Below the Stone News

[p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]Bury your beards in our sweet Holiday Sale and event![/h2][p][/p][p]30% off the game for a limited time! Holiday event is also happening, so make sure you grab your limited time candy cane pickaxes, holiday hats, and get some holiday treats in your bank like they last![/p][p][/p][p]January we have something big planned for all the fans, And we're looking for playtesters for our combat update that is slated for the same time! If you'd like to join in the new combat update, fill it out here:[/p][h3]https://forms.gle/98d96XwpcvFY5pys7!

Here's some sneak peeks:
[/h3][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p][h2]SHOUTOUT TIME![/h2][p][/p][p]Since it's the holidays, I thought I'd also share a great story about an indie studio we know, Pizza Kidd, another indie just trying to make it in the industry. He's a friend of the studio, and is also launching their Kickstarter crowdfunding page! [/p][h3]
Pizza Kidd is a a gritty sci-fi beat ’em up inspired by Street Fighter II, Streets of Rage, and 90s anime.[/h3][p][/p][p]They're looking for supporters! So check out their trailer, and also sign up for their Kickstarter page below. Here's their trailer:
[/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][h3]SIGN UP HERE:[/h3][p]https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pizzakidd/pizza-kidd-2d-pixel-punchfest-with-monsters-and-mayhem[/p][p][/p][p]I hope you all have a beautiful holiday season, keep up with us, and check out the release news we have in January, we're going to make a big splash, so keep your rock radars tuned on the Below the Stone channel!

- Mike @ Strollart; Below the Stone[/p][p][/p][p]
[/p]

Greetings fellow dwarves!

We just put out a small update that fixes a security vulnerability (CVE-2025-59489) inside of the game engine that powers our game (Unity Engine). Since this is a very small update that is purely to resolve this problem, there will be no version number change.

The next upcoming update (The Combat Update) will also have this security patch, as well as every update after that (of course!).

[h3]Extra information about this vulnerability (CVE-2025-59489)[/h3]

This video covers this news very well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toRGh5NVAbs

But there is a few takeaways that I want to make towards all of this:

#1 Steam and various other platforms have taken measures to protect us from people who may try to exploit this.

#2 From my own research, it appears that the vulnerability does not "happen" while the game is running. The vulnerability exists in how programs can take in additional data (launch parameters, command arguments, whatever you want to call them). So the exploit involves launching the game with very very specific launch parameters that allows an attacker to execute code outside the game itself (which could steal your data, or do many other bad things) by using the permissions of the game itself to bypass antivirus.

What this means for you is, in order for this to be used against you, you have to click on something (like a link or button) that launches the game with this "evil input data" that performs the exploit. So for most people, your not going to be randomly hacked out of nowhere just by having the game installed on your computer, or if you run the game without any additional data, such as if you were to double click on the .exe itself.

The exploit is still there, which is not great, but that is why we are patching it. So there is no chance of it being taken advantage of.

But again, with all this being said. We have patched this issue so it is no longer a problem. I am only mentioning all of these details to help keep people informed. And also because I know some people may want to run older versions of the game in the future. So I am saying all this to maybe give some people a bit of peace of mind that the game being actively running on your PC isn't exposing you, and that typical internet precautions are enough to keep you safe (don't click on shady stuff).

[p]Dig into the deals! Below the Stone is on SALE — gear up for your next underground adventure and save big while you mine deeper than ever. Don’t miss out… treasures await![/p][p][/p][h3]Now... for some fun news:


[/h3][p]We've also been working on a few big combat related thing`s as well. Set bonuses are going to be a part of the next update, which will include other stats outside of armor to build toward.

