiate”!

Uncover the mysterious rites and rituals of the cryptic Cult of Nagaraja. Shadow an aspiring initiate as they take on the Great Worm’s perilous trials.



“The Initiate” is a special Legend, as it’s the first direct sequel to another Quest: “Roof Overhead”. As you play through “The Initiate” we hope you enjoy the work we’ve put into fleshing out our vision of the Dark World (and all its oddball characters).

From the beginning, Quests have been an opportunity for us to expand upon the foundation of Stone Story RPG. We believe in the game’s core design, and it’s incredibly exciting for us to see how far we’ve been able to stretch our creative muscles!
Challenge Event VI - Rites of Passage

As part of the new Quest, Stone Story RPG will also be running Challenge Event VI - Rite of Passage, which runs from March 18 to 23.


All players who participate in this event will receive the Cultist Mask, a powerful Lost Item* that further deepens your arsenal. Wield the power of Nagaraja and summon the Great Worm to aid you in battle!

*Lost Items are rare pieces of loot that can be obtained outside of limited-time events. For information on Lost Items and their drop rates, please see here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/603390/discussions/0/4227150602803257910/



Event Details:
  • Complete the quest “The Initiate” to obtain the Cultist Mask.
  • At the end of the event, participants will receive upgrade loot
  • To proceed with the Challenge, players must complete a series of goals. Each goal completed (note: need event details)
  • Each goal requires you to use the Cultist Mask in creative ways.
  • (Note: Events may repeat, and all gameplay-related rewards can still be obtained through normal play. Enchantments can also be removed from the event loot and placed on another item.) (note: this bullet point dependent on loot)

For full release notes on this update, please see here.

To discuss Challenge Event strategy, visit our Discord server or post on the Steam forums.

StoneJam 5
Stonscripters and ASCII artists alike, prep your Mind Stones for another StoneJam!

It’s been a while since we’ve held our community-focused scripting jam, and StoneJam 5 will be coming up soon! What better way to start off the new year than with a chance to flex your metaphorical Mind Stone muscles?

Below are just some of the creative submissions for StoneJam 4; we hope they inspire you to build something of your own!

Santa Hat by link2_thepast


Digits Puzzle by Okamiroy


Calculator by Bl

Focusing Development Priorities
If you’ve been following the game since we released into Early Access (or even before!), you’ve seen just how much this game and its community have grown.

Stone Story RPG began with a handful of wild ideas, ideas that you’ve seen become reality in things like The Quest Update, harder difficulties, and Lost Items.

If you’ve followed us for some time, you’re also aware of just how much we like to plan ahead! To that end, the SSRPG team will soon be redirecting development resources towards launching mobile.

What does this mean for Quests and other in-game content? Well, for starters it means that this is an opportunity for us to scale development up even further!

The rough plan now is to finish development and exit EA with console launches. The revenue gained from this will go towards funding mobile development and, should things go according to plan, allow us to push out Green Difficulty and other new in-game content!

We’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the best way to move forward for both the team and our community. We hope to have your support in the coming new year and look forward to everything 2022 has in store for Stone Story RPG!

-SSRPG Team

Stone Story RPG Twitter

Stone Story RPG Discord

Mar 16, 2022
Stone Story RPG - Martian Rex
- New Quest: The Initiate!
- New Lost item: Cultist Mask!
- New item: R&D Book!
- New Challenge Event: Rite of Passage!

Stonescript
- Added item.left.id, item.right.id
- Added loc.isQuest
- Added storage.Keys()
- New Sounds: mask_summon_1, mask_summon_2

Balance
- Bardiche:
Changed the Bardiche's activated ability to increase base damage instead of critical multiplier (bardiche_buff_crit_mult):
From: +0 base damage, +1.5 critical multiplier
To: +17 base damage, +0 critical multiplier

- Croaked: Changed Kevin's goal from 25 to 18 snails.
- Craft Grappling Hook cost changed from 90 to 70 wood.

Improvements
- Upgraded engine to version 2020.3.29f1
- The back page of the Crafting Booklet is now localized.
- Hotspring Shop: On a player's first day, the Name Tag is replaced by a +4 enchantment.
- Players can no longer see seasonal skins before acquiring the Quest Stone.
- Added "1 of 3" to the Metal Chunk descriptions.
- Improved layout of the Event Reward dialog.
- Minor improvement to formatting consistency in Japanese and Spanish(LA) texts.
- Minor art improvement to the banners in Temple background.

Bugs
- Smack Hammer: Fixed a bug where the quest would sometimes end abruptly.
- Simplified Chinese: Fixed localization of the Crafting Booklet's last page.
- Fixed seasonal background in the mountain climb cinematic.
- Fixed a bug in the first-time user experience where pressing ESC in language selection closed the window.
- Fixed a bug where some sprites would load with height value +1.
Stone Story RPG - MintyFresh
The Initiate

The wicked Cult of Nagaraja is shrouded in secrets, their foul deeds carried out within the serpentine depths of The Temple. To become a Cultist of Nagraja is to surrender your entire being to the path of the Great Worm.

Many such aspirants who seek to curry the beast’s favor take on harrowing trials to prove themselves worthy enough.

