Stoneshard

almost 100 hrs in and the game honestly reminds me of battle brothers.: hard, open world and many mysteries awaits for exploration on the map. However, I would not recommend this game until the developers finish it and fix all the bugs. Just over the past month I have experienced several game-play changes due to their hot fixes. There are also several game breaking bugs that prevent you from save and exit, forcing you to reload from the previous save (if you happens to clear a difficult dungeon and heading back for reward. Congrats! you get to redo it all over again! 2hrs gone for no reason!) There is also no way to reset your character so if you later regret to put a skill point into certain skill tree, brother, good luck and 20hrs gone! The game is released in 2020, while I just start to play it last month, I still believe it is absurd to have a game in early access for almost 5 years. Given the price, I do not think it is acceptable for developers to not finish the game and keep updating the game, essentially forcing players to start a new save to experience new game features. So, if you are thinking of buying the game, I recommend you wishlist the game first and buy it when it is completed.

I don't recommend buying this game in it's current state, 85% of the gameplay is just walking and doing nothing or preparing consumables for a dungeon run which take around 50% of your inventory space, so you can only get out of it the best valuables (value per inventory square), it's not the only thing dropping there, but unidentified gear is pretty much always tier lower than the items merchants can sell you... and broken (which also lowers it's value, so no point in gambling since you don't know the value before identification). I'd understand it if you had to spend couple of game days in dungeons to finish them, rather than make a clear approximately in 15% of the time you spend on the travel to get there and back.

So when the first really great experience with this game fades away, you're left only with quite a boring chore rather than fun, the game have a lot of great mechanics but current implementation of gameplay just isn't fun to mess with.

It is shaping up to be a great game, but until they include a manual save system and a way to respec it wont get a recomend from me.

God damn, the amount of time i have wasted by dying in this game.

Mixed review. 99% of the game feels great. I love the combat, skills, art and gameplay. Everything genuinely feels amazing.

However, the reason the 1% is leaving it mixed is because today I genuinely had so much frustration playing the game that I had a moment to reflect and say "I don't like what this is making me." I was frustrated and saying things I would never normally say and that is not okay for a video game to bring that reaction, and that is tied directly to the lack of save feature. I wasted 4 hours trying to do a quest. I ended up completing it on the 20 somethingth attempt only to realize I failed the time sensitive portion which failed the quest. I tried to reload the last save and realize when I rested after the attempt, it deleted my most recent save. Because of this if I wanted to start again, I would have to reload my save from 10 hours ago, a net loss of ~3 hours of progress. I've beaten all the souls games (Demons souls fav), so I'm not adverse to difficult content - I do enjoy it. However, I hate hardcore. I hate it so much. I'm in my 30s, I dont want to waste time. Some days I have several hours to play, other days I have 0 minutes. (time played is leaving the game running. I think in total I have ~12 hours played). I would like an autosave every X minutes as an opt in feature. I fully understand the game itself is best played as is so an opt in feature calling it "easy mode" or "carebear mode" would be perfectly fine, I just want to save time as an adult with an unpredictable schedule.

The next thing is a way to respec. Notably, early game (as I'm early) I want to be able to try different skills and weapons but I can't. I put some points in skills that I've learned now from playing are simply not that helpful, while other skills I thought were mediocre I really wish I had. The only way to do this currently is a save editor from a website which seems incredibly sketchy, though I'm sure all is well as people recommend it constantly. However, as a player, I should not need to resort to shady third party downloads to do something in your game that should be available via in game means. I'm not asking for a full respec, but just something to help try out different skills early on. Make it expensive and scale with your level. Just do something to allow new or inexperienced players to try out different skills when starting out. As a side mention, this could be another opt in feature. Maybe add a checkbox in gameplay to enable a vendor to do this and add a warning when enabling that says "Stone Shard was developed with the intention of trying multiple characters to experience different styles of gameplay. We added this feature by player request though for the most authentic Stone Shard experience, it is disabled by default." Something of that nature, I'm sure you can write a better message.

Great game aside from these two points. Pretty fun.

It's a nice game.

There's a group that says it's too hard, there's a group that says it's not hard enough.

The setting, background, graphics are really nice and enjoyable. The towns and cities feel lived in, with their own unique delights and flavours if you care to look.

There is a fairly steep learning curve at times, the game is quite ruthless when it wants to be.

I just got sick of having to eat all the time, being wet from the rain and being poor. A true medieval Europa simulator.

Amazing complex game but far from casual. I love the fact that saving the game is not easily abused

It's hard but it's supposed to be. Satisfying once you reach a certain point with your character. Ranger is fun since you can kite hard enemies but still very scary if you make one slip up. Have sunk many hours in so far and do see some repetition but very few bugs and excited to see how this develops.

I've played about 20 hours of Stoneshard prior to the new patch being released, and i thoroughly enjoyed the game because i found it to be a fairly good balance between challenging combat and prudent tactics. That premise has entirely gone out the window as of the recent rags to riches patch.

I say this, because it seems very clear to me that the developers rather than keeping the game challenging, have opted to increase the difficulty to the point where it is nothing short of sadistic. I chose the mage for my first rags to riches run, and it became abundantly clear to me right from the offset, that the character has lost probably 30% of its overall power, to the point where now no matter how tactically i play in order to fight a mob or clear a dungeon, it is almost entirely by chance that i will win or complete my mission. For example, if i run into a mob of melee fighters that all have movement abilities that can close distance, it is almost inevitable that because i cannot burst damage these enemies down quickly enough, they will close the distance on me before i can kill them. In probably 2/3 of encounters with level 9-10 mobs with movement skills, i end up getting killed right at the end by the final enemy after they close on me and i can't escape. This is especially true of wolves that you can NEVER ESCAPE from as a low level mage. The same situation happens with the dungeons. What this means is that in order to complete some quests, i might need to attempt them 6 or more times before luck is finally on my side. This is UTTERLY INFURIATING, and not at all the game experience that i paid for. Add to this the fact that mage XP gain has been nerfed enormously, and you have a recipe for an extremely angering experience.

