Stoneshard

One of the best RPG games I've ever played.

And it's important to note that it doesn't have to be roguelike, there's an option to save and go back to the last save, only it only saves when you're old (and also when you exit the game but it's not something you can claim to play again).

Although the game is currently in an early approach, there is still a lot to do and explore.
With loads of special abilities for each weapon type, and playstyle.

So good! The latest patch has truly made that game so much fun!

This game can be very unforgiving at times. However, I feel that it occupies a perfect spot in-between classic and modern RPGs. Difficult, with a focus on trial-and-error + hints embedded in lore. But also flushed out, with good visuals and mechanics.

I waited for over a year for the Rags to Riches update to come out, and so far it's been amazing. It fixes a lot of my complaints with the game, and I would wholeheartedly recommend this game now.

I must say that most negative reviews does the game injustice. Most of what I see are people complaining about the lack of content and updates, but I'd like to think otherwise. Sure, the game is taking forever to leave early access, which in my opinion is understandable as it takes a lot for a small team to develop a game they are passionate in while living in a country currently at war.

I for one think that there is a lot of replay value despite the game's slow updates. I've put in 200 hours into the game and still can't beat a single Permadeath run. I understand that the game may seem too difficult at times, but it's meant to be difficult, but fair. It will be frustrating for a couple of tries but once you get over it and learn, It becomes satisfying and fun. Give it a chance.

Also I would like to remind you that the game is not dead. It's slow but definitely not dead. The devs are responsive on their social platforms and will address your concerns, if you have any. They also release devblogs from time to time just to let you know what they're currently working on, And please read the damn roadmap.

Need more positive reviews to offset the idiots who can't be bothered to look up the dev roadmap or understand that living in a country AT WAR is maybe not the most conducive atmosphere for working on a passion project with very few people. The game has great potential and is NOT abandoned. If you can't show a little understanding and patience, YOU SHOULDN'T BE BUYING INTO EARLY ACCESS IN THE FIRST PLACE. Morons.

Just posting a review to counteract people who can't read posting reviews confidently stating that the game is abandoned.

No, the game is not abandoned. Yes, the last update was over a year ago, but we've gotten a devlog every other month stating what's being worked on. The devs are a small team from Ukraine. Developing anything, but particularly something this ambitious, takes tremendous time and monumental effort, and they're doing it during wartime.

If I were more conspiracy-minded, I'd think that all the negative reviews saying nothing is happening are from Russian bots/trolls trying to show patriotism by hurting a Ukrainian project, but I know better: it's because a lot of gamers are stupid and entitled.

Looking forward to tomorrow, much love for the devs.

A mix of so many things I like in games:

1. Tough but fair
2. Strategy
3. RPG
4. Survival
5. Roguelite

Totally recommend it. Active discord community and active developers who interact with the community.

If you like spreadsheets, theorycrafting, being punished for mistakes, and overall difficult but rewarding gameplay, this game is for you. Highly recommend.

This game has certainly had its ups and downs during the development cycle. I'd love to say great things about the experience, but I don't feel like the game is where it needs to be as of yet. I absolutely loved earlier iterations of the game, previous builds, but the current iteration just ain't it. Here's hoping the team can pull it all together and fix the issues on full release. Presently however, I can't recommend the game as it is.

Don't recommend at this time. I love the idea of this game and it being difficult. But this isn't difficult in the sense that good strategy or careful planning helps. It's just difficult in the sense you have no tactical capability as you show up and everyone aggros you and chases you down... It's difficult just to be difficult basically. There's no real pulling one guy, especially in a dungeon, or using stealth, or using partial cover. It's just everyone aggros on you and you get overwhelmed with numbers.
I will continue to play for now, but it's not looking like a keeper atm.
Update: 12 hours in, still feel the same.

I put a lot of time into this game and i like it hard but this is just unreasonable, super rng and even medium difficulty dungeons can kill you easy.
My last save was a Tank with heavy armor shield and block dodge build.
I even did the dungeons for the 2 starting towns around 3 times, all of them i was way over leveled and still got fucked up by single mobs,
What is the point of making a game this punishing.
I play all the games on very hard, but here its not about skill or build or equip or what ever its just evil.
The game hates you. and i start to hate it too.

