Below the Stone News

Here is the change log:


[h2]Quality of Life Features / Bugfix Update[/h2]

[Controller]
* Fixed issue where you could not select anything in the audio settings menu.
* Fixed an issue on the player save screen where selecting, then deselecting the trash icon would cause you to be stuck on that option, which made some people accidently delete their saves.
* Improved left stick controller UI navigation.
* Removed "Activate Control" from controller UI hints.
* Added item stats display to crafting and shop UIs for controllers.

[New Features]
* Added lodestone (with special structure) that players can use to find other nearby dungeons.
* Added titanium sword
* Added titanium axe
* Added silver sword
* Added silver pickaxe
* Added "damaging exhaust" to escape pod that B U R N S nearby creatures when you take off.

[Tweaks]
* Increased spawn chances for the mission ores (prismium, corbomyte, rosalite). So these missions should be a lot easier now.
* Refactored bones (skeleton) ai so that there is one skeleton object. This allows us to make it so the chances of skeletons wielding crossbows is less likely, which is what we did in this case. So now, skeletons have a 25% chance of wielding crossbows.
* Added titanium to material filter list for blacksmith. Along with some other QOL tweaks to the filter UI.
* Rebalanced all existing melee weapons (with some exceptions) to line up with the existing balancing of tin/copper melee weapons. This change mostly applies to tin,copper,iron,titanium,silver,platinum.
* Tweaked the "mining strength" of pickaxes so each next one is better than the last. Some pickaxes didn't have better stats.
* Some tiny tweaks to the player's main light, should look a bit more "reddish" around the edge. To look more like torch light.
* Item tooltip now shows up in blacksmith when you mouse over any part of the crafting item button. Before, it only showed up if you moused over the item image.
* Removed "collect fossil" mission from foreman mission pool. (May come back at some point)
* Reduced the amount of items you can get in tutorial area from boxes and other breakable things.
* Made "ui background dimmer" even more dimmer. Which helps make the UI contrast more with the background now. And bring it more into focus.
* Added notification that pops up when you press the "summon escape pod" button. This only happens for the first few times of going down into the caves. So it won't happen every time.

[Fixes]
* Fixed frost troll movement bug.
* Fixed problem where profile slot trash icon was not animating on mouse over.
* Fixed the glow weed in swamp biome being unpickable (replaced old prefab with new one)
* Updated toad's bestiary description. Sorry, toads don't fly anymore :(
* Fixed being able to open the journal while on pause screen. This issue also applied to being able to interact with other things on the pause screen that you probably shouldn't have.
* Fixed creature icons in bestiary being squished (now has fixed aspect ratio).
* Fixed scroll bars of creature descriptions in bestiary starting in the middle. They now start at the top, as they should.
* Fixed an issue where a dialog window that transitioned into another UI menu (like blacksmith) would "undim" the background. Even though it should've stayed dimmed. †

[Misc]
* Added trademark to main menu

[Footnotes]
† We may have introduced some other bugs while fixing this bug, so please let us know if you encounter them so we can fix these asap.

WOW. What an amazing milestone.

Thank YOU for taking the time to write us a review for Below the Stone, either already, or in the near future. It's amazing getting to wake up in the morning as an indie developer, and read so many of your positive reviews. Reading your reviews is what gives little indie studios like us the motivation to get up in the morning.

Many of you already know, the game is quite early, and we plan on sending you MANY big updates in the future to fill your content cravings, both for the end of this year, and many years to come. Make sure you keep up with us on the Discord and stay tuned for the mini quality of life update later today which will be addressing many of your suggestions, and Holiday update next week!

Again, thank you for taking the time to review Below the Stone!

- Mike @ Strollart; Below the Stone

We want to have at least two smaller scale, immediate content updates, with a large focus on bug/issue fixes. We want to address immediate player requests before focusing on the next big content updates we have in mind for next year. 2024 will be a huge year for our studio and the game as a whole, so come join us in the festive gifts we want to give to you!





- Player guidance.
- New content (such as lodestone) which will help with player guidance.
- Combat/progression balancing.
- New weapons/Tools.
- Controller bug fixes.
- Address immediate bugs/issues players discovered.