The developers need to buff character XP and power to restore the balance. Not by a huge margin, but by at least 10-15% to undo the BS that they have created with their unbalanced power changes. At this time, until they fix the balancing, this game is not recommended by me.

I would enjoy this game more if it did a better job at respecting my time. The terrible save system stops me from wanting to keep playing it.

This game wants to be a story driven, open world RPG. But it does everything in its power to prevent you from having that experience. I don’t enjoy having all game progress reverted back to a save from an hour or two ago because I died to RNG combat or I stepped on a trap and my only option was to bleed out. Then having to spend an hour or more getting back to the spot in the dungeon I died at, all while hoping I don’t get screwed by RNG and die again.

No, I don’t want to carry an item that takes up half of my inventory just to create a save spot outside of a dungeon to prevent this. That’s just a proper save system with more steps. I have no idea why this game is trying to prevent save scumming when there’s 0 mechanics that benefit from save scumming. It’s a story driven game where choices don’t matter. Why are we trying to be a 90s Roguelike?

If this game were setup like a souls game with constant save points around the map, then I would recommend it to anyone, because the combat and dungeon exploring are legitimately great.

Unfortunately, the amount of tedium you have to put up with is indefensible.

A Delightfully Brutal Adventure That’ll Make You Laugh (and Maybe Cry)

Stoneshard is like that friend who drags you on wild adventures—it's a bit brutal, occasionally confusing, and you'll probably end up with some funny stories to tell later. This roguelike throws you into a beautifully pixelated world where death is just a part of the game (and let’s be honest, it’ll happen a lot).

Every encounter feels like a dramatic soap opera—one moment you're confidently slaying monsters, and the next, you're getting crushed by a particularly grumpy squirrel. But hey, that's where the fun lies! You'll find yourself laughing at your own misfortune while crafting a character that’s as unique as your wildest dreams—or nightmares.

The turn-based combat is like a chess match with a bloodthirsty twist, and the customization options are so deep you might need a map to navigate them. You’ll forge unforgettable memories, like the time you accidentally set your own armor on fire (thanks, fireball spell).

So grab your favorite snack, prepare for some epic fails, and dive into Stoneshard. It's a game that promises laughter, a touch of chaos, and stories you'll recount to strangers on Twitch for years to come!

I don't current recommend yet. Tried the game and it was tough but in a fun way. I've been waiting to play again when you can create a new (non-pregen) character. Been waiting a few years now. I think this game will be worth the wait though.

Okay. I'm sorry. No. I'm so over this and fed up.

I've looked at the reviews during my own time of frustrations in this game and I have to agree, the entire experience is two middle fingers pointed at you.

Starting out is hard, the learning curve is very difficult, the only reason I'm even as far as I am now is from cheesing crossbow entering and exiting a dungeon because if I had honestly played the way that I was expected to I would have died far far FAAAR more often and it would have taken 30x longer to get to where I am.

Inventory management is terrible. Shops never sell anything worthwhile to upgrade to, even small upgrades. Everything is RNG.

I've been enjoying it. I have. And I'm still going to keep playing despite there being a LOT of things wrong with the game, but the nail in the coffin that forced my hand to write a negative review was finally clearing the northern catacombs for a quest, having prepped myself to bring in all the healing items and traps that I would need but not having all that much inventory space, I found a LOT of really good items down there but no room to bring them up. So I left to turn in the quest, sell what I had, and come back for what was probably going to be a good 2-3 loot runs. There was just that much good stuff in there.

I come back to the ruined chapel again, ready to go inside and grab the rest of it, and guess what?! THE DAMN STAIRS HAVE COLLAPSED IN AND YOU CAN'T GET BACK INSIDE.

Had it. Done. Over it. Dev, if you're reading this, you are not making the game fun whatsoever, you're making the game into a chore.

Beyond ridiculous. Honestly. AND FIX YOUR SAVE SYSTEM!

To the devs: You have brought every fun element of an RPG into a fun, engaging world. Give me a difficulty slider. Elder Scrolls before Souls, bros!

As information, I only play this game on Ironman (permadeath) mode.

I don't understand the negative reviews, the developers always release very polished updates in my opinion, and rags to riches is no different (although it does take awhile due to the small dev team). The content is extremely fun and engaging, and also... more to learn... meaning... taking risks and dying is going to happen a lot.

It's a brutal world, and you will die a lot (did I mention that?), the point is to learn from your mistakes. No range skills? It'll be tough... not impossible...but tough. Live long enough to underestimate a wandering rogue who landed seize the initiative and swapped you? Big mistake, that guy can take you down. Every encounter needs to be treated important, every turn matters so take it slow. Is it raining? Should I skip a day and go on my quest tomorrow? Or chance warming up by a fire losing your vigor & blessing?

There are plenty of guides to help learn early game and builds if you don't want to go in blind (although I found it really fun to learn).

Getting into the mid to late game on a permadeath run really gets your heart pumping, question engaging any battles or contracts for it could be your end. Just lost a level 14 Arna going into a crypt... not going to spoil... but... it took me unaware... but now I know better.... will prepare more and won't make that mistake again.