I wish I could recommend this game. There are some good ideas here. But they don't put in the smallest amount of effort with only excuses to show and it hasn't got better for awhile. Put a few hundred hours in and then gave it some time in the oven. I could see potential. But it has been a long time and they haven't changed some very basic things.

-This game needs a zoom out zoom in function minimum and I can't believe you guys still haven't done that one basic thing.

-If you want a save system like this, that is only save on rest your game needs to be better. Things need to be dialed in and balanced better. And don't charge for it or have a alternative at the start that we can use.

-It now has super lag in the starting town.

If you want a super punishing game cool. I personally like Underrail on dominating but things need to work. After putting some hours into this game I want a appropriate challenge for level one and not to get one hit in some of the later dungeons which I don't know if you changed yet but was pretty lame when I put a lot of time into this game years ago.

I would wait for them to put work into it before buying. I appreciate the small amount you guys added but it is not enough and I wont put a ton of time into a unfairly punishing game without the basics even added years later.

This is a fantastic, slow and strategic, dark and gritty RPG. Had a blast playing it when it came out, now I'm excited for the Rags to Riches expansion. Seems like the devs did a really good job with it!

Build diversity, challeging combat, amazing soundtrack, astonishing pixelart, immersive worldbuilding. That's what you'll find in Stoneshard.

Можно ли за 7-8 лет сделать полноценную игру? Конечно... нет. Можно реализовать хорошую идею и пообещать что она будет только развиваться и наполняться всё более и более хорошими идеями. Ежемесячно выкладывая девлоги с подобными обещаниями а по итогу даже РЕДАКТОР ПЕРСОНАЖА В ИГРЕ ВСЁ ЕЩЁ ОТСУТСТВУЕТ. Вроде бы не сложно реализовать что-то простенькое но БАЗОВОЕ. Вроде бы много игроков просит поднажать именно на редактор персонажа и на алхимию + навыки которые УЖЕ есть в игре но просто плохо проработаны... Нет самое время заняться КАРАВАНОМ! Даааа все так ждали именно это... И не забывайте про тонны реворков. Добавить что-то новое? Нееет РЕВОРК СТАРОГО а потом? Ещё один реворк(я серьёзно посмотрите девлоги там чуть ли не каждый пост реворк). Такое ощущение что разработчики сами не знают чего хотят... А если кто-то недоволен то его можно спокойно забанить в сообществе удалив при этом все комментарии которые не нарушали правил сообщества. А в причине бана указать цитирую(не дословно) "Ты меня утомил". И сделать вид что ничего не происходит и всё под контролем.

НО ВСЁ ПОМЕНЯЛОСЬ БРАТЬЯ! Политика стима по отношению к раннему доступу скоро изменится. Когда выйдет обновление "политики раннего доступа" у наших прекраснейших ревокрводчиков будет 3 месяца на доделывание игры либо... придётся возвращать деньги всем купившим и возможно принудительно. Я не люблю хвастаться особо но я говорил о том что это рано или поздно случится. Ранее были всего лишь "рекомендации" выпускать игры побыстрее а теперь это будет обязательным условием.

Кстати из за бана в сообществе кринжшарда я даже не могу в комментах к своему собственному обзору что-то писать лол

И челик на "девелопере" у которого в своей собственной игре наиграно даже меньше чем у меня - пишет что УЛУЧШАЮТ игру ахахахаха. 9й год УЛУЧШАЮТ вы поняли?

Unfinished and very little progress. I had high hopes for this game but it doesn't appear to be going anywhere. The graphics are well done for a roguelike but the mechanics just seem to be in a constant state of alpha. You STILL can't create your own custom character? I'm not even sure how you release and RPG without that most basic mechanic implemented. I kind of wish they've just merge this game with something that has better mechanics but worse graphics like "The doors of Trithius" which has much better gameplay, but terrible graphics. This games graphics with that games mechanics would be great.

Game is too punishing on permadeath. I've done several runs as pyromancer or shield start with swords, and theres simply no counterplay. You automatically die at the second dungeon and there is nothing you can do about it. Its a joke. Fix this shit. Game is going nowhere when theres no point to play because you can't even progress through the game.

Yes i googled guides for everything, yes I went fully stocked on food and bandages etc, yes I even refered to cheesing by resting outside of dungeons and running across maps to rest. It doesen't matter. The early game is too punishing and its not fun. I haven't gotten a single character beyond level 3 after all this time.

