Stoneshard News

Hello everyone!

Let’s start with some context. Unlike other archetypes, mages have been neglected in terms of new content for quite a while. There are multiple reasons for this: before new magic could be added, we had to introduce a number of additional mechanics first, which wasn’t possible while the focus was on building more important and global systems. It also didn’t help that developing new magic requires much more resources than weaponry and utility trees. But now the time has come, and we finally can give magic the attention it deserves. Therefore, meet Electromancy!

We envisioned Electromancy as something in between Pyromancy and Geomancy: it’s capable of dealing high damage to multiple targets while providing ample opportunities for weakening your foes and manipulating their positioning.

The key mechanic of Electromancy is the so-called Resonance, which can be applied by the ability tree’s first two spells. This effect in particular distinguishes Electromancy’s AoE spells from those of pyromancy - they target specific targets rather than set areas, allowing you to affect enemies standing on opposite sides of the battlefield. Let’s have a better look at each spell’s function and the overall structure of the ability tree:


Just like every other magic school, Electromancy includes 14 abilities: 7 actives and 7 passives.

[h2]Active Abilities[/h2]

[h3]Jolt[/h3]



The main Electromancy spell that acts as a foundation for the entire ability tree. It allows you to zap your target with a bolt of electricity, dealing a bit of damage and applying it with the effect of “Resonance”, which reduces Shock, Control, and Movement Resistances while also increasing Cooldowns Duration. It’s a simple spell, but its importance shouldn’t be understated - most high tier Electromancy abilities require at least one Resonating target before they can be used.

The varied debuffs applied by Resonance make “Jolt” a great addition even to melee builds, especially if they use one and two-handed maces, spears or just rely on Stuns, Dazes, Immobilization, and Knocking enemies back.

[h3]Impulse[/h3]



“Impulse” is especially useful to hybrid characters - or when enemies catch you off guard and creep too close for comfort. It deals Shock Damage to adjacent enemies with a chance to Knock them back, applying Stagger if they remain in place.

Additionally, it has a chance to apply each affected target with the effect of “Impulse” - essentially, it’s a stronger version of Resonance which debuffs the same stats. Other than that, “Impulse” deals some damage every turn with a chance to Knock enemies back, reducing the possibility of them closing the distance again.

[h3]Short Circuit[/h3]



This spell is one of the main offensive tools available to an apprentice electromancer. It does some damage to all Resonating enemies within Vision - the damage scales with the number of Resonating targets. The spell also has a chance to Daze each affected target.

If two Resonating targets are adjacent, “Short Circuit” deals double damage to them.

[h3]Static Field[/h3]



“Static Field” is an AoE spell with an interesting twist. The center of its zone of effect isn’t a targeted tile, but rather all Resonating enemies - each of them receives a harmful aura of sorts. Each turn, “Static Field” deals Shock Damage to its main target (and everyone adjacent to it) with a chance to Immobilize. If the main target moves to a different tile, “Static Field” moves with it. And since damage from multiple instances of “Static Field” adds up, this spell becomes especially deadly when its targets are huddled up.

[h3]Ball Lightning[/h3]



Casting this spell creates a ball lightning on a targeted tile, which deals damage to anything within a two tile radius with a chance to pull targets towards it. Enemies adjacent to the ball lightning receive slightly more damage, and if you somehow push them into it (or if the ball lightning pulls them in by itself), they receive double damage.

Unlike the previously described spells, “Ball Lightning” doesn’t require Resonating enemies to be used, but its duration is increased by a couple turns for each Resonance within Vision.

[h3]Chain Lightning[/h3]



Obviously, we had no other choice but to include this spell into Electromancy. “Chain Lightning” deals a large amount of damage to a targeted enemy and then jumps towards a nearby Resonating target, damaging it as well. The number of additional targets is limited only by the number of Resonating enemies, although they can be damaged only once per cast.

On top of its main effect, “Chain Lightning” reduces the ability tree’s active Cooldowns by a couple turns per each affected target. It also has a chance to apply Stagger.

[h3]Tempest[/h3]



And finally, “Tempest” - the ultimate Electromancy spell. Casting it summons lightning strikes that hit three random enemies within Vision, instantly finishing them off if their Health is lower than 20% (but not if it’s higher than a certain flat number). The spell hits Resonating targets first.

Each lightning strike removes Resonance with a chance to transform it into Stun - the Stun Chance scales with the number of remaining Resonance turns. The bonuses for removing Resonance don’t end here: each successfully Stunned enemy summons an additional lightning to strike one of the survivors.

[h2]Passive Abilities[/h2]

[h3]Residual Charge[/h3]

Allows Electromancy spells to enchant your weapon for a few turns, adding Shock Damage to your physical attacks and letting them reduce Shock Resistance on hit.