I've put a good number of hours in this game, and losing a really high level character stings, but the only way to learn is to take those risks and experiment with builds. It's been really fun and I look forward to future content of this one. Definitely one of my favorites of the genre.

The game is awesome. Loot feels good to get, each upgrade in gear you get feels good. The only issues is that builds aren't exactly viably varied at the moment, and the builds that are past beginner (meaning trying to do something other than just shoving points into your chosen weapon and armor trees), requires a much deeper understanding of the games mechanics and numbers that are not explaiend toyou.

For instance, you can inch one tile at a time in a dungeon until you see an enemy. Then you right click your character and SHOUT. You will attract that one enemy over, and then you hop one tile away at a time until you've lured them away from their buddies (unless they were within two to three tiles of an ally, then those guys will also investigate with them), then you fight them solo and pick them off one by one ifyou want.

Teh game doesn't explain to you any of that, that you can try to split up enemy groups, use traps to force smarter enemies to take a turn deactivating them or making them path around longer to avoid it so you can manuever better or attack their buddy better.

Gear isn't labeled as what Tier they are, so you could fuck up and buy a crappier weapon or a side grade because its numbers look better but you don't know what the numbers mean. Counter and Block on weapons aren't good (tho most come with this stat anyway, you'd focus on weapons that have the highest amounts of these stats if you're bulding for these stats), if you aren't building SPECIFICALLY for those combat mechanics.

More and more of things like this.

Here's a quick TLDR for new players.

THINGS THAT FUCK YOU UNTIL YOU'RE GEARED FROM BRYNN CITY GEAR:
Bear

Moose

Worgens (whatever those black lion/wolf things are)

Wolves (they're ALWAYS in packs and buff each other massively with howls)

Deathstinger Swarms (one is manageable depending on build early on. Two will kill you before Brynn City full gear unless you're full armor

IMPALER IN VAMPIRE/CULT DUNGEONS

BLEEDS IN GENERAL. CARRY BANDAGES. INSPECT ENEMIES AND SEE IF THEY HAVE BLEED.

It's already excellent. A very ambitious project, but you can tell that the devs have a great vision and a lot of heart is already put into it. It's more than playable, although it still lacks some content - but it's being very active in development, and excellently communicated. Last patch (Rags to Riches) was huge and made the game much more fleshed out and enjoyable. Can't wait to see more - thank you devs <3

TL:DR: Until this has either rock solid error free play and no chance of ruining your game for stupid things, I can't recommend this. Or if they allow the ability to save when you want. They can take that away later, but it has to be there when the game is in it's current state.

Until they put in more quality of life elements I can't recommend this game, it has a lot of good elements but it's waaaaay too easy to accidentally commit a crime and have your game messed up. When it's being designed as 'punishing' for making mistakes that is just annoying. Right click to inspect someone and misclick on the tiny menu, attack them and are now a criminal! Misclick and pick up the wrong thing by accident, criminal.

Also, they don't feed you or give you water in jail and since you can only pass the time by resting, it saves. So you could well end up in a perma death situation even if you aren't playing in permadeath.

Also I ran into another issue which was strange, I tried to click on my spell and moved instead. You could say just use the keys, which is true, that does work around the problem but it IS still a problem. Again this comes back to it only allowing saves at certain points. If they just allow saving whenever for the moment with a note that it will be changed on full release I would recommend this game. I died because I walked into my own fire in a fight. I should have won without issue but for some reason it made me walk up and left when I clicked on my spell at the bottom of the screen.

5 years of early access and a lack of actual progress.

I love the core of this game I realy do. But we are aproaching 5 years of early access and the only two updates that where worth while on my opinion are the City of Gold all the way back on november 2021, and the Rags to Riches on december 2024. One introduced a big city and a semblance of a main quest and the other the caravan system. On my opinion the deves waste way to much time on "balance" they fiddle with the abylities, passives etc way to much 90% of the patchs are on this category. Please focus on finishing the game, put new locations, implement the factions I´m curious about the Council and the Grey Army and how we are gonna play our part on the conflict if at all. Leve the balance and new skills for later.

I have been watching this game since its release and played through available content at three different times. I have waited to give any review as I'm wary of games in Early Access being abandoned or not going well. I can now confidently say that this game is making good steady progress and is very worth watching. It is brutal. It is not for everyone. However, I think the devs are working toward something that will be really good and pretty unique for a particular niche. I have personally really enjoyed the game in its current state, and I think each major update moves the game toward something that captures a dark fantasy both narratively and mechanically quite well.

Feedback for devs - The game could still use more quest variety, enemy types, and POIs. There are a few glitches with the caravan upgrades, like duplicating items if you have them stored in a bag. The junk trader is difficult to use effectively with such little gold. Being able to build a secondary, less temporary camp in addition to the caravan would be nice even if limited in function - a more semi permanent. not one off sleeping bag would be nice (perhaps with a cost to use or something). Alternatively, being able to take over one of the POIs after clearing it and upgrading it similarly to the caravan as a base with expanded options might suit different play styles. The voice acting was nice in the prologue and more of that would be very welcome. The cooking could be expanded... maybe other types of crafting as well. A few more streamlined tutorial style dialogue elements might help new players learn how to manage their mental stats, morale, and such. More types of map markers might be useful. Being able to open the bags while having both inventory and a store panel, etc. would be immensely useful.
Anyway, as a whole, I'm really enjoying where this game is going, and I'm very excited to see where it goes in the future.