Fix it.

This is one of THE best gaming experience I've ever had, and almost a comfort game now.

It is challenging and unforgiving, and there's a lot to learn, but it is a 2nd to none turned based- open world experience.

Each NPCs has their own personalities and stories, and lots of places to explore. There's many different ways to build your character, but most importantly I really do think the game is for people that's looking for an actual challenge, catered towards people who like games such as fear & hunger, darkest dungeon, etc.

Despite the difficulties through Covid the devs kept up the work and has kept releasing devlogs on their efforts on updates,
and is looking to release a MASSIVE update on Dec. 16th 2024 which I'm personally super looking forward to. Not to mention they also released a few major updates since while preparing for the massive update.

I personally recommend people ignoring reviews below 10h and any reviews addressing slow updates, because personally I don't believe these people have been keeping track of devlogs releases.

Again, the game not for casual audience and is very difficult, but to those looking for a challenge there's no game better. It does require you to read to understand the lore and directions, but there's plenty of community guides as well.

Try it out and judge the game for yourself, and see if it's to your taste.

it has great potentials but it's current state is very incomplete, missing 50% of skills including alchemy blacksmith and varieties of magics ; missing 80% of the world and quests; missing battle varieties other than the dungeon and bandit camp in the game, eg: base build-defense, arena. large battlefield.

Beautiful graphics + awesome gameplay

Haven't played much of this game yet, but so far I really like it. I'm a sucker for pixel art, and love the skill system. Planning on playing a lot more on full release, when there will hopefully be character creation.

I hate to say it, but this game will never be complete. I have owned it for four years and very little has changed during that time span.

You play this game with the character health sheet open on the left, and your inventory on the right. This consumes roughly half my screen, so I'm left with a sliver of screen of the combat, essentially impeding my vision as a player (but not the enemies.)

If you don't at least open your character health sheet, you won't even notice when you start bleeding. And bleeding is more or less instant death. In order to stop the bleeding you need to use a bandage or a rag. This uses one action. In which the enemy can attack you and will. So stop the bleeding, but take 10 hp damage. Got a potion to heal 20hp? Well it's actually only 5hp, since you just took 15hp damage from the enemies next turn. Killed the enemy? Well you're dead, since you started bleeding again and are now confused and can't move your character...because you are sad. What? I just fucking fought five bandits...the character constantly goes on about how they are a great passionate merc...I should be enthralled. Either that or this is the most depressed merc I have ever witnessed.

Since I have died quite a lot I can say, there is no real strategy to combat, besides always try to make sure enemies can only attack you from one square, i.e. standing in a 1x1 corridor and letting them form a congo line. Trying to fight more than one enemy is instant death.

I first thought it was a fun idea to have to juggle intoxication, kind of like how Witcher 3 does it. But it quickly just becomes too much and I ended up burning through all my money to buy health items - which couldn't fit into my inventory, BECAUSE BEDROLLS ARE ENOURMOUS.

Bedrolls and the saving system is the biggest and in my opinion the reason this team will never become millionaires.

Look I get dying a lot, I like the nerve wracking concept of having to potentially go back and redo a level. But let me load back into the moment I entered or exited a level - like in Elder Scrolls or nearly any other game. The entire saving system is pretentious. In every rouge like you save at least some progress, be it in experience points, gear, skills or story-bits, really anything to make a loss not feel a total waste of my time.

Case and point: I cleared the mill. Finally on the fourth try. The last three times the games randomized combat system made me bleed out on the first two enemies, with no chance of my two dozen health items to make any difference. I couldn't heal myself without getting hit or not having enough hp left to handle both taking damage by attack and bleeding. (Yes, I moved around the mill, trying to kite individual enemies as if it WoW in 2008.) Then I loot the two items in the entire mill and corpses...apparently bandits live off of air and hatred? You can't loot fallen enemies and only every 6th will drop 2-10 crowns at most. Given a bedroll costs around 90, that just leaves a bitter taste. So I burned through all my health items, am apparently really really sad, even though I just did my job successfully and head home. Which thanks to everything being turned based is just tedious. I can't save at the mill nor anywhere in between...I used my bedroll in front of the mill, so that I can reload after each time the combat system randomly decided my life should end. So I click my way through eight or so micro environments and at the 9th I am greeted by newly spawned wolves. I have leather armor, a metal shield and a sword - but apparently the wolves teeth are made of adamantium. They do 18hp damage per hit and cause bleed on 90% of their hits. I die about 10 feet from the village.

