Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
Website: https://stoneshard.com/
Price: $10-25 USD
Blurb: “Stoneshard is a challenging turn-based RPG set in an open world. Experience the unforgiving life of a medieval mercenary, travel across the war-torn kingdom, fulfil contracts, fight, mend your wounds, and develop your character without any restrictions.“
Having played the demo two years ago, I thought it may be time to give it another once-over, as it natively supports Ubuntu. Though the game is still in beta, It is quite playable. (There are obviously still bugs).
First of all, the game looks gorgeous. A lot of effort has gone into the pixel art. No, seriously, a butt-load. Also it is fun to play. I mean I still play pixel dungeon, for crying in a bucket, and this has way more depth.
Installation:
Both GoG and Steam installers work like a charm on Ubuntu. No need to fuss and even if the web page says Ubuntu 18.04, it works quite fine on other versions. You can grab the demo off Steam if you want to have a go at it, but I will be using the GoG in-development version for this test (version 0.8.0.xx). As with GoG installers, it is a simple next-next-next and you have a desktop icon and you are ready to go. With Steam, the Steam installer did all the heavy lifting and it was also click and play. The game does not seem to be available anywhere else.
Sound:
As you may recall from the last review, I stumbled across this title by the soundtrack. Have a listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gqu6c-AHLsQ
The main theme by Norihiko Hibino – Stoneshard is haunting and AAA game quality. Masterful. Pawel Perepelica provides all the atmospheric music during the game and Kirill Akimov, the little upbeat tavern music. Honestly, I am listening to Neon Abyss OST at the moment, as I need to get up-n-at ‘em, but Stoneshard will be on the menu tonight, mark my words! The voice acting is on par and I like it. Yup, voice acting is rogue-like, though this has RPG elements. Because the game is “early access”, I did have a bug where my sound went away completely. It is fixed by restarting, but we will see when 1.0 rolls around.
Graphics:
This is where the game already shines. Even though the game went for the paper cut-out aesthetic when it comes to animation, it is still a feast for your eyes. They also made their own character portraits. While I am saying all of this, nothing is set in stone, only shards, pun intended, as the disclaimer will tell you. Everything is subject to change before the final release.
Things like candles provide light, and the lighting effects can be seen passing close to a light source. Text is nice and clear, in brilliant white, and reactions in bright yellow. Passing behind objects makes them semi-transparent, though it is hard to make out what is hidden sometimes. I have often found a coin (crowns), that I know had dropped, difficult to find behind an object. On the plus side, any weapons and armour that your character equips, is reflected on the graphic, always a nice touch. The “prologue”, aka, the tutorial, has not really changed, but the main game has a lot of changes. The menus are large and informative and easy to navigate, making it simple to pick up and play the game. The HUD is clear and easy to see and navigate, and it does not interfere with the viewport.
Gameplay:
Fun.
(Spoiler alert!) I wasn’t going to say more, but the fact that the game comes with a tutorial level that WILL kill you in the end, it beats out other rogue-likes that kill you in the first few turns. You get a chance to experience everything; heh, I got ‘drunk’ twice just to experience the effect (which honestly, was more like a horror game, but interesting none-the-less!).
I noticed that there were a lot less ‘diary pages’ laying about, thus not slowing the game down as before. This means the pace of the game is a peppy loot-n-shoot from the old dungeon crawl. If I were to compare it to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup (often referenced as one of THE top rogue-like games for Linux), I honestly think this feels better, but keeping the same gameplay. I understand the static models, where people try to mimic tabletop gaming, but if you want to immerse the next generation, you cannot have graphics from 1984, sorry Stone Soup. That said, there is a lot of stiff competition out there when it comes to the gameplay and graphics in modern Indie rogue-likes.
I know some of our readers like (even prefer!) a little ‘c’ in the terminal, depicting your character and having their imagination do all the work. Sometimes, I just want to sit back and enjoy, without too much effort, and this scratches that itch. Beware!! The game is addictive, and with all the eye-candy, you may miss supper. I speak from experience, having to drink cold coffee more than once.
Overall:
The title feels polished and will hopefully get even more polish before the 1.0 release. It feels professional (have a look at the wiki page: https://stoneshard.com/wiki/Stoneshard_Wiki), and make up your mind. I’d say, if you can get a deal on it, take it! The $24.99 at GoG at the time of writing is too rich for my blood, I have other things I can play, like the Amazing (so far) Anvil Saga.
There are some nice touches, such as the character selection screen (see tavern image below), where you remain nameless and faceless until you choose your character. So be sure to watch out for that.