So first things first- expect to die a lot. Expect to get frustrated as well. The game is unforgiving and ruthless in many ways: scarcity of resources, lack of proper balance between enemy power and player power (which may get tuned or is intentional, not sure) and a lot of distance to travel somewhat uneventfully. The combat, while satisfying when it goes well, can feel unfair when you get mobbed out of nowhere and destroyed. Overall with its hits and misses, I would say if your a fan of the genre give it a try, but enter with the proper expectations of it having souls like elements.

Game has some potential, but...

Sadly I do not think it will ever come to pass.

First things first: game is hard and doesn't have a lot of QoL, saves are VERY limited and you will loose a lot of progress. Especially as a newbie, frustration can get high. You need some masochism levels to enjoy this one.

Trailer kinda lies, there isn't a character creator for example so you do not have "total freedom" - you play as one of the few premade chartacters.

And the big elephant in the room. Developement is painfully slow. Probably at this point it is an after hours project / hobby project couse there is no way of explaining it otherwise. It has been 7 years and the game isn't even finished in 1/3. This one may or may not get to 1.0 in the next decade. Or two.

Developers of the game seem to have a lot of problems, a lot of exuses but little progres. At this point it can not be really recomended. Just wait for 1.0 maybe at some point.

This game's a masterpiece.
I was wary of charging into the unknown, and so i spent some time roaming the woods, close to town. I would collect herbs to sell, and wild lentils and leeks for my supper. i lived for about a week as a peasant. i was able to survive, and scrounge a few coins here and there. i hunted birds and hedgehogs for meat, and at one point I bagged a duck. ate well that night.

occasionally a bandit would emerge from the bushes, but a crossbow bolt to the gut and a 2 handed hammer blow to the head would show him the error of his ways. briefly, before he died.

finally i was ready. or so i thought. took out a contract with the shady mayor, to find out what causes the blue glow to emanate from the graveyard... i woke before dawn and set out. it was pouring rain, an inauspicious beginning, but i managed to seek shelter in the old crypt. i have never spoken of what came next to a living soul, but i emerged from the crypt with 0% morale and 0% sanity, in severe pain shock. clothes tattered. barely made it back to town alive.

with the reward money, i paid the herbalist to teach me how to harvest hemp and roll joints. spent the next week relaxing, thoughtfully smoking pot as my morale and sanity slowly edged back up.

learned my lessons, though. geared up. saved my coins. ran from some fights, won some others. at one point spent a day in jail for stealing eggs. my small debt to society paid, i emerged into the daylight, vowing to never again fail to eat the evidence.

what is next in store for ya boy? i have no idea, but i plan on surviving it. i traded my rags for a suit of mail, my hammer is ready, crossbow is loaded. RICHES AWAIT!!!

Incredibly hard game, it forces you to plan ahead and take your time exploring. Personally I like this approach since I already play a lot of hectic games. There are consequences when you die, which makes every decision more meaningful. The randomness, which sometimes can feel unfair, adds to this. I think it’s a game you love or hate. You either adapt to the games rules and accept some kind of randomness or you don’t and have a frustrating experience. Anyway, it’s made with so much attention for detail. Development might be regarded being slow by some, but updates are huge and meaningful.
The lack of Steamcloud is a bit frustrating though.

Stoneshard is one of those games that mistakes difficulty for tedium. There is something good here, but it's buried under a lot of mechanics that deliberately waste your time.

One of the first things to understand is that this is not a roguelike, or at least it does not play like one. It has some elements, primarily that each instanced dungeon is procedural, but the over-map is mostly fixed with some small variations and it presents more like an open world but mostly linear 2d grid based RPG.

Movement is the biggest source of this tedium - getting from A -> B requires you manually move, on the grid, in real time, across larger map squares. This has eaten at least a third of my total playtime if not more. You do unlock a caravan which gives you a form of overland travel later - but A) It consumes a resource that requires either significant time or money (which requires time to obtain) each time you move it B) You can't take it to places you haven't already discovered either via maps/quests or by walking there yourself. This means a LOT of this game is wandering around, again, in large map squares grid by grid. Most rogue-likes deal with this either by taking place entirely within the dungeon you're exploring or give you overland travel as a freebie with an auto explore function that runs at high speed to deal with individual sectors - this game does not have that, the closest is a very slightly faster turn speed when moving via mouse click.

The save system requiring you use a bed compounds on this, because each time you die, you *will* be trekking back to where you last were. and death is frequent (Either this needs to change, or movement needs to be substantially sped up, automated, or just let us do overland travel on foot)

In part, this is because the deceptive simplicity of the combat system makes it very swingy and often one sided (in favour of the enemies). You'll often be facing groups of 3 or more opponents, who will always move to swarm you. If you move while adjacent to an enemy, they get an attack of opportunity against you and then follow you on their own turn, meaning running away from melee is impossible. The game seems to rely on you kiting and cheesing enemies as much as possible and has implemented a few features to actively punish or prevent you for doing this on occasion instead of simply making the combat more interesting and dynamic (accumulated pain causes confusion which means you move in a random direction preventing you from kiting/running, quite a few enemies have abilities that immobilise you, and the aforementioned opportunity attacks). There are skills you can unlock to allow you to sometimes escape melee with knockbacks or by stopping your opponent moving, but you will likely not have these in the early game.

Often taking a single bad hit or making one mistake means you simply die. The game stacks debuffs on you very quickly as you take damage or get hurt, and as there's no real way to disengage you'll often get most of the way through a dungeon, have a stroke of bad luck and have to start all over from your last save, including the trek to the dungeon. You'll often find that enemies you previously deal with very easily will two, three shot you with pure luck and it does not feel very consistent or predictable. Factor in that magic in the game accumulates a backfire chance and mages in particular have a terrible time with this, sometimes hitting themselves for large chunks of damage starting the loss spiral. Because the combat is so undynamic, enemies often act like damage sponges, presumably their stats inflated to compensate.