- Holiday content update, fun things for players to do during their holiday off, farm some unique holiday items in the game
- Holiday healing items
- Gifts waiting to be opened at the kingdom!
- Candy Cane tools to acquire
- Things are looking much more festive around home!
- Closes at the end of December





- Additional content for layer 2 biomes (Such as the Mole, and Stone Golem enemies)
- Combat/progression balancing
- More quality of life additions

In the new year, we're going to begin a devlog style series on the official Below the
Stone/Strollart YouTube channel. We'd also like to do regular monthly music videos featuring new biome tracks being created for the game, and regular dev streams by Below the Stone team, aiming to stream on Friday/weekends. We want to be more open with our development since we just launched into Early Access to show what we have in mind for the game's future.

Please let us know what you think we should focus on next, and join our discord too if you hadn't yet!

- Mike @ Strollart; Below the Stone

Thank you all for your patience while we are finish up this next update.
This update addresses a lot of the bugs we missed in our Early Access release. And also introduces various tweaks which should help bring us closer to having a proper level of difficulty for a roguelike while still being fair to players in the appropriate places.

Here is the change log!



[h2][New Features][/h2]
* Introduced a proper "object" for a layer exit when you kill the cave troll. It is now a Portal that will randomly appear. This may change in the future as dungeon generation evolves.

[h2][Combat][/h2]
* Improved bones (skeletons) to have a warning blink + delay before shooting; some initial necessary telemetry.
* Tweaked knockbacks of Kobold's, Mimic's, and Skeleton's to not be so ridonkulous.
* Tweaked algorithm that determines armor damage resistance, which should slightly nerf armors overall.
* Various tweaks the creature's health's, base attack damages, and loot drops.
* Fixed a really silly bug where the player could not swing their sword (or use other items) right after being hit. This was due to the "screen blood effect" being a ui object and blocking input. And we all just assumed it was a stun-lock...
* Slightly nerfed bone shaman helmet
* Buffed dynamites max explosion damage from 50 to 75.
* Reduced the player's "stun duration" from 0.5 seconds to 0.3 seconds.

[h2][Fixes][/h2]
* Fixed an issue where being near the cave edge would break the "call escape pod" button, and player would be stuck in cave.
* Fixed a bug that caused the sounds on the "descent completed" screen to be really loud. It was because the game was playing a bunch of the sounds all in 1 frame. Pretty goofy if you ask me.
* Fixed issue where player could not easily turn pages of the bestiary, in journal. Currently, the page turning keys are now "Q" and "E". †
* Fixed a small issue related to the Journal UI refreshing at the wrong times.
* Pages in journal will now "turn properly". Meaning, page 2 will no longer appear on the left side after turning the page to the right once. So it functions like an actual book now.
* Fixed an issue where certain save files would not load and be usable. † (read footnotes for more info)
* Fixed the very bizarre (but funny) bug where the Frost Troll would not stop playing its "rolling attack" sound. Eventually leading to a chorus of moaning Frost Trolls.
* Fixed a really old issue where the game would not update the "z order" or wall sprites. So you would get situations where the player would be behind a front wall.
* Fixed issue where player could consume (use) certain items while a dialog window or menu window was open.
* Fixed name of "Mole Hammer" item still being called "Lead Fury Hammer", among a few other fixes to Mole items.

* Fixed silver ore having the wrong "mining tier", so people could mine it early.
* Fixed "Titanium Shoulder Pads" not having their name setup. (Was "Iron Shoulder Pads")
* Fixed a super rare issue where you would get stuck on the cave generation screen when the game was generating a random number in the range [0,1], and it just so happened to pick "1".
* Fixed a bug where projectiles (arrows, bullets) would glitch out in the kingdom, or when the hit the world edge. (both caused by different code bugs)

[h2][Tweaks][/h2]
* Spooky sounds happen less often.
* Tiny nerf to drop rate of spotcaps.
* Mole Trader random positioning changed so he will no longer appear near the player starting point (0,0)
* Tweaked spawn positioning of the "exit holes", so they might be a bit easier to find now.

[h2][Misc][/h2]
* Removed some unnecessary log messages, but also introduced new ones to help with diagnosing possible future bugs.

[h3][Footnotes][/h3]
† You can still use left arrow and right arrow to turn the pages, but you will still get the issue for them. In fact, the issue will resurface if you use those buttons to turn pages. From looking at our own code, it does not appear to be an issue in our own code, but it may be an issue of the input handling library that Unity uses.

† This was due to item name_id's not being present in the game's database. For now, we are handling this by skipping that item. So that means you would loose that item, and we will log a message to file about the lost item. In the future, we will make sure that this does not happen to a greater degree. And instead assure that your item's name_id's get converted when you load the save file. In fact, in the future we will probably introduce a warning message to warn players they may loose items if they continue. So players can choose if they want to load that save.