Hi,

We have some very exciting news. An official merch store is now open!
Now you can buy various Blazing Beaks related goodies.

Check it out: https://shop.applava.com

Apologies for useless update.

Basically, what happened was that internally, the game stores the current high scores as a list in memory, and when you completed a new level, it would try to add that high score, but because there wasn't a place in the list for that high score, the game tried to access memory it didn't own, and crashed.

Hello Stonefriends!

We hope you’ve enjoyed the Quest Update so far. Dealing with squatting Stoneheads and frenetic frogs is no joke!

Last Friday, we added “Mr. Pallas’ Wild Ride”, the first of many Legends to come. The Wild Ride Challenge Event will continue for a few more days (ending on October 10th), so you’ve still got a bit of time to complete your goals and your reward.*

Since full completion requires use of the Mind Stone, you can consult our Discord community or see the Wild Ride forum post should you run into any problems finishing the event.

*All loot gained through events can still be obtained in-game. Events may also repeat in the future.




A couple weeks ago, we hosted our fourth StoneJam, an event where community members gathered to create custom content using the in-game scripting language, Stonescript.

We received all sorts of neat creations, including cosmetics, minigames, pets, and UI tools! We’ve put together a video where we look at each submission, so you can see what kinds of projects people worked on:



We've got more Legends to come in the following weeks (be on the lookout next week for "Remnants of Five"!). We plan to add a total of 16 Legends: full-scale adventures featuring unique narrative experiences.



Everything that gets added in the Quest Update further builds out Stone Story RPG as a whole. More events that will repeat, new mechanics and systems, and expanded Stonescript features are just some of the things that will become core to the final version of the game.

Why are we staggering development like this? Well, we’re indiedevs!

This is not meant as an excuse or a joke, but rather a sincere explanation. We are a small team that takes pride in the quality of our work, and Early Access allows us the opportunity to work in constant conversation with our players to iterate and improve on Stone Story.

That kind of quality, however, calls for fairly rigorous testing and experimentation. Balance that with busy lives and a world that’s on fire, and you can start to see why we’ve taken as long as we have.

This is especially important when it comes to one of our primary concerns: Player Engagement & Fun.


Stone Story RPG is a niche game. “ASCII-animated incremental auto-RPG with programming elements” is a hard enough sell as it is, and while it helps us stand out it also makes it extremely challenging to get players invested.

We receive lots of valuable feedback from you guys. What we don't receive is feedback from players who did not become engaged with the game.

These are people who, for whatever reason, didn't have fun playing. They leave and don't come back, almost never giving the developers direct feedback. This might be the single largest challenge to solve as a game dev! No game can please everyone, but we know we can do better.

To tackle this issue, we track a set of usage data that is both aggregate and anonymous. For instance, when players begin a new story, they all go through the first location, gather several items, then craft their first item.

Those steps are added to a collective pool of data. Correcting for things like piracy, this tells us a statistical story of how players, as a whole, are interacting with the game and allows us to see where folks are getting stuck.

This process is called Funnel Analysis, where science intersects with art, to inform some of our game design decisions. This tells us where problems exist, but not what those problems are, or how to fix them. What comes next involves some detective work.



We've identified and fixed several minor drop-off points, where players give up, but there is one STARK drop-off that persists. It appears right after upgrading your workstation, and we believe this is the Waterfall Puzzle, where currently 18% of new players are leaving (probably in frustration).

The Waterfall Puzzle is a unique moment in Stone Story, since it’s one of the few times where we introduce a non-combat challenge. We've attempted various changes to solve the issue, with partial success. If we're going to crack this case it's going to take more than just a few text and number adjustments. We have to re-think the whole section.


It's certainly hard to quantify "fun", but we believe Retention Rate gives us a measure of that, albeit indirectly. Retention in games is often expressed in the sequence D1 > D7 > D30, or what percentage of players are returning to play again after 1 day, 7 days, and 30 days.

• D1 retention is all about ensuring the game has a fun and engaging hook. Stone Story RPG’s base game content can be completed in roughly 8 hours, meaning that someone can “beat” the game in about a day or so. The progression needs to be as smooth as possible, so fixing bugs and conveying the gameplay without confusion is crucial.
  
  
• D7 retention focuses on giving people a reason to come back. This is where things like Quests and higher difficulties come into play. The goal at this part of the experience is to expose players to the deeper parts of the game, where their breadth of choices unfolds to infinity. Our work with the Quest Stone and the 3.0 release is designed to boost this area of the experience.
  