We're also in the middle of rebalancing a lot of enemies that were a struggle to encounter in the early game, while also making their behavior more interesting to fight during your battles beneath the stone.[/p][p]

[/p][p][/p][p]Another big change coming is making biomes part of the main progression path, requiring materials from each biome in order to progress through the game, like combining Silver Ore with Ectoplasm from the haunted biome to make Spectral Ingots. These ideas are not final listed below, but they give an idea of what the team is discussing. We'd like to hear what you think![/p][p][/p][p]
[/p][p]There's also been work by the art team, including a new boss battle! (Still very much wip)[/p][p]
[/p][p]I’ve been thinking about posting more casual updates as we go—just little snapshots of what we’re working on. Sometimes as a dev, I feel like I need to show off something shiny and polished, but honestly, that can strip away the realness of what we’re doing and how we connect with you all. If you're into seeing more of the messy, behind-the-scenes stuff, I’d love to keep sharing quick, unfiltered posts here. Just us, building this thing together.

- Mike @ Strollart; Below the Stone
[/p]

[p][/p][p]Thank you all for being patient. Here is a change log with all of the bugs that were fixed.[/p][p][/p][h2][New Features][/h2][p]* Added dialog to Bartender.
* Added some profound dialog for many of the NPC's in the bar.
[/p][h2][Fixes][/h2][p]* Fixed Bartender not being clickable.
* Fixed journal quest entries overflowing out of the book UI.
* Fixed some rare errors that were discovered.
* Potential fix to a rare random bug where you can't close your inventory with the UI button. Because we couldn't reproduce the bug, we have no idea if this fixes it, but we can only hope.
* Fixed clicking through category tabs in journal would cause certain journal sections to not fade away completely, and result in 2 different journal sections being visible and overlapping each other.
* Fixed pressing "next category" keybind taking you to a non-existent category tab and being shown a blank page.
* Fixed gold coin bag in kingdom (from mission bonus rewards) not giving you the money you deserve.
* Fixed bug where quest lines would include completed prior quests the offering UI.
* Fixed issue with Head Explorer not showing quest offering UI, and thus not giving any quests.
[/p][h2][Improvements][/h2][p]* Added safeguards to help prevent invalid quest data in save files not persisting and causing other potential issues like progression locks.
* Updated Head Explorer sprites.
* Improved random quest generation to help reduce duplicate quests.
[/p][h2][Removals][/h2][p]* Removed evil pickaxe from quest line.
* Tho Roach has temporarily left the kingdom, and will be back later.[/p]

[p]Since we just put out a very important update, we would also like to take this opportunity to poll as many people as possible on how we are doing as a studio working on Below The Stone.[/p][p][/p][p]We want to do this because it helps us know if we are moving in the right direction with our updates, or if we can be doing better. At the end of the day, we're trying to balance what players want (or look forward to) in Below The Stone with what we as the developers want to create.[/p][p][/p][h3]With that being said, here is the form link.[/h3][h3]https://forms.gle/D4zB1QofLEUD94NM9[/h3][p][/p][p]Yes, as per usual, we are using Google Forms and would like to ensure that each person only fills out one form. You may edit your submission if you realize you made a mistake.[/p][p][/p][p]Lastly, I do want to say something personal because it's been on my mind a lot while getting all of this set up (Andrew speaking here).[/p][p][/p][p]We don't do these forms because we're trying to "boost our egos" or something. This is not done so that we can try to make excuses to not be better because "some people gave positive responses"; it is the complete opposite. We do these because we hear some people's criticisms, and we want to check what % of people share those same views. As I said before, we want to know if we are being as effective as we can be with our updates, or if there are ways in which we can be better. And hearing responses from as many people as possible helps prove to everyone on our team that it's not going to backfire if we change one aspect of how we function.[/p][p][/p][p]Game development often feels like walking a dark path in the forest at night, and all you can do is use your ears to tell the difference between what you think is a path and what is just grass.[/p][p]You guys are our lantern...[/p][p][/p][p]But yeah, thank you again to our community for being part of our development journey and helping to shape this game.[/p][p]We will try to do more Steam Announcements to help keep everyone in the loop.[/p]