Should you have enough courage and luck, you may be able to endure the perils of The Initiate.



As fortune would have it, you come across a cultist initiate in your travels. She is less than forthcoming with information, however.

If you’re to learn more about this mysterious cult, she’s your best chance.

"The Initiate" is the seventh Quest Drop of the update and will be playable in Stone Story RPG beginning March 18th!



Keep an eye out for our next announcement, where we'll discuss the new Legend, accompanying Challenge Event and Lost Item, StoneJam 5, and the project's roadmap looking ahead.

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-SSRPG Team

Stone Story RPG Twitter

Stone Story RPG Discord
Stone Story RPG - MintyFresh
Long time no see, Stoneheads.

We emerge from our winter hibernation to bring you spring tidings and loot!

From now until March 15th, Stone Story RPG will be running a 20% off sale and a 2x Loot Event.

Complete runs in the Mushroom Forest to earn this extra loot (which also includes 2x Lost Item drops).



State of Development and Mobile Version

When we first launched the Quest Update, the plan was to push out sixteen Legend quests. Thus far we’ve released twelve unique adventures that have taken players from homey hot springs to frantic skeleton factories!

We still have four legends currently in-development; however, after reevaluating development priorities we will be shifting resources to other parts of the project.

Our current focus is to make Stone Story RPG ready for other platforms, particularly mobile.

We had set milestones for the Quest Update and managed to exceed them, which has encouraged us to speed up mobile design. We feel confident about the game and want to focus now on bringing it to as wide of an audience as possible.

The four remaining Legends are fully designed and most are implemented, but they still require polish. There’s quite a lot to sort out, as each Legend will also introduce three new Lost Items alongside three new Challenge Events.

But wait, don’t forget- there’s another Lost Item coming right around the corner!



Upcoming Legend: The Initiate

In the next Legend, The Initiate, you’ll be delving deeper into the mysteries behind the Temple and its cultists.

But why merely look?

Embrace Nagaraja and take the great Great Worm’s power for yourself!



The Initiate will be playable in-game on March 18th.

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-SSRPG Team

Stone Story RPG Twitter

Stone Story RPG Discord
Stone Story RPG - MintyFresh
Seasons Greetings from The Dark World!



We hope that Poena hasn't been giving you too much trouble. If you need a break, why not give Hrímnir a visit? Until January 2nd, we'll be running our seasonal Winter Event! Complete runs of Icy Ridge for 2x loot.

Stone Story RPG will also be on sale until January 5th. Get the game and soundtrack for 20% off and start building your loot hoard!

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/15414/Stone_Story_RPG__Original_Soundtrack_Bundle/

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-SSRPG Team

Stone Story RPG Twitter

Stone Story RPG Discord
Stone Story RPG - MintyFresh
Hello Stone Story RPG friends!

We hope you’re enjoying the event. It’s certainly been very challenging, even for the most experienced of adventurers!

Poena was a great opportunity for us to expand upon the game’s world and introduce an interesting new mechanic.

Stone Story RPG's World Design

The process to building Poena is the same used for the rest of the game’s world design. Various elements from pop culture and mythology fill a bucket that, sometimes, will have ideas that line up together and work well naturally.

Take for example Nagaraja, the boss of the Temple location. Nagaraja is constructed from several such pop cultural and mythological building blocks: giant fantasy worms from series like “Dune” and “Star Wars” perfectly aligned with the venomous nature of the Serpent King in Hindu myth.



But it doesn’t stop there!

The Temple itself is heavily based on the Red Temple from 1993’s “Prince of Persia 2”. The reveal of the Red Temple can be seen in the way the Temple is revealed in Stone Story RPG: a cinematic landscape approach towards a mysterious towering structure.



Funnily enough, the Temple and Nagaraja developed independently of each other until the pieces suddenly fit and made sense: giant worms are traditionally a “desert” character so why not fit Nagaraja into the Temple’s theming?

There are countless other examples of this design philosophy at work in the game, but the general idea is that sometimes there’s a gap in Stone Story RPG’s design and it’s our work to fill it.

Creating Poena

Poena is the most recent product of this design. Lore-wise, we already had a solid base to work from: Xyloalgia is the corrupted remains of Leuce (whose positive aspects remained in Acropolis as a white tree). Thus, if Leuce has been considered a female character then it follows that Xyloalgia would as well!



Expanding upon this, Xyloalgia’s gender reveal took its lead from how Metroid revealed Samus’ gender. We wanted the moment of revelation to have impact, but the initial sketches felt a bit weak. Nothing that fit the personality of the character.

This was where Polyducks came in. Polyducks took the idea of Poena and crafted her in a deliberate depiction of the female form twisted by corruption. Poena embodies the spirit of vengeance and punishment. The dark and dirty core of retribution lying deep within Xyloalgia.

It’s her very character that also informs how she works mechanically in a boss fight. The Mirror debuff mechanics underscore Poena’s very nature: When you’re fighting her, you’re fighting the negative parts of Leuce.



You can take a look at how standardcombo animates Poena on his Twitch channel vods.

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-SSRPG Team

Stone Story RPG Twitter

Stone Story RPG Discord
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