Let me preface this by saying that I really enjoyed the game itself. The art is cool, the story is cool, the gameplay is cool, the voice acting is ok. However, the performance is terrible, the stutters are constant, the bugs are gamebreaking. One such bug made it impossible to complete the game for me. I don't know if versions on other platforms are any better but this one was an irritating experience of trying to pull out the (markedly good) story from between the gnarly bugs keystoned with ultimate disappointment.
It is most certainly not everyone's cup of tea. I'm not even certain that it *is* tea. But what I am certain of is that the developers are INSANE! Building a game like this has about as much commercial viability as selling hand-crafted, highly designed, novelty hand-warmers in Dubai (it's rather hot in Dubai, if the simile's lost on you). They're madmen, they're fools, but they are brave, beautiful fools. Is it a good game? Yes. Is it polished? No, I get stutters during combat on a modern machine, there's probably inefficient spaghetti under the hood. Is it worth the og price tag, when counted with the season pass? Probably not (on sale - probably yes). Should you get it? YES! Gods, yes. Do you want the world where all you get is repetitive, cookie-cutter, puddle-deep slop? Then by all means pass it over. But if you don't then it's developers like this, with excellent writers, excellent artists and more gutts than brains who make the difference. For what they're doing now and what they may do in the future, they deserve our support.
So far it succeeds everywhere other grand strategies fail. Unlike other grand strats I've encountered no game breaking bugs or design issues. And there's most definitely the tip of the iceberg, scratching the surface feel to it, where there's always something more the further down you go. I'm sure it'll run out of that at some point, but that's always the case. It's also still in early access and they've got definitely some more fleshing out to do (like more details on why a mission was aborted by a councilor or more/better organised info in tooltips), so I guess we'll see how the development goes. But at the current stage even in early access it's better than pretty much any fully released Grand Strategy I've tried; and it doesn't ask for a bajilion dollars and dlcs.
Most Helpful Review is outdated - as of 0.9.2.12 you can save when exiting the game and you can save when using a bed (beds are in predetermined spots, or you can purchase a bedroll or create one using crafting). Overall Stoneshard (as of 0.9.2.12) is missing 2 or 3 mechanics and a lot of content before you can call it "finished". Even as is, however, it is still one of the most immersive, original and well-crafted "roguelike" "dungeon crawlers" (I hesitate to call it that, since Stoneshard straddles the fence between a roguelike dungeon crawler and an RPG; I would personally like it to tip even more into the RPG side, because the setting is chef's kiss, it begs for more content and lore).
People are mistakenly used to the notion of grandiosity and dark grimness being innately conjoined. No such thing. It is not that grim when you're participating in the rupture of a universe and consorting with gods. It is not dark when you share a bad fate with trillions of other people. In Colony Ship, you are one of thousands of survivors each of whom seems determined to diminish that already scarce supply down to hundreds. Your entire world is a dilapidated junkyard, only a miracle keeps it habitable. And surrounding it is a void of space, which is even less habitable than the ship (as voids tend to be). Onto the details: The Good: - Audiovisuals - looks and sounds very good, really immerses you in the tiny, sad world. - Story - it's a good story. - Writing - it's good. The but: - Deja vu - if you liked Age of Decadence, you'll like this one but for both of these games the originality is it's strongest advantage. Colony Ship is still original compared to the market but much less so when compared to AoD. - Rails and roads - outside of combat sequences the game is pretty much just a graphical version of a CYOA book. There's no randomness whatsoever. Every element was placed there by hand, nothing is simulated or generated. The combat sequences themselves can either be won or avoided (if you lose you load back and either try to win or take a different road and avoid it).