It feels like the combat in this game was designed for squad battles with multiple characters on each side, not for a single character fighting multiples. As far as I can tell you do not get additional companions or allies - you're always fighting alone.

There is some stuff to enjoy here, but it's spoiled a lot by the way the game leans into the 'unforgiving and hardcore' bit without really giving you the tools or complexity to actually *get better* at the game - you just learn to play incredibly cautiously and with a giant helping of cheese.

Would you buy a 30,000 dollar car , drive it across the street and sell it for 5,000? If you said yes, this game is
for you. But that is just the economy. If you can deal with that, then get ready for an awesome( and time devouring) experience. Truly Epic. I have played over 1200 hours. The RTR update though seems to be a question of HOW FAR CAN WE MAKE YOU GRIND . I am still a fan and still playing. I'm hoping for future adjustments to the " Economy "

Forever early acces, community feedback ignored (devs only care about their opinion in every aspect of the game), gatekeeping community (try to ask for manual save or quick save, you will get 500 words essay why you suck and shouldn't be playing this game). With every update game becomes more tedious, every change is directed to only hardcore players who like loosing 1h of progress because of the bad rng roll. Overall not worth it, it had potential but devs and small part of community decided to gatekeep every aspect of the game.

Today I saw a pixellated animation of a guy playing 5 finger fillet at the Rotten Willow Tavern. 9/10. In all seriousness, the game is great. I've definitely gotten my moneys worth from Early Access. it may indeed be incomplete as of this date, and things may have been slow to update, but even without the updates you get your moneys worth IMO. Be wary, this game can be punishing and does not make it easy to recover from mistakes.

I've been playing this game since about the time it first released in early access in 2020. The gameplay in concept is tremendously fun, the idea of stacking different modifiers and build synergy is brilliant when set against a move-or-act type of turn-based combat that makes every step and sword slash you commit to feel like a real, flowing battle despite its turn-based nature. I'm fine with unforgiving combat that is somewhat up to RNG, and I won't even insult the save system, it's clearly going for a more Retro RPG type of save a la Dragonquest or Star Ocean and I won't fault it. The art style is great, as is the soundtrack, and I really appreciate the dev team's stubbornness in sticking to their guns, even though I agree with them on basically nothing regarding the changes made in recent years. But hey, it's their game. I respect that they don't budge on some things, because it makes it seem like they actually play this game when they're not developing it. The target audience seems to be the devs at the end of the day, which isn't necessarily bad.

My reasoning for not recommending the game is three-fold;

1: Player feedback is either completely ignored at best or downright derided by the devs in the worst of times.

I understand that some players are annoyingly toxic, and I don't fault the devs for fighting fire with fire in that regard, but the script has been flipped so many times with this game and so much time goes between updates that it shouldn't be a surprise that people that spend money on your product want to know when they will get the features you've promised on like 3 different dates the past 4 years. and that leads me to my next issue:

2: Devs have backtracked on, altered or completely abandoned the development roadmap on like three separate occasions.

War in Ukraine. I understand that. The problem that I have is with how people use that as a shield for the devs when said devs seemed to have spent their 4 years quite productively, they have recovered and continued production very impressively. Given how much time the devs DO spend developing this game, all of it seems to be either adding more tedium to wade through the same 15 effective levels of content, to nerf builds that work, or to rework the game entirely from the ground up every major update, all of this instead of adding the new features they promise. They need to show me something cool instead of remaking the entire game every 1.5 years if they want my confidence and support for it as a product. This segues into my last issue:

3: The game is slowly becoming more and more tedious with the ever-growing laundry list of status effects, meters to keep full, and factors completely outside your control that will kill you. Every major update makes the game feel more and more like i'm rubbing sandpaper against my forehead instead of playing a game.

It has lost the original "combat-focused gameplay with a healthy amount of food/immunity/survival concern" in favor of a new and untenable hunger system designed around keeping your Tomagotchi fed, watered, and napped after every handful of encounters (of which there seem to be at least 10-12 packs of mobs in every dungeon), with some combat in between that eventually becomes agonizing to slog through because it's honestly miserable watching the 15 turns of fumbles that your character blunders through because you only spent 75% of your starting money on food instead of 100% of it and you stopped regenerating health after the fourth pair of mobs in the dungeon.

This update should just be called "Rags" to be honest, because you blow ALL YOUR MONEY on food with barely enough left for medicine, and looting items off mobs in the starting area does NOTHING, pretty much nobody will buy any weapons or jewelry off you anymore as of the release several days ago, except for at best a pittance of 2 to 10 gold. You have to cross most of the distance of the map to find one guy who will buy your copper rings off you, Bert in Osbrook will no longer come in clutch to get you your money's worth.

On top of it all, other mercs will now take your contracts if you've, I don't know, been busy foraging and exploring like you're encouraged to, instead of taking every conceivable contract that you come across and completing it within the allotted time, and to add insult to injury, this invisible clown can FAIL the contract that he stole from you and screw you with debuffs as if YOU were the one that failed it! Kicking me in the Cojones over and over with the consequences of actions I have no control over has been the last straw personally. There is no agency left.
Rags to riches has done more than any rework so far to turn this game into something completely different to what it's been the past four-and-a-half years, and I personally don't think it's been for the better.

