Stoneshard – City of Gold Progress Update

In a few months, Ink Stains Games’ turn-based RPG Stoneshard will be getting a new early access update, its biggest one yet. This so-called City of Gold update will bring the game closer to the developers’ vision and introduce plenty of new systems, including random encounters and the ability to kill NPC, rivers and swimming, achievements, and even a playable lute. Let’s start with a quick peek at the latter:

And here are the text bits:

Hello everyone!

The work on the City of Gold update, planned for Summer 2021, is well underway. It’ll be the largest update of Stoneshard’s Early Access so far, adding a huge amount of new content and drastically changing the way the game functions. Today we’ll talk about a number of important features, which we currently develop.

SAVING ON EXIT

Now that City of Gold took a step away from our standard update schedule (once every 2-3 months), we actually have time to make all required changes to the world generation and saving systems. This means that the City of Gold update will finally introduce a highly requested feature – saving on exit. After its proper implementation, you won’t have to search for a tavern or a nearby camp in case of emergency or interruption – you’ll be able to safely close the game and then continue from where you left off whenever you’re ready.

It’s worth mentioning that this is not quick saving – saves on exit will be deleted upon loading. The character’s death will still return you to the latest camp or tavern save, preserving the weight of risk and responsibility for your choices.

KILLABLE NPCs

Along with the expansion of the global map, there’ll be a new event type added to the game – random encounters, during which you’ll meet new characters and witness many interesting scenes. In order to properly add this feature, we ended up reworking the existing NPC system, making most of them killable.

Naturally, killing NPCs will result in consequences other than an obvious hit to your reputation. Right now we work on the crime and punishment system to properly reflect possible outcomes. We’ll be able to share more details about this feature once it’s close to completion.

NEW LOCATIONS

Other than random encounters, we’ll also add lots of new points of interest. We won’t get into much detail and preserve the intrigue, so here is a screenshot to keep your interest piqued[…]

RIVERS

Rivers and other bodies of water are an important element of the global map expansion, adding a noticeable amount of variety to the world. Rivers won’t just sit there looking pretty – there’ll be a number of mechanics associated with them, such as swimming.

STEAM ACHIEVEMENTS

Initially we planned to add achievements only after the game is out of Early Access, as their conditions can change significantly during the development. However, we listened to the players and decided to partially implement achievements with the City of Gold update, starting with those which are unlikely to be influenced by possible reworks – about 50 of them in total.

THE LUTE

A small, but a pleasant addition. The Equipment Update II introduced a lute to the game, while City of Gold will let you actually play it. You’ll be able to reproduce your favorite musical pieces to lift the character’s spirit. Or attract nearby enemies, depending on your luck.

That’s all for now. Until the next devlog!