  
• D30 retention focuses on the long-term. This is where we strive to get all our players: using Stonescript, creating custom content, theorycrafting, and generally being invested in Stone Story RPG as a whole. Community events are one way for us all to have fun at this stage of progression.

In terms of future development, we believe Green difficulty locations, quality of life systems, an expanding arsenal of complex items, as well as a new game mode are some of the ways in which Stone Story can deliver long-term enjoyment.

We love data, as it helps us understand the full picture and keep improving!




On TOP of retaining players, we spend just as much time ensuring that people all over the world can play the game. We’re lucky to work with such a great localization team, Warlocs, who’ve made the game accessible in so many different countries.

If you’re a game dev and not localizing your game you’re missing out on a HUGE audience. However, it’s not as simple as just translating! Good localization involves a deep understanding of dialogue, tone, and mechanics so you can properly convey it all to a completely different audience.

Having Stone Story localized for so many languages doesn’t just increase how many players we have; it also increases the amount of data we receive!

Iteration and localization are all in service of the eventual ports and ensuring this can hit as wide an audience as possible. This process takes time and we ask that you please continue to be patient with us as we work to bring Stone Story RPG up to the ambitious vision we have for it.



---

Whew, that was a lot of text! If you made it this far, thank you for reading.

Stone Story RPG continues to be a labor of love in an industry that demands so much for even a chance at success. We deeply appreciate every one of you that has stuck with us so far and continues to come back.

Until next time! o/

-SSRPG Team

Last day of the Fest Event - come check out our game DEMO LIVE



Sentient Noir, is a video game currently in development. Our target platforms are PS4/PS5, Steam and Switch. It's set in a dystopian alien City called Night Light City where four factions want the incredible powers of a Detective Hunter for their own ends. With these powers, you're able to manipulate, befriend, betray, instill fear and destroy the sentient populous. You are feared, but maybe that can change as you discover the true nature of the sentient city.

Greetings!

One day remaining to launch our Indiegogo Campaign!


Meet some of our good guys!






Are you ready?

Hey, Alchemists! We have just rolled out a small update to address a few critical bugs and add one of the most requested features: saving in files.

• Totally fixed an issue that prevented players from saving their game.
  
• Saves are now saved to files instead of Windows Registry.
  
• Fixed a rare bug that caused the game to launch incorrectly if you played the Playtest or Demo version before the first launch of the Early Access version.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused Green Experience Books to spawn more often after restarting the game. Note: the bug will be fixed after the first night, so you may still see too many Experience Books on the first load of an old save.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused a small part of the Alchemy Map to be non-interactive.
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed players to save the same recipe many times in a row.
  
• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused the Recipe Book button collider to become much larger than it should be (which disabled the ability to press other buttons next to it).
  
• Fixed a bug that caused scales to freeze in weird positions after saving and loading the game.

Many players encountered an issue that prevented players from saving their game after some actions. Thanks to your bug reports and help with logs, videos and save data, we were finally able to find the cause of that issue.. The problem was with the limit of Windows Registry key size on some OS / PC. That’s why we decided to save files a little earlier than we planned, so players can continue playing without fear of losing their progress.

Saving in files was one of the most requested features since the game’s release, and now it’s finally here! After the first launch of the game, all of your saves will be automatically transferred to files. You can find them in this directory:

%appdata%\..\LocalLow\niceplay games\Potion Craft\Saves

or

C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\LocalLow\niceplay games\Potion Craft\Saves

Watch the developers of Battle Bands make a band and start rocking in the Demo avalible for only a few more days!

Join the Discord, Follow onTwitter, and play the demo while it lasts!


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1322100/Battle_Bands_Rock__Roll_Deckbuilder/

Obscurant is a tile-based mimicry game in which you disguise as your enemy and mimic their behavior to blend in. You play as a curious robot exploring a mysterious world. Observe and blend in to survive.

• Disguise yourself as a variety of unique enemies.
  
• Deceive deadly foes by copying their behavior to blend in.
  
• Discover a mysterious world full of memorable characters.

Use the unique mimicry mechanics to sneak past your enemies and find secrets. Record your findings in a player-generated notebook. Learn the origins of the Obscurance, and make friends in a hostile world.