I see I have to review this game because of some salty people who cannot comprehend what rogue like is.
This game isn't hard if you: Prepare, examine if you have a chance in your current encounter, run if there is high chance of you dying.
The save system is fine at the current state and this argument about respecting players time I just cant understand, it is a sandbox game where are you rushing? Dying and rethinking approaches is the part of the game, brute forcing on luck wont work here.

The save system is horrible. The creators seem to love ignoring feedback, believing their vision is superior, even though it would be incredibly easy to add a normal save option and simply call it "easy mode". Its a great game that is ruined by stubbornness.

Really want to like the game, but they all but killed the modding scene by using YYC. Not really interested in losing hours of progress in seconds, and the only real way to mitigate that means slowing the game down to a crawl. Such a great concept of a game but marred by terrible decisions. Can't recommend until they add mod support or remove YYC.

You walk into your own bear trap.
You learn...
You pass a bush, startle a snake, get bitten and die.
You learn...
A brigand looses an arrow at you, but instead hits and kills his buddy.
You smile...
You learn to harvest pelts; no rabbit is safe. Money starts flowing.
You're hooked!

I award this game 10/10 bogbeans.

Minimum system requirements: Humility.

I purchased this game in early 2020 and have put in over 1,500 hours in BEFORE the most recent Rags to Riches update.
This is the best turn-based rpg roguelike that I have ever played.
It has a large learning curve to start. It is punishing and unforgiving. The game does not baby you and expects you to think for yourself. It respects your intelligence. These are all good things that are far too uncommon in modern games.
It has a staggering amount of replayability, and gets better with every update.
The most recent update, Rags to Riches, has finally turned this early access title into a game that feels like a real game instead of a demo. The caravan is amazing and lets you travel the world much more freely than before. There is depth and ingenuity.
Many people have complained about the save system, that it is too restrictive, but now there are many options to save your game:
Save at your mobile caravan
Save at any inn
Save at enemy camps
Save bv exiting the game
It has never been less restrictive.

The largest valid complaint anyone could have is that development time is slow.
But its worth it considering how good the quality of the game is.

TL:DR 10/10 game, its unlike any other. If you like hard games buy it.

Look, while there is plenty to love about this game, ultimately the super pretentious save system just ruins it. Your game only saves when you sleep, and it is a deliberately punishingly difficult game. Dying to what is essentially RNG at the end of a day, and having to do it all over again just isn't fun. The save system should be a setting that can be toggled.

The game is very interesting but the "save system" is so anti-player to the point it ruins the experience. All the elites will cry "git gud" but losing hours of game time on death isn't challenging, it's just tedious and doesn't respect my time at all. If the devs added a normal save system this game would be amazing.

Tedium and difficulty are not the same thing. The game is difficult, the save system is tedious.

Survival, tactical combat, inventory management, skill trees, open world, the list goes on. 5/5 would recommend.

As for the difficulty of the game, it cannot be understated, Its unforgiving. Including but most definitely not limited to the save system. It is my recommendation that anyone who finds the save system too difficult, to find a way to make a save state of your game, so that you can "Quick Save" at any moment. Anyone who uses emulators or such will know what i'm saying here... Otherwise the depth I've personally found to be refreshing and challenging in a positive way imo.

This game isn't recommended for those who cannot stand to lose hours of progress in the flash of an eye, this can be mitigated by the advice above, but the vanilla game is not for the faint of heart. It will punish you out of nowhere for one mistake. Save often, even if its just an hour rest. This game i feel is geared toward traditional game audiences where the save function is part of the difficulty, but the difference is this game does it on purpose (which i personally enjoy)

I feel any who play ironman mode on other games or expect a sharp learning curve/ challenge this game is AWESOME!

Edit:

On top of the creators development being interrupted by a LITERAL hot war on their soil, these devs still push through and give what they promise. Hats off to the dev team! You guys ROCK!

That lack of a meaningful autosave system does not benefit the game in the slightest.

The game is a crossover of turn based tactical rpg and extraction shooter.
Gearing up and preparing for a mission or bounty, then taking on that obstical.
Its a great vision, however the combination of punishing combat, heavy rng, complex healty and item system just break the game for me.
To put it simply the game does not make fun at the early stages.

Mistakes are punished hard.
Not bringing enough healing items (there are a lot of different healing items) or food dooms your run, losing hours of playtime.
With long and boring walking segments from towns and cities (your last save locations) to the dungeon, the game becomes a brickwall you have to throw yourself over and over against.

The overworld is segmented in small zones with (very fast) loading section inbetween, however this makes exploring just clunky. Most of the world is boring, nothing-to-do-here zones. This gives you the choice between running along the zones edges, to travel safe, preserve your precious healing items, and get your loot to town safe, or exploring empty maps full of enemies (some like the bear are very strong), that will waste you or your consumables.

With four years in development the game also lacks a lot of quality of life features, such as character creation and advanced tooptips/explenations for conditions or the numerous systems.
Each update new systems and skilltrees are added, however you are very limited with skillpoints.
With combat beeing so hard most of your points just end in your combat trees, making utility skills like the survavle tree somewhat "less optimal". You also have no option to respec and try out weapons, as most of your damage comes from skills.

The worst part is that the mid-games is actually fun.
You have some good gear and enought skills to deal with smaller groups of enemies.
However, running from town to dangeon is still boring and repetitive.

I really appreciate the vision and art style of the game, but must of the game is just frustration.
Frustration that i died and have to replay the last 2 hour.
Frustration that i opend a room with 3 enemies.
Frustration that i got crited and now suffering from "pain", got an "injury", and will likely die or burn all my supplies.
Frustration that my weapon broke and i have to run back to town, while the mission i'm on has a timer.
Frustration that i finished to dangeon, but 5 ghouls are waiting outside until daylight and i have already eaten all my food.
Yes all those things can be fixed by gaining more game knowledge, over-preparing, or embracing the hardcore mentality.

