Great and getting better all the time
NOTE: current feedback for BETA 0.9.3.12 of Stoneshard. Rating of 5 is for the projected production release. Right now, it is a 4 star for me, but I see it as becoming 5 star by full release. Main gripes - not enough inventory slots. Doors and spotted traps should be highlighted with ALT. A constant ALT-down mode would be very helpful so the feature is always on without holding the key down. Also a way to switch between a "Melee" and a "Ranged" load out with one click would really help. I would just add an inventory slot for ranged weapon and one for ammo and a way to switch from Melee to Ranged quickly. Otherwise I will never use a ranged weapon. Too cumbersome to switch to melee.
Excellent news, there is now a Save & Exit function so those of us with limited gaming windows can get in a half hour and then exit and then pick up where we left off. Sweet. This was really the thing keeping me from playing the earlier BETA releases of the game. I do still hope for arbitrary persisted saves in the final release. I do not like to redo things that I just did, and this game is HARD. It will be a deal breaker for me if I can't save at any time and then reload it if I want to. The game seems to delete temporary saves while keeping certain auto saves. Hardcore mode disabling free saving is always an option, plus I am no wimp here, but i have so little time to game, I do sometimes want to be able to reload and try a battle again. Perhaps keeping a counter of reloads that are not just Save and Exit would be cool to show how hardcore you are.
I still love so many things about this game and love seeing it continue to grow, If you liked Eschalon but found it to be too easy eventually, try Stoneshard! I once survived Eschalon III without ever getting hit, but I die left and right in Stoneshard. I have much to learn here. So many ways to get injured. You feel your mortality here. Hunger, thirst, pain, injuries, mental effects, the works. I love it. I get very tired of games with just Hit Points.
Remedies exist but inventory is limited. Especially since there are other awesome mechanics in the game requiring many inventory slots such as cooking. Even such a mundane thing as cooking is great in Stoneshard since food quality is so important to maintaining low hunger levels with fewer inventory slots. I would enjoy the game much more if the inventory space was larger, only because there are tons of small items like onions and salves and cutlery that really matter in the game, and although inventory space has been expanded, it is still not nearly enough to be able to reasonably engage in these neat mechanics. Sadly, I would never bother cooking when it takes so many of my few free slots. I would always favor healing salve for instance.
I'm not saying I should be able to carry infinite gear, but I should be able to carry many more of the *small* items. Perhaps storage for small items could be much larger, but make special slots for spare armor and weapons and other large bulky items that is realistically limited. Perhaps sheaths for swords and other hand weapons, quivers for arrows and ranged weapon over the shoulder as part of the standard equipment slots like head-torso-arms-hands. Then realistic loads could still be carried but the smaller items would also be in more realistic and more importantly, more fun quantities given that I would surely be carrying them in a backpack or sack. Just prevent access to "deeper storage" during combat. A few small item slots should be available in combat in Quick Slot inventory slots, such as scrolls, potions, thrown weapons. The rest are inaccessible. Or consider "Bags", "Sacks", "Mules" as ways to extend the number of inventory pages to more than one for items not accessible during combat, but still carried.. Then food and medical supplies could be carried in useful quantities.
Many quality of life features and new game features have been added between 0.5 and 0.9. I particularly like the Brightness feature. My eyes are old and worn out and the dungeons are dark, so being able to lighten then up a bit makes the game playable for me and more enjoyable. Also the existing highlighting of objects that can be interacted with is vital for me since I would otherwise not see these objects. I only wish that spotted traps and all doors would also be highlighted and labeled like the rest so I can see them. Traps in red and doors in blue. The game has an effective Tutorial to get you started and still stay in the story.
This is a great game and it keeps getting better! It already surpasses so many other games and has a ton of unique mechanics. Well done !!!
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