Dear Aragami fans and players,

First of all, we'd like to thank you for your patience and understanding during the last couple of weeks as we worked hard on fixing all the bugs and issues you've been reporting since launch. 

This is the first big update the game will receive and will fix most of the issues you’ve been reporting lately, but we’re not done yet. We are committed to keep working on fixing bugs and crashes to make sure you enjoy the game regardless of the platform you're playing.

Hence, we recommend that you follow us on Twitter and join our Discord server so you’re up to date about the progress being made on Aragami 2. 

Thanks again for your support.

The Lince Works team

• Players can now pause the game when playing single player.
  
• Game now enters slow motion when opening the Ability / Item Wheel.
  
• Added new tutorials to introduce enemy types and special objectives.
  
• Added keybard mapping screen on PC platforms.
  
• Added setting to disable automatic target lock when attacking.
  
• Added setting to automatically target a parried character.
  
• Added setting to toggle Slow Motion when using the power wheel.
  
• Added setting to disable HUD for Available Actions.
  
• Added player noise visual feedback to enemy awareness HUD.
  
• Added idle player animations for blacksmith and dye shop.
  
• Added some current mission info in Status Screen.
  
• Medals that can't be obtained due to mission clauses or special objectives will not be shown in mission results or in the mission board.
  
• Player is now able to review the Ability Tree from the Status Screen (Pause Menu).
  
• Added button and key shortcuts to swap to next/previous item/power
  
• Added counter for hostiles killed and player detections in Status Screen (Pause Menu).
  
• Added Vertical Sync setting in consoles to remove Screen Tearing.

• Player stuck in vault loop when vaulting just after grabbing a body.
  
• Parry failing to trigger while staggered or blocking enemy attacks.
  
• Enemies block shurikens / kunais even when unaware of the player position.
  
• Player can throw corpses through walls.
  
• Unconscious enemies dying when being dropped to the floor from low heights while grabbed.
  
• Player can glitch through player house early in the story.
  
• Enemy fire area attacks hitbox hitting players jumping.
  
• Target Lock targetting enemies very far away from the character and/or failing to target close enemies.
  
• Assassination targets and special objectives affecting player detection events, making it impossible to obtain certain medals like no kills / no detections.
  
• Player stuck in a fall pose when performing an aerial elimination.
  
• Healing VFX shouldn't trigger when at full health.
  
• Player clipping through the floor/wall when vaulting.
  
• Shadow Leap to Walkable Rope sometimes hard locked the player to that rope trigger.
  
• Solved online multiplayer invitations failing and lobby discovery.
  
• Player could get stuck on top of a rope trigger.
  
• Hard Landing would sometimes teleport the player to another position.
  
• Citizens and Slaves were spawning in T-Pose.
  
• Player could use Shadow Powers and items on Akai and Nobu.
  
• Various minor multiplayer fixes.
  
• Multiple mission scripting fixes affecting M00, M03, M18, M22, M23, M24, M40, M51 among other missions.
  
• Improvements to cutscene visual fidelity.
  
• Removed constant wind affecting player cloth in Kakurega Village.
  
• While carrying a body and on top of other bodies, interactions can become unavailable.
  
• Improved Combat Jump behaviour.
  
• Sync issues with combat music.
  
• Sync issues when grabbing enemy bodies, and bodies getting stuck suspended in the air.
  
• Multiple fixes in Fire Capital location.
  
• Multiple fixes in Mine location.
  
• Multiple fixes in Fire Palace location.
  
• Scene blinking for a single frame after custscenes.
  
• Issues with mouse sensitivity setting not being saved.
  
• Mission 40 scripting issues.
  
• Issues with loot spawners.
  
• Player could carry a corpse through a wall in some cases.
  
• Issue with clients not being properly reset after cinematics.
  
• Multiplayer T-Pose fix.
  
• Momentum upgrade not working in multiplayer.
  
• Final battle desync issues.
  
• Issues with Dark Flame not working properly.
  
• Final encounter combat takedown animation glitch.
  
• Functional fixes in Kakurega Village.
  
• Chameleon ability delay inconsistency with upgrade.
  
• Minor improvements to cinematics and some dialogues.
  
• Knocked out enemies dying when dropped to the floor from low height.
  
• Button prompts disappearing on some specific situations.
  
• Momentum could kill civilians.
  
• Mission 20 scripting issues with cinematic actor spawning.
  