TL;DR: This game has an AMAZING core to it. So many exciting and interesting systems and mechanics, all completely ruined by the fact every combat encounter is just extremely likely to kill you. What could've been an amazing "dangerous adventure" experience full of risk/reward game-play, is just another "find the build" die/reload loop.

This game falls prey to what a LOT of indie games do: being too obsessed with being "hard".
The core of this game is honestly amazing, and could easily be made into one of the most fun and unique "dangerous adventure" experiences.
The injury system is completely wasted by a game that just wants to kill you every single battle you get into.
It would really shine if it had a more balanced "how far can you push yourself" experience, similar to a game like Darkest Dungeon. Let me actually feel the boons and banes of my buffs and injuries as I push forward for greater reward, at the risk of losing it all.
Instead every encounter comes down to WAY too much RNG, 90% of the fights I either die or come out perfectly fine, no in-between.
I know a lot of people would say "you just have to pick the right skills/make the right build", but that ruins the whole fun of a game with large and varied skill trees in the first place, just having a "right"/needed build to even play the game.
The core of this game is something truly special, sad to see it feel like "just another rogue-like" due to the indie game trend of being oh so "hard".

Amazing game. Super hard, challenging, steeeeeeeeeeep learning curve, so far so great. But the save mechanic is unfathomably anti-player. If you want to play some hardcore-mode as a checkbox at the start of the game, I understand you'd like such a mechanic, but normal players don't have time for that sh*t. The game disrespects the players time by making them travel and redo content over and over again if they die, because they can only save in taverns (or bedrolls if you are further into the game). It hurts players' time, it hurts learning the game, it's frustrating and scares people (at least me) away. As a mandatory default this is unacceptable. Shame...

I like the fool awards that I'm getting lol. Are they just from zealous puritans who don't want an optional quicksave for reasons not even known to the great old ones, or is there actually a way to quicksave and I'm not seeing it? Comments are on...

Immersive, brutal and awesome art design. Looking forward to the full release but with the recent update there is already a lot of content here to enjoy. Only con I have is with the save system, but mods can solve that if you find issue with it like me.

NOTICE: The game is still in early access and this review is being written on the Rags to Riches release. There will be an update to this review once it’s fully out of early access.

One more thing. It was very difficult to make a review of this game due to development being hit by world events. Thankfully, despite everything, the devs pushed through and delivered on their goal and are striving to finish the game. It is extremely heartwarming to see.

Introduction

Gameplay

Story

Graphics / UI

Closing Note

If you're craving a punishing yet rewarding RPG experience, Stoneshard delivers in spades. This game throws you into a brutal, unforgiving medieval world where every choice matters, from your inventory management to whether or not you risk that "one last dungeon run."

What I Loved:
🔸 Challenging Gameplay: You’ll feel every hit and celebrate every victory. The tactical, turn-based combat makes each fight a nail-biter.
🔸 Deep Atmosphere: The art style and soundtrack immerse you in a grim, hauntingly beautiful world. It's like opening the pages of a dark fantasy novel.
🔸 Character Customization: Skills, abilities, and perks let you craft your hero how you see fit. Want a pyromaniac mage? Done. A beefy tank with a penchant for axes? Also done.
🔸 Survival Mechanics: Balancing health, sanity, hunger, and even addiction adds layers of realism and strategy. Every potion has a cost!

Room for Improvement:
🔸 It’s tough as nails, so if you're new to this genre, the learning curve might be daunting. But that’s also part of the charm—survival isn’t meant to be easy
🔸 The game is in early access, and some features are still a work in progress. Yet the devs are dedicated, and updates are regular.

This game is fantastic, challenging and most importantly fun. The new update just made it even better. The developers are also doing a great job to stick with their vision and filter out the casuals that cry the game doesn't hold your hand and leave a negative review to a game made with such love. I foresee Stoneshard being an instant classic akin to Battle Brothers.

Sadly last major update again show why this game development is such slow mess.

Do not believe emotional stories about Covid or Ukraine war - not only the devs are long term relocated but the development was already way too slow long before and the game was supposed be finished couple years ago - I suggest anyone to check original Kickstrater page with dates and promises to make own picture about reality. (disclaimer: originally the EA was suppsoed start in 2018 and full release in Q2-Q3 2019, even the first published roadmap versions showed finalize development in 2020-2021)

The real reason is poor (or non-existing) project plan and leadership, lack of devs experience and clear plan, constant removing and changing mechanics and features from scratch with speed of (at best) 1 update per year - devs managed make enough money on the game during Covid and it is one of the cases where too much freedom is not good and push from publisher or monetization demand would be required

I had good time with the game over previous versions, can not deny it. If offer good quality Roguelike dungeoning. I like the combat mechanic and character development. It can be frustrating at times with limited savegames and such, but that belong to the genre. One of major pain however was always travel countless generic maps and fighting tons of generic enemies to reach the dungeon and return. It was totally exhausting and killed every late game.

So I have waited with big expectations for last big update (btw it took over 17 months since previous one) that was supposed to bring own caravan to travel around and havng storage and needed services at hand to remove this un-fun tedium.