Additionally, natural lightning strikes that occur within Vision grant your character a long-lasting bonus to Electromancy Power.

[h3]Potential Difference[/h3]

Grants “Impulse” a chance to deal double damage to any target it Knocks back and a chance to Immobilize these targets.

[h3]Unlimited Power[/h3]

Grants different bonuses depending on your character’s current energy: each remaining percent of their Max Energy grants a small bonus to Electromancy Power, and each missing percent - a bonus to Energy Restoration.

[h3]Conductivity[/h3]

“Conductivity” allows “Static Field” to drain energy from enemies and transfer it to your character, which is invaluable for maintaining your reserves.

[h3]Resonance Cascade[/h3]

Casting Electromancy spells has a chance to activate Resonance on a random non-Resonating target within Vision. If there’s no valid target, it has a chance to prolong Resonance duration on a random enemy.

[h3]Chain Reaction[/h3]

“Chain Reaction” reduces Shock Resistance of every target struck by Electromancy spells - the power of this effect depends on the number of Resonating targets.

[h3]Recharge[/h3]

This passive grants bonus Energy Restoration for each Resonating enemy - killing them reduces Cooldowns Duration and spells’ Energy Cost.

=============

That’s all for now - we hope you liked what you saw! Make sure to stay tuned: in the next devlog we’ll announce the next major update’s title and release date. We might also tell you a few things about changes to the magic system and reveal a new ability tree, Magic Mastery.

Until next time!

Hello everyone!

This post is the first one in the series of devlogs where we tell you about new content that will be a part of the upcoming major update. Today, we’ll share the details about high tier Proselytes - new dangerous enemy types which you’ll be able to encounter in Catacomb dungeons.

Proselytes are a disturbing, mysterious vampire cult that only recently became prominent in Aldor - they are definitely on the fantasy side of things when compared to the rest of the setting. While working on them, we decided not to focus too much on realism and the restrictions of the world we created, instead fully embracing the opportunity to make new enemies memorable and unique.

Here they are, left to right…

=======================

Let’s start with the Proselytes whom you might run into while exploring both low and high level Catacombs.

[h3]Martyr[/h3]

“The sight of martyrs' agony only strengthens other Proselytes' loyalty to the Court. How deep into madness does one need to descend to volunteer for something like this?..”

Martyrs are stationary foes whose main task is to support other cultists. Their “Neverending Torment” passive causes Martyrs to lose Health each turn as long as there’s both an enemy and an ally within their Vision, while “Willing Sacrifice” transforms some of the damage they take into healing for their allies.

As a result, it might be a good idea to prioritize Martyrs in combat. There is one thing to keep in mind though - killing them doesn’t immediately end your troubles. Even upon taking fatal damage, a Martyr continues hanging from the stake, replacing their abilities with the “Blessed in Death” passive that grants significant buffs to the rest of the Proselytes. The solution here is simple - you’ll just need to finish the job and topple the stake propping up the corpse.

[h3]Bell-Ringer[/h3]

“Echoing through the pitch darkness of underground tunnels, the otherworldly cluttering of his bell can send even the most reckless hotheads fleeing in terror."

The Bell-Ringer is yet another cultist whose main task is supporting other Proselytes. Aside from the standard Proselyte bag of tricks, he also has two unique active abilities: “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and “Unholy Anthems”. The first ability generates a huge amount of noise, attracting cultists from distant rooms and chipping away at your character’s sanity, increasing the damage they receive. The second one grants a random buff to every Proselyte in a large radius.

=======================

Let’s have a look at the next tier of Proselytes:

[h3]Fiend[/h3]

“This Proselyte is a perfect soldier: inhumanly strong, ferocious, and feeling no pain, fear, or mercy.”

Fiends retained their ability to handle weapons, so they act as infantry of sorts. Armed with axes and crude clubs, they have access to some Weaponry skills. On top of all that, they also have two new passives: “Witness His Might” and “Anthems of Bloodshed”.

“Witness His Might” increases Fiends’ damage and Health for each unique Proselyte type within their Vision, and allows their attacks to gradually decrease your character’s resistance to damage. “Anthems of Bloodshed” grants them a guaranteed critical hit with bonus Bleeding Chance on every 6th attack that also buffs nearby cultists upon landing.

[h3]Impaler[/h3]

“Impalers are unmatched in their ability to track down and capture those poor souls who unknowingly wander into the catacombs. The victims that survive the hunt either join the cult or serve as sacrifices for the Court.”

Impalers’ main task is to wear your character down and quite literally bleed them dry. To aid them in this task, they have access to a number of abilities: “Impaling Lunge”, “Lacerate”, “Net Throw”, and “Sudden Lunge”. Other than that, Impalers’ “Blood Scent” buffs their Crit and Counter Chances as well as their damage for each Bleeding affecting enemies and allies within Vision.