• Floating Essence Crystals in Mines.
  
• Player doing a climb animation when falling on a steep floor.
  
• Issues with stealth covers (grass) in Mountain.
  
• Player freezing when knocking out an enemy while an eavesdrop action is available.
  
• Shade ability not working for clients.
  
• Torchbearer spirit link lines not visible in Shadow Vision for clients.

• Stamina and Vitality are now infinite in Kakurega Village.
  
• Changes to Enemy Citizen Animations.
  
• Increased enemy peripheral vision.
  
• Removed body inverse kinematics in player dialogues.
  
• Updated outdated Tutorial videos.
  
• Mesmerize can now be used in combat.
  
• Changes to interaction system so that items can be interacted even if they end up out of view.
  
• Momentum will now trigger on alerted enemies if they are in range of the original target.
  
• Rebalance of enemy hearing in relation to player movement.
  
• Scorcher fireballs have now more movement attraction toward players.
  
• Added facial animations to various cinematics and enemy animations.
  
• Rebalanced final encounter to provide a more suitable challenge.
  
• Changes to score event management to try and solve remaining issues with enemies killed calculations.

• Solved online multiplayer invitations failing and lobby discovery.
  
• Various minor multiplayer fixes.
  
• Sync issues with combat music.
  
• Sync issues when grabbing enemy bodies, and bodies getting stuck suspended in the air.
  
• Issue with clients not being properly reset after cinematics.
  
• Multiplayer T-Pose fix.
  
• Momentum upgrade not working in multiplayer.
  
• Final battle desync issues.
  
• Shade ability not working for clients.
  
• Torchbearer spirit link lines not visible in Shadow Vision for clients.

It’s been exactly 3 months since I released the last patch. Since then, I’ve finished 50% of my planned tasks for Beta 1. However, since each task vary in complexity, I’m probably not 50% done yet. But let’s get on with what I have done so far.


I’ve added the ability to design how your hardware products will look and Lasse has been hard at work making it work and look great. This system will be fully moddable and hopefully it will add a bit of life to all the endless text-only lists of products and make them feel a bit more tangible.


Ignore the unintended Dexter reference.

Traits have moved from independent/social, fast learner/hard worker and lazy/stressed to individual traits that are determined by an employee’s personality, sprinkled with some RNG. Additionally, there is no longer an infinite pool of employees lined up to be hired or deallocated, but it’ll be much easier to filter through applicants as the hiring system is moving from pay-to-view to pay-to-filter.





Notifications have been somewhat unhelpful up until now, mainly because it was hard to tell important from trivial messages, causing people to ignore them altogether, but also because issues would stick around even if they had already been fixed. This has changed in Beta 1 and I’ve added more complex interactions, making them super extra helpful.



I’ve overhauled the final review system, combined the post-release marketing and printing prompts, and merged it all into a single flashy release dialog, to make releasing new products a bit less anticlimactic.



You’ll now be able to release DLC for your games, or joysticks for the most popular console on the block, to milk each product for all they’re worth. With subscription-based software, releasing content for your products will also help bring back old customers, to gain those sweet extra monthly payments.





Bugs are no longer magically transported to your customers devices as soon as you fix them, you’ll now have to develop and release patches, which will also present an opportunity to upgrade tech levels, for even more subscription-based income goodness.

I'm not sure I can guarantee save compatibility with Alpha 11 currently. I have not yet broken compatibility, but engine-related issues might force my hand later down the line. In any case, Alpha 11 should still be available, even after Beta 1 is out officially, so you can keep playing old saves, and a lot of the new mechanics in Beta 1 wouldn't be accessible from Alpha 11 saves anyway.

• You can now get a detailed breakdown of expenses for products you have developed
  
• HR can now auto-prioritize specializations based on active tasks
  
• Assembly lines can now cross over pallets connections
  
• Fixed a bug causing AI to buy OS licenses from player for porting, even if OS license was ridiculously expensive
  
• Fixed it being almost impossible to get level 3 service employees when hiring
  
• Tons of other fixes and improvements

I also have another super secret mechanic planned, which will involve a new class of employee. I will reveal more when I get there.

As for when you'll be able to play it: I'm still on track with my initial estimate of 3-9 months. With the progress I've made so far, that estimate is narrowed to 3-6 months from today, as long as there aren't any major roadblocks.

Thanks for sticking around! Hope you’re as excited as I am :D