And it was delivered indeed - can not say something really bad about it, But sadly along adding caravans and crafting devs decided they need rework most of game toward some quasi-survival genre game - so for example if they added cooking they need force everyone to be dependant on it, making foraging useless. So now we can traverse distances with caravan but tedious generic location are now explored for necessity instead optional - you run around with your mercenary to find leek for his salad.. because of course what you want do half of gametime in Roguelike dungeon game is run around to collect crafting and cooking resources just to drag them around with pitiful inventory (and missing features like recipes available everywhere to know what you need pickup - it is available only at cooking spot).

There is now many other changes that are supposed support this genre shifting - almost complete economy rework that encourage or even force you use it (or suffer very hard spending most income on basics), majority of loot can not be sold anymore as no trader buy items with low conditions - which is good 90% what enemies drop, even stuff you loot in boss chests (where most valuable dungeon reward usually are).. because of course half damaged plate armor, gold necklace or artifact weapon is something no one would ever want or pay for.

So if you are questioning why take game take so long to be finished or why it still miss very basic promised features like custom character or why story is still consisting of 15 mins gametime with barely scratching anything else than travel over major cities on map - well thats because it was absolutely necessary spend many months time and resources and redone such important parts of game like how your hero prepare his dinner.

One could ask why.. why not finish game first in original scope and only after focus on such changes (if ever). But sad reality is devs have some vision that is still evolving and they are surrounded with hardocre minority of players that praise every change they do and make opaque explanation for everything (eg., to my objections about new changes I got answer the tedium in game was always intended design - so why i should expect to be gone?) while any criticism or Ideas about useful features (eg many times discussed indication of time in game with time limited quests and traders or other NPC availabel only in specific times) are forbidden - also pursuing positive reviews and encoruaging disregard rightfuly deserved negatives, like people have nor right to express their opinion. Never saw similar blindfolded community like this.

So at the end why negative review for game I spent over 500 hours with? I was lways on edge with liking work done but poor development progress and now those last changes and community reaction made me express the opinion: As it is I do not recommend support this game further until it will be out of EA - first no one know if it ever happens during our lives, second it is quite usnure what the result will be about,

Tbh I am disappointed, the game does its best to chase the grim aspects of realism especially combat. Hunger, pain, injuries, sanity, accuracy, defense, dodging, and etc. But all that realism is out the window the second combat is over. The risk to reward ratio for winning combat is so low it is not realistic, you can not loot anything from the enemies except what was in their hand. Tbh all you get for winning a hard earn battle is loose change worth of exp and weapons that sell for less than they cost to be repaired, almost anything you can loot from enemies cost less than fruits much less bread. I know one guy thought it was funny to imagine the players suffer so he opted out of realism for pain and struggle. Just give us screens where we can see what the opponent had on him, few coins, some food to hold him over, his mostly crappy and damaged clothes. Also no man can die due to hunger in one day wth is up with the hunger intensity, I did some intense long duration work in the army and I could go by fine on an empty stomach much less an some medieval guy used to being hungry. Also where is the basic common sense alchemy, why is the stealth garbage, and where is my money I want it back.

Guys i have so much time on Stoneshard and love it and was so excited for this update but if feels like a huge miss. im always starving and food does not last. the dungeons are beautiful now but awful i clear out one wing and have 20 guys coming from the complete other side somehow when im low on health and die. 80 percent of my gold goes to food and 10 to repairs. this is not the stoneshard i remember its worse.

I love the artwork in this game. The story is - for the time being - short but promising, and the gameplay is fun and engaging.

The worst thing about this game is that it is in EA, and will be for a while still. Updates take a while to be released, but hopefully it will get better with the latest changes advertised in Rags to Riches release notes.
If you don't mind the fact it is in EA, and that things could change between now and the release date. Then definitely check this game out. It is a gem, there is very little to dislike about it.

BTW, I have many more hours of this game in a non Steam save.

This game dissapointed me the most out of all early access games I am following. The first playable version was barebones, but fun. The starting village had a few quests, the dungeons were unforgiving and too long, but satisfying to clear as they were filled with treasure. The combat had many choices between weapons or three schools of magic, some better than others, but all fun to try out. There was nothing to do after you got to the second location on foot though, but that's alright because the game is in early access. Surely the team will flesh out the content of the game, right? Four years later and the game is in the same spot. Yeah the combat is fun, Yeah the dungeons and items in them are cool. But there is nothing new to do in the game!

After finishing the first location I get to travel in the caravan, yay. Wait, what is this, we are skipping every town on the road? Oh, alright, perhaps the game wants me to go to the city as the quests for my level are there, and I can always travel back to those towns!Wrong, the city is full of nice visuals but nothing else. The NPCs? Terrible. 90% of the town has two dialogue options, "Heard anything interesting?" or "What do you have for sale?". And then if they have empty inventory for sale, why even bother adding that option to them? There are so many simple quest ideas that would make the NPCs feel like they are actually alive and not robots. How about "Help cook the soup to the poor", "Can you steal the diamond from that noble's house for me", "The winery stopped sending supply carts to the tavern, go check what the problem is"?

When I entered starting village in 15 minutes I had 5 quests. After looking around Brynn for 45 minutes I have no new quests and no new equipment. I'm feeling like the game doesn't want me to be there, but that is literally where it railroaded me to. I am really saddened that development time went to adding new equipment variants, reworking skill trees and adding bigger map. Those things sounded like they would improve the experience, but the neglected RPG part of this RPG game is very visible now.

If you need something for that indie RPG itch, I suggest you look at a game called "Drova", It is sadly not turn based, but the difficulty is very forgiving. The map is small but filled to the brim with places worth exploring. The NPCs actually have human emotions and wants. The many quests that are there always give you few ways of solving them. Highly recommended!