This game has incredibly beautiful and consistent art design. I love the general concept of the world and DnD-esque RPG elements. It's what I have been looking for in a game for a long time...but the combat is arbitrary and without the game saving on entering levels this game will stay what it is: a pretentious neck-beard jerk off fest.

Uggh duwh I'm so edgy i can take pain, u jus a widle baby, if it wasn hrdcore I wouldnt play it, ugh u just need to invest hundrd more hours, I'm so much bedder dan u...

ffs make the game accessible.

While the updates are very slow, the game is one of the best of it's kind you can find right now on the market. There are a lot of missing features but the devs are active enough on their discord. It is always a pleasure to come back after a while for some permadeath runs.
Tho I would love controller support

I have played difficult games before such as underrail, outward, quasimorph, etc. and found them challenging but at the same time exciting. The combat in stoneshard is fun, but I will say that the save mechanic is frustating. I know you can buy tent for save, but after a few times of travelling far just to die at the entrace of dungeon or in the middle of it because of bullshit reason or getting one hit, I felt frustated enough to not continue the game.

At the very least if we're comparing to outward where it has the same bullshit amount of travelling on foot and no save system, you can choose and acknowledge when the enemy is far too greater than your own capability and went off anywhere else to do something else and get a better gear, consumables & equipment to deal with the hard enemy. I felt that the after the starting quest in stoneshard, the difficulty spikes just becomes frustatingly annoying. I wanted to like this game, but I truly do hate the traveling system in this games and hope the dev carriage update can fix it.

This game has unlimited potential, it’s easy to get lost in it for hours. Content is limited however I think it’s worth the wait as real life problems have limited the development team.

This game is as beautiful as it is hard. But also, easier than other rouge likes that I have played before. Just waiting for the final release to play an endless run with hopefully the same character that would end up looking like Guts from "Berserker".

el juego es bueno, pero que pasa que aun sigue en beta ???

Writing this review solely based on the community. The game is not bad.

However, many times you try to have a conversation with anyone about anything in this game, prepare to be attacked and lied to for hours and the moderators picking and choosing who they want to silence based on who they are friends with and not based on who is being antagonizing.

This game has by far the worst community I have ever encountered in any game anywhere excepting for a very specific few individuals. As dealing with the community is part of the game, this game gets a negative review and a do not recommend, unless you play by yourself and never engage with any community members on steam discussions, reddit, or discord.

If your crack is growing your character from weak to powerful, looting and getting rich, AND INVENTORY TETRIS! this is one of the rpg games of the time

Love what I've seen so far- beautiful pixel goodness. The animations are great, it all is great.. I think to myself, ahh, if only you could also have a home or build a camp..... enter the latest update news! :D Let'ssss gooooooo

I'm going to say this is recommended, but with one big negative for me personally.
This is a really interesting world with a cool art style and fun, challenging combat. The issue for me is not with the difficulty, but the sheer amount of time it generally takes to get back to where you were after you've died.
I'm all for challenging combat/mechanics, but I have to be honest and say that I'm frequently dying less from combat, and more from the sheer boredom of having to slowly, slowly walk miles and miles back to where I was each time I get killed.
When it's engaging this game is fantastic. When you're retreading the same miles of terrain at an absolute snail's pace it borders on tedious.

I am a big fan of this game. I have had several playthroughs, returning after each big update and trying something new. What makes it stand out for me is the balance, and the simplistic style, both of which would be easy to get wrong. The game forces you to play in a careful manner against new enemies, but allows you to get meaningfully stronger in a variety of ways. Each of the mechanics in the game is familiar, but just works nicely and scratches the RPG itch. Admittedly, both of these things would not be to everyone's taste, but I really hope the game does well as I think the developers have done a great job.

If Darkest Dungeon was a top down, open world RPG, this would be it..

Im no where near done with it at 70 hours in.

Its been surprisingly good so far :| GG.