[h3]Murkstalker[/h3]

“The horrific murkstalkers resemble underground bats not only in appearance but also in their behaviour, taking full advantage of the catacombs' impenetrable shadows.”

Murkstalkers are among the most devious Catacomb creatures - defeating them won’t be an easy task. Their main strength lies in mobility and being unpredictable: “Murkwalk” allows them to teleport over large distances, and “Embrace the Murk” grants them a short dash and invisibility. While invisible, they regain some of their strength and receive a stacking bonus to stats, which they can unleash at the right moment by rushing your character down with a devastating “Murkstrike”.

An invisible Murkstalker can only be revealed by standing on an adjacent tile, so it might be a good idea to bring a net or some other means of Immobilization when facing them - those will prevent any attempts to retreat into the Murk.

[h3]Girrud[/h3]

“Girruds are too far gone in their disturbing metamorphosis, giving off the impression that their repugnant tongues have a mind of their own.”

This Proselyte’s main weapon is his incredibly long tongue, skillfully utilized through the following three active abilities: “Tongue Pull” allows him to drag the target a bit closer, “Tongue Push” creates a two tile distance, while “Tongue Leech” has a chance to Immobilize and Drain a large amount of Health.

[h3]Yagram[/h3]

“This bestial cultist's mind is clouded with unbridled rage - there is very little human left in it.”

Yagrams are an embodiment of rage and brute force, posing danger to allies and enemies alike. They are capable of multiple AoE attacks: “Swipe” lets them knock nearby targets into walls and other props, while “Earthshaking Strike” Stuns and Dazes anyone who happens to stand in front of a Yagram.

Additionally, every attack delivered to or by Yagrams fuels their hidden rage stat. Upon reaching a critical level, it activates the “Bestial Rage” passive that increases both their damage dealt and damage received. While in this state, Yagrams abandon all common sense, causing their attacks to frequently hit random targets instead of your character - with enough luck, this can be used to your advantage.

[h3]Saggul[/h3]

“Sagguls still bear the mark of the Crimson Plague, although for them it's a blessing rather than a curse.”

Sagguls are twisted, ugly mutants that act as ranged units for the Proselytes. In combat, they rely on “Blood Spit”, creating puddles of liquid that damage your character and heal other cultists. When forced into melee, they can still fight back with “Blister Burst”, dealing damage and creating blood puddles on every nearby tile.

=======================

And finally, minibosses:

[h3]Wormbearer[/h3]

“Wormbearers are the grotesque embodiment of the Court cults: the host suffers from its parasites, while the parasites suffer for their host.”

Clumsy and hard to kill, Wormbearers rely on giant worms that they can summon on any tile within Vision by spending a bit of Health. They are also willing to make use of any dead bodies lying nearby, destroying them with their “Wormfood” ability to summon a few worms on random adjacent tiles. The resulting number of worms depends on the size of the affected corpse.

A single worm isn’t all that dangerous, but a whole swarm of them can be rather difficult to deal with - their “Feed the Host” passive converts some of the damage dealt to the enemy into Health for the Wormbearer, allowing more and more worms to be summoned.

[h3]Anmarrak[/h3]

“The only thing keeping this vaguely human-shaped product of vile rituals alive is its blind faith in the Court.”

An Anmarrak is a miniboss with a unique style of combat. Upon spotting an enemy, it burrows its tentacle arm into the ground, receiving a massive boost to various resistances, while losing its ability to move around and attack directly. The tentacle arm then resurfaces near the enemy and begins striking them. Moving away from the tentacle or killing it forces the Anmarrak to reposition it or spawn a new one.

The key to defeating the seemingly invulnerable Anmarrak is to methodically slay its tentacles: thanks to its “One Body” passive, any damage received by these two entities is split between them, permanently increasing with every destroyed tentacle.

============================

That’s all for now. We hope you enjoyed reading about these upcoming additions to the game’s bestiary! Make sure to stay tuned: in the next few devlogs, we’ll tell you more about new Ability Trees and changes to the Magic System.

Until next time!

Hello everyone!

It’s been a while since our last devlog, so we’d like to share some details about what we’ve been working on.

In the previous entry we mentioned a plan to release an interim patch with the Mint Square’s missing interiors and NPCs. There’s been some adjustments since then: first of all, we decided to add new content not only to the Mint Square but also to the Docks.

Secondly, there were some tweaks to the timeline, so these additions will be a part of the next major update, which we haven’t yet chosen a name for. This update will also include some of the features that were originally planned for Rags to Riches and Wizard’s Fate. Here’s a list of things we’re working on right now:

- Next stage of the main quest - it will wrap up the introduction sequence and will prepare players for the sandbox part of the game. After that, the main story will be put on hold until we finish implementing all the remaining mechanics and content.

- New magic school, Electromancy, that has potential to deal high damage while offering some decent crowd control.

