Stoneshard Update #33 – Art Rework

The latest development update for Ink Stains Games’ upcoming roguelike RPG Stoneshard talks about the evolution of the game’s pixel art and shares a good deal of newly upgraded sprites that better reflect the game’s current scope, expanded by the recent successful Kickstarter campaign. The link above has a good deal of examples, and here are the text parts:

Hello!

Initially we planned to tell you more about settlement generation, but this system requires some more time to polish, so today’s update will be dedicated to the art rework.

When we first started developing Stoneshard, we planned it to be a small-scale coffeebreak roguelike, taking place in a fairytale fantasy world, kind of similar to Fable and Torchlight ones. Back then our lore was very vague, as we planned to finish the game in a year and move on to more “serious” projects.

However, with a course of time this initial barebones concept was reinforced with many fresh ideas and new mechanics. Then we began to understand that Stoneshard is already becoming that serious project we planned to work on later. So, both our vision and game setting have significantly changed and eventually became something you currently know: gloomy and quite realistic medieval world, torn apart by wars, epidemics and disasters.

Many enemies, items and objects that you may have encountered while playing the Prologue were created at the very beginning of the Stoneshard development back in 2016, when we were making literally a different game. The need to rework some of the art became a necessity, so when we started to revamp many core game systems after Kickstarter’s end, we felt like there’s no better time than now.

Let’s start with skeletons, which became much more gloomy and grim-looking. Previously, they looked like they weren’t wasting their time while being dead: their bones were perfectly white and armor looked new and shiny. Now they seem more dangerous, soulless and believable: we also removed the glowing effect from their eyes to give them more sinister and less magical look. An animated pile of faded bones looks much more threatening than a whitey glowing skeleton in sparkling armor, isn’t it?

These changes also affected the vampires. Previously, they did not look really frightening, and rather produced the impression of transformed people who were not particularly happy with their new vampire lives. Now their bestial origin has become more accentuated, so it will help to perceive them as something they are – dangerous monsters.

In addition, some weapon and armor sprites were also reworked, as their design became more realistic and detailed. We also finished working on the entire line of one-handed swords and moved on to the other weapon types.

Soon we plan to release an update, including fan localizations and many of the changes described above, so stay tuned and have fun!