So basically I bought the game I like the design but the game is insanely difficult for anyone to really play at the start. You dont start doing ok till you around lvl 6, thats ok not well. Plus I never reached lvl 6 Im still lvl 3, on adventure mode, did i tell you thats easy mode btw. What makes it easy you say? You can save and load your character from the inn if he dies, thats it. Every thing else is the same other then him dying permanently on iron man mode. The economy is really brutal. when ever I kill some bandits the payout is terrible for there weapons but if you collect just enough you can pay for bread and water and bed for the night, and nothing else. The difficulty curve is insane once you get to the second contract in Mannshire there's, mage bandits and man catchers good luck with that. I've died multiple times to them. Never beat them once. I like the concept of your not the Dragonborn from Skyrim or some legendary chosen one just a human with a sword, a simple mercenary. The difficult is just ridiculous. Quasimorph is more forgiving than this. There needs to be a way to reliably grind lvls, coin or something without cheesing every fight by map mechanics. I don't think its a good game if I have to cheese just to survive. I wish there was some sort of reliably. The game needs re-balance at the start when it comes to enemies. Some I know I can avoid, but some I legit cant and die regardless. If your a spear user like me good luck. Due to mages and mancatchers the game hates you.

I decided to play this 'fun' game and thought: 'I'm going to have a blast, beautiful art, interesting format, engaging mechanics. Super, I'm about to relax.' How wrong I was...

The first thing that grabs your attention is the sheer amount of everything trying to kill you. Each creature in this world seems purposefully designed to turn your heroic fantasies into a bloody mess. And the bosses? These guys clearly forgot they're supposed to be at least a little bit fair. Picture this: you're standing face-to-face with some monster the size of a house, and it's looking at you, thinking: 'Mmm, yummy breakfast!'

And food? You think you've found something to eat and can now calmly slay enemies? Ha-ha, not so fast! The food only lasts until the next turn, then it vanishes like morning fog. And fatigue? Oh, that's a different tune altogether! It feels like even after a brief march, your character is ready to collapse from exhaustion.

And, of course, we can't overlook mental health. After several failures, it begins to seem like your hero will soon lose his mind. Maybe he should enroll in yoga or meditation classes? Though, honestly, there’s probably no place for serenity in such a bleak world.

But you know what? When you finally manage to defeat another monster, you almost feel like a winner. Almost. Because ahead of you lie even more challenges and trials. So, if you want to test your stamina and readiness for self-mockery, Stoneshard is your top pick. Just don’t forget to pack plenty of food and perhaps a couple of tranquilizers.

This is the reason why I stopped buying Early Access games. The danger of slow updates and games taking waaaay to long to develop is real. Unfortunately this is one of them. Great promise for a game but buy at your own risk

Can't say much, since it's early access.
Combat is cool. It has a very big map full of life and things. Plenty of weapons, abilities and things to create.
So far I disliked the controls, such as input lag and weird mouse tile selection.

Sadness anger funny happier you get so many emotions playing this game. It is an enjoyable game for those who love RPG rogue life but if you not it a nightmare

5000 years for a major update...

game shows great potential yet the very few content drops and lack of transparency really make it painful

Game mechanics are WAY to stacked against the player and need re-balancing for it to be more fair

Still no character creation as of now

in its current state not worth the 25 dollars, I hope the devs will learn

The devs loaded the prologue with everything the game has to offer to rope people in. Admittedly, the prologue was actually quite good, but it seems nothing meaningful has changed since this first came to Steam and you still can't even create a custom character for the actual game. If you've played the prologue, there's not really much more worth doing, so if you're interested in this, try to get through the prologue in under 2 hours so you can still get a refund.

The main game is a real slog and not worth attempting to engage with. Outside of the short, highly curated environment of the prologue, the health system is utterly obnoxious and forces you to fill your inventory with injury treatment items or else suffer being effectively a dead man walking after after a few combat encounters. Imagine Escape From Tarkov's bodypart health system but with a normal HP bar tacked on. It's very poorly thought out, because the HP bar doesn't seem to serve any purpose except to limit the time you can spend in combat. Bodypart HP is what is actually keeping you alive long term, but can only be healed with items. Unlike Tarkov though, healing items aren't exactly cheap nor space efficient and you're subjected to full RNG with regards to getting more while in the field. There are no dedicated loot containers for these items like in Tarkov, and enemies almost never drop them, unlike Tarkov's scavs. So once you exhaust the injury treatment supplies you brought with you from town (you will), you are going to be constantly debuffed until you return to town to get more. Not very immersive, nor does it follow the spirit of a proper roguelike like this game tries to be. Debuffs include the expected stat reductions making your character perform worse, but also includes lowering your max HP, so you can spend even less time in combat.