- New utility tree, Magic Mastery - a worthwhile addition to any magic-focused build.





- Fatigue System and supplementary magic mechanics that will require mages to be more thoughtful about positioning and the way they spend their resources (including financial ones).

- Second tier of Proselytes: ten new dangerous enemies that come with roughly 20 new active and passive abilities.



- Several carefully designed Points of Interest, each of them boasting its own backstory.







- Caravan stop, which will provide you with a place to save your progress and store your items. As for global map traveling, we plan to add this functionality in one of the subsequent major updates.



- Folios, a new type of valuable loot that will give you an opportunity to learn more about the game’s world as well as gain some experience points.



- New content for the Mint Square (the Cathedral, the University, a bank, a printing house, the Golden Grain Inn, Azure Thread Tradehouse) and the Docks (the Alchemical Emporium of Curious Goods, a dockside store, the Close Harbor Tavern, and a bathhouse) that we already mentioned.





- Something cool and unexpected that will be revealed alongside the announcement of the update’s release date.

The ongoing war still causes certain financial and organizational issues, so we can’t guarantee that everything mentioned in this devlog will be a part of the next major update, but we’ll do our best to make it happen nonetheless. We’ll tell you more details about the new additions in future devlogs, so stay tuned and follow the news!

The update’s release date will be revealed in a separate announcement once we complete the bulk of the work on new content. And after the update is out, we’ll also revise our Development Roadmap and publish an up-to-date version.

That’s all for now. Until next time!

Hello everyone!

Today we’d like to tell you about the circumstances affecting our studio and the future development of Stoneshard. It’s been almost a month since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, and it had a rather negative impact on the lives of our team. Let’s start with the most important part.

A significant portion of our team (our game designer, one of the coders, the promo artist) are Ukrainian citizens. The war caught everyone off guard: while some managed to quickly leave the war zone, others got stuck or simply didn’t want to abandon their homes. Right now these team members are in relative safety, but there are still issues with accessing the Internet and setting up a proper work space. There also wasn’t enough time to backup everything, so we lost some assets, although it shouldn’t set the development back too much.

Other than that, there are financial problems: as many of you already know, Steam no longer makes transactions with Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarus banks. Naturally, it affected our team as well, preventing us from receiving income from Steam. At the moment, we still have enough resources, but if we don't find a solution to this issue, we won’t have enough money to continue outsourcing the specialists who’ve been helping us with the game - this might noticeably slow down the rate of updates, even if temporarily.

As for the Russian members of our team, most of them are currently busy with moving to other countries, which will require some time. However, the overall situation is more or less stable, and we most definitely won’t stop working on the game. For now everyone contributes as much as the circumstances allow, but once the most pressing issues are resolved, we’ll continue developing Stoneshard’s at the usual pace.

Now let’s talk about more distant plans. Before the war, we already began working on an interim content update that was supposed to add interiors to key buildings on the Mint Square in Brynn. After that, we wanted to implement some of the long-planned city quests, and then - to start working on the next major update, “Rags to riches”, which was meant to introduce random encounters, a functioning Caravan, tweaks to contracts and the economy, and more.


The Mint Square interim update is already partially complete, so it will be released relatively soon. The rest of the original plan will have to be readjusted - we’ll make sure to share the details and post an updated roadmap once everything is said and done. All we can say for now is that some features will likely be added in a different order and that major updates might end up divided into smaller ones.

And finally, some teasers:









In conclusion, we’d like to say that your support and sympathy are extremely important to us right now. We love and appreciate our community, and we hope that this sentiment is mutual. Stay safe!

Hello everyone!

We’re sorry to announce that due to Russia’s attack on Ukraine we won’t be able to stick to the intended release schedule. Some of the key members of our team are Ukrainian citizens and are either already caught in the war zone or might soon find themselves there. Hopefully, the war will not last long, and we’ll be able to proceed with developing the game as planned.

Thank you for understanding.

[h2]CHANGELOG[/h2]

- Added special map icons to locations with save points.
- Added sleeping spots to Distant Homestead and certain other Points of Interest.



- Tweaked and updated every unique Point of Interest. All doors in these locations can now be interacted with. Some changes won't take effect until you start a new game.



- Fixed the softlock affecting some dialogues.
- Fixed NPCs endlessly giving out items.
- Added unique rumors to most Brynn NPCs.
- Increased dungeon doors’ durability.
- Increased snakes’ spawn rate in some locations.
- Fixed some Achievements not working as intended (for instance, the unique items your character starts with and the items from the Supporter Pack no longer count towards “That belongs in a museum”).
- Fixed “Wetness” not working as intended when the character enters deep water.
- Fixed scouted locations missing their global map descriptions.
- The horse at the brewery no longer respawns after death.
- Corpses that can’t be harvested by “Skinning” are no longer highlighted by it.