Stoneshard

The games hard, I get that. This game just offers very little in the way of letting you get better, by learning. That is to say, you start the game with a very small amount of skills, that means early game is pretty much just RNG. There's no joy in that, you can't adapt and learn after fatal encounters because you don't get the toolset to do so. The save system is a hinderance to the games 'hardness' dying just costs you, the player, time. That isn't fun. There could be a campsite item that costs you currency to acquire or something like that. But instead it creates this time sink where you have one close call with a wolf 3 zones away, go all the way back to town, rest. Go 4 tiles away this time. Rinse repeat. TL;DR Game is tough, and thats okay. But game is also very RNG which is not okay. A games difficulty should be mitigated by skill, not by luck. Art is cool though.

Version 0.8 Now you can love the game with it's new auto save when you exit the game ! Stoneshard has become my favorite game for one main reason: - the level of detail I started playing this game since it released on steam early access in 2020. New updates and added content arrive regularly, I come back to it each time to rediscover what's new and always enjoy it. I total 250 hours of play, and I still have so many details to understand and content to discover. You play a mercenary in a dark fantasy universe where death and the strange are commonplace. You must work there as a good soldier, who knows his limits and how to earn his bread easily without taking too many risks. Chat with any NPC, he will have something interesting to tell you. Whether it's about an ideal hunting ground or news about the war. It's a text game with a few dubbed voices but I so much prefer such substantial content that allows me to rediscover new details with each Playtrough. One thing I love about this game is that it doesn't take you by the hand, it's turn based but the difficulty and pressure is constant and if you die it's only up to you responsibility. Someone who doesn't rely on luck to survive shouldn't be surprised if she turns around at some point. With its save system that requires you to be careful, the survival of your character becomes an important factor. That's why I put it in the Hardcore category. With nevertheless the possibility of not playing in permadeath. If you get better at dark soul with your thumbs, you get better at Stoneshard with your head. Observe, analyze, inspect. If you go for a delicate head, it is certain that you will come across a bigger fish than you. As they say, losing is fun, Git Gud.

I was positively impressed at the scope and playability of this game. The art style is an eye candy, there are only few locations now but look great. I love what they've done with skill trees, wound and stress mechanics. For being in early access there is an impressive array of weapons and items and it's looking very promising. This is the one and only game I've said I wished I'd worked on it. There isn't much in terms of story but that's understandable at this stage and it's enough to make your mouth water. I hear saving on exit is being implemented so if any emergency, we can finally leave the game safely instead of having to start the day at the inn again. 5/5 well deserved

I've been away from my desktop PC for a while and had to game on a laptop. I was starting to miss Escape from Tarkov. I've dreamed about the endless inventory management, deciding what item is valuable/helpful so I can try and stuff it in the backpack. I craved the frustration of going into a raid and getting killed at some point loosing all my gear. I missed the sweet, sweet decision whether I should risk looting a bit longer or just try to find the extraction and leave with what I currently have. All this essential Tarkov experience can be recreated on a modest hardware when playing Stoneshard. The game offers suspense, simplified tactical combat, lots of loot, classless character progression system, nice pixel art, voice acting. What the game sorely needs is a "save and exit" option. This is the biggest problem with Stoneshard - if you are not hardcore enough and instead of continue playing the game you choose to go to work, school, see your parents, go to the grocery store your progress will be lost. You can save only in town(for a price) or in cleared bandit camps. But what if you are in a dungeon and you need to quit the game because you need to walk your dog outside or your grandma calls and asks to go see her cause she has opened a jar of kompot? I like Stoneshard and this is why I gave it a high score but if you are not absolutely sure that in the next hour you won't be needing to get away from your PC don't start playing at all.

The save system has been improved if you die in game you go back to the last time/place your character slept ( you can sleep for 0 hours). The improvement is that everytime you quit out of the game it saves your game, if you die late you still go back. This allows for people like me that only have 15-30 min at a time to play the game. The game will not reward risk taking but will reward good planning and paying attention to detail. It is constantly, but slowly being updated and has improved every time.