Strollart Studios has been working on Below the Stone for 5 years -- from prototypes, to kickstarters, to publishers, to game conventions, to meeting Asmongold, to demos, and finally to Early Access. We want to thank everyone in our community who gave us the motivation to keep going, who loved this game, and who share the same dreams we do with this project. It's been a long journey for us, and we plan on spending many more years on our creation, as this is just the beginning.
CHANGELOG
Below The Stone - Alpha 0.1
[New Features]
* Added Layer 2 of the generated caves, among many new biomes, ores, and monsters to fear or kill! Currently, there are at least 6 new creatures added for layer 2.
* Many new decor objects added for Layer 2.
* Added cave sweeper (shotgun) weapon.
* Added blunderbuss (shotgun) weapon.
* Added "traveling mole" NPC that you can talk/trade with.
* Added new "mole themed" items that you can get from the traveling mole.
* Added a couple more secrets to discover.
* Introduced the "tin sword" and "copper axe" to balance out the assortment of beginner melee weapons. (See "Tweaks" section for more info on this change)
* You can now find "holes" which will take you to Layer 2. This is currently a temporary feature with how it's implemented. But you have to explore a lot to find these holes.
* Added scotarog(?)
* Brought back the "bog lurker" monster that was removed from the swamp biome spawns... for some reason...
* Also, I hear there is a crazed goblin roaming around???
* Added titanium ore/ingot (including armor).
* Added throwable snowball item.
[Tweaks]
* Tin and Copper weapons have been rebalanced so that axes and swords encourage different play styles; Tin Axe is not an upgrade to Tin Sword.
* Updated how floor tiles are picked to create a more varying and interesting look for the caves in general. We call them "alternate sprites".
* Updated the "alternate sprites" for the stone floor tile. (this will also happen to other floor tiles in the future)
* Improved dungeon loot chests (both current kinds) to not give too strong armor, while also maintaining a nice variety of items to discover from chests.
* Updated screen shake to be based off of a smooth curve, resulting in a smoother shake (smoothie shake?). Previously, it was based off of picking random numbers.
* Attempted to also reduce screen shake in situations where it was too strong. We may have to do further adjustments in the future as well.
* Updated descriptions of various items to help players learn how they are used.
* Tweaked dungeon generation code so dungeons do not spawn near player spawn.
* Updated loot spawns of wooden chests; average potion vials should be easier to get now.
* Updated the bonus loot chests in kingdom to also not give you super OP items that you shouldn't be able to get in the early game.
* Updated loot spawns of the breakable vases to not give you so much copper, but also made sure you would still get some interesting things from them.
* Also made small changes to loot table of wooden crates.
* Made it so kobold spears have a "soft collision", so when you walk into a spear, it will push you away a bit. So it is no longer a hard collision. The force can be adjusted.
* Updated water generation code, so ponds should be a bit more spread out.
* Updated ambient water sounds you hear near water.
* Cave troll now has a bit more health, and also is a bit heavier too. (He's been eating more dwarves recently...)
* Gave many items a base sell value so it's more worth it to sell certain items.
* Added more information for tooltips of melee weapons.
* Adjusted the armor values of some wearable head items.
* Reduced the effect time (for the glowing effects) given when eating Gloweed and Luminous fungus.
[Fixes]
* Fixed bug where removing torches would lock aim direction.
* Added character limit to the name field when creating a new character.
* Fixed an issue where swinging a pickaxe at a plant/mushroom would result in giving the player 2 "rng rolls" on the loot that drops from that plant.
* (Finally) Fixed the issue where you would see mining sparks far from where you were mining (typically near spawn).
* Small fixes to the pivot positions of some sprites, so the y-position sprite sorting works properly for them.
* Fixed pivots of many melee weapons and pickaxes so it looks like the dwarf is properly holding them now.
* Fixed issue in Bestiary section of Journal where the description of a monster would overflow into the entry below it. We have now added a scroll bar to each entry so you can read everything now.
* Fixed issue where pushing the Min. Craft button when you were missing crafting ingredients would default to 1 item, now defaults to 0 if you cannot afford item.
* Fixed issue where after crafting an item to the point that you had no more ingredients left, it would not set the craft amount color to red.