Enemies are theoretically also subjected to the garbage health mechanics, but because they only stick around long enough to put injuries on you before dying, with no practical way for you to target specific bodyparts on them, it really only effects you. Once you're injured enough and out of injury treatment items, you're then put into a death spiral due to another hidden HP bar called Pain. Unable to cure your injuries, your pain HP will continue to lower and you'll stay permanently in pain, which means constantly getting hit with debuffs like confusion (can't control your character properly) or being unable to move so you might as well have died the moment you ran out of healing salves. Not a well designed system and it's been this way since I first played the game 4 years ago, so it's clearly here to stay.

The sheer granularity of the health system in this game is horrendous and it's just not fun at all. You have hunger, thirst, mana, HP, bodypart HP, pain, toxicity, etc. of constant metre juggling you have to perform. Do you need to quickly restore HP? You would think to eat herbs or drink a potion, but these will hit your thirst and toxicity metres, so you'll then need more items to counteract what were supposed to be solutions to your problems. With most of your inventory space needing to be committed to injury treatment items in the first place, your backpack ends up completely full and looking like you dumped the entire pharmacy and grocery store in it, with no room for actual loot.

TL;DR: This game is extremely tedious and not worth your money let alone your time.

i swear anytime a dev makes a game in this genre they dont get how to make RNG not suck. bows are so innacurate you will miss every god damn shot save for maybe one if the planets are aligned on a tusday at 5 o clock. the rate at which you take damage vs defeating a foe makes this game feel like it was supposed to be a party based rpg not alone because every fight leaves you realing with such minimal and uneffective healing its just not fun. id skip over this its just a joke as it stands

The game is hard and challenging, even in the end game when your level maxed and fully armed, you still susceptible to death by any means. Plus the amount of variety on the armors and weapons you can use is a good way to redo many other runs and try to build your own perfect mercenary for replaybility.

The "game" was alright, but I feel a little cheated since I've still not gotten to play the finished product. Everytime a large patch comes, you have to start over again.

It's been 5 years soon since the Prologue.

My hours played should tell you how much I like Stoneshard and it just so happens to be my most played steam game.
10/10

Rogue like (including permadeath mode) - check
Very challenging (but in a good way) - check
All builds are viable but not overpowered - check
You can come up with your own builds that are viable and fun - check
Adventure in a fantasy setting - check
Great discord community - check

For me its the dungeons and dragons type of game I can play solo.

Thank you for this great game.

Absolute gem of a game. It's not the fastest at releasing content, but when it does come, it's quality stuff. From the graphics to gameplay, this is one of those games that's really satisfying to play - from going in blind and stumbling around, to having a good idea of the world and mechanics... and still able to find something new. You can tell, by the direction they are going, that it's going to be amazing when it's a complete product, and I've enjoyed the journey immensely thus far.

dang character creator must be a really hard thing to add into the game nice big update though

Brilliant game, it does not deserve the mixed review, a massive update is dropping soon, the Devs are still active and it continues to get support, one of a kind game.

Hearts out to the devs who are scattered due to world events. This game is far from abandoned. This game is incredible already and well worth picking up as is but has astounding potential once completed.

Don't be fooled by the relatively short main story right now. The depth of the game is in the systems many of which aren't explained but instead left up to the player to discover. This is a game about adventure. Of preparation and execution. Of costly mistakes. Of nail biting moments of triumph. You are not a chosen one protagonist but that doesn't mean you can't become a hero. Overextending yourself is ill-advised but occasionally those gambles pay off on big ways unlocking hidden buffs and leading to some very hard earned triumph.

Cheers ISG.

Cannot recommend this game enough! Super immersive with satisfying skills and combat, some of the most beautiful game art as well. I rarely dump this many hours into early access games. The devs are working their asses off to get the game out, and I'm stoked for the full release. Definitely give the game a shot!