The Stone Of Madness Quality Of Life Update 1 is Live!

Greetings, esteemed guests of this humble monastery.

The first patch for The Stone of Madness has arrived! For reasons that are most surely clear to all our guests, we have deemed it worthy to be called The First Patch. We have read all comments out there and collated all the feedback that you so graciously provided. But still, this is merely the First Patch. As such, we have focused this update on addressing only the most urgent matters, and only those that could be adequately fixed in a timely fashion. This is the way we can ensure that everyone can properly drown in the madness that seeps within the old walls of our monastery… as it was ever intended.
This means that, as we covered in the last announcement, there are some features that you won’t find in this patch, such as a key binding menu. But don’t fret, as those will be added shortly in the next patch, once we properly test them and can think of a worthy name for said update.
With that said, here is the TL;DR; version of what you can expect on this patch:

Summary

• Addressed over 150 issues.
• Improved Player and NPC navigation.
• Improved mouse controls.
• Improved overall performance.
• Improved menu navigation.
• Added some feedback and quality of life features.
• Balanced specific skills that were not fun to use.
• Added new graphics, vfx and animation.

And here is the extended cut:

New Features

• Added new animations for the main cast during the Night Phase character selection screen when a Planning type Night Action is active.
• Added new animations for the main cast during the Night Phase management screen.
• Added new sprites and animations for alarm bells and some specific doors.
• Updated player portrait images.
• Added new VFX for Set Trap skill.
• Suitable hiding places are now highlighted when your character is being chased.
• Suitable hiding spots for bodies are now highlighted when your character is carrying a dead or unconscious NPC.

• Hiding spots now show an Icon indicating if a dead or unconscious NPC is located inside.

• New visual effects were added to several level elements.
• Added a new unread notification icon to several menus when new content becomes available.

Balance changes

• Skills
  • "Blessing" is no longer a forbidden action.
  • "Gunshot" Skill range has been increased.
  • "Throw Rubble" Skill range has been increased. Distraction is more effective.
  • "Unchained!" Skill range has been increased. Stun duration has been increased.
  • "Block Door" Duration of locked doors have been increased.
  • "Set Trap" Trap setting range has been increased.
  • "Set Trap: Mousetrap" Duration of the skill effects have been increased.
  • "Set Trap: Chocolate" Duration of the skill effects have been increased.
  • "Mockery" Skill range has been increased.
  • "Evil Eye" Skill range has been increased. Stun duration has been increased.
  • "Possession" Skill sanity cost has been halved.

• Items
  • "Knowledge Stones": Knowledge gain has been increased

• Night actions
  • "Study" Knowledge gain from studying most items has been increased
  • Several night action costs have been tweaked to improve balance.

• Disorders
  • Sanity damage caused by several Disorders has been lowered.
  • Alfredo's "Headaches" duration has been lowered. He's no longer affected by the monastery clock bell.
  • Eduardo's "Fear of the Dark" Time before triggering the sanity damage has been increased

• Other
  • Tweaked enemy chasing speed and memory to improve chasing situations.
  • The duration of NPCs' distracted state after hearing noises has been increased. This includes the ones caused by skills such as Eduardo's "Throw Rubble", and Leonora's "Gunshot".
  • Improved the quality of items achieved after confessing to the Inquisitor during Campaign "The Corrupt Hand of the Church".
  • Panecillo's shop inventory now features "Apples" and "Scrolls",
  • The amount of "Dead Man's Finger" items available each day in Panecillo's shop has been increased to 2 (previously was 1).
  • Panecillo's shop prices have been adjusted
    • "Wood" now cost 3 coins (previously were (2 coins)
    • "Mousetraps" now cost 12 coins (previously were 14 coins)

  • Pianist NPC aura range has been decreased. Melody duration has been shortened.
    
  • Windows will take more time before they make noise.
    
  • Costs for haggling with the Man In The Hat have been tweaked.
    
  • Completing certain objectives will heal some of the group's sanity.
    
  
  

Fixes

• General
  • Fixed an issue that caused hidden NPCs to not update after a day passed.
  • Fixed an issue that caused a crash if a body was hidden in a specific cabinet.
  • Fixed an issue that caused the resolution to be set to Low settings after booting the game for the first time.
  • Fixed an issue that caused the Inquisitor NPC to remain in the scene after a certain objective.
  • Fixed an issue that caused carried planks to disappear when a cutscene was triggered.
  • Fixed an issue that caused Alfredo's priest suit to disappear when a cutscene was triggered while wearing it.
  • Fixed an issue that prevented Eduardo from moving crates in certain situations.
  • Fixed an issue that caused NPCs to walk across chasms before a wooden plank bridge was set.
  • Fixed an issue that caused character sprites to remain in place while moving them.
  • Fixed an issue that caused NPCs to freeze in certain situations.
  • Fixed an issue that caused some objective fulfillment conditions to require all items in the same character.
  • Fixed an issue that sometimes caused guards to freeze after a character was caught on a ladder.
  • Fixed a few issues related to NPC's chasing state.
  • Fixed an issue that could crash the game after using Amelia's "Play" night action.
  • Fixed an issue that caused Soldiers to not raise the characters' Suspicion level.
  • Fixed an issue could cause NPCs' Vision Cone to not update after being affected by Alfredo's sermon in certain situations.
  • Fixed an issue that caused players to be stuck on the "Press any button" prompt when the internet connection was interrupted.
  • Fixed an issue that caused some characters to become unresponsive to the Beckon command on certain situations.
  • Improved character movement when moving close to a wall using controller, mouse or keyboard.
  • Fixed a few items that were out of the player's interaction range.

• Input
  • Fixed an issue that caused characters to move to a point that differed from the clicked location.
  • Fixed an issue that caused Eduardo to fall into traps while clicking on them.
  • Fixed an issue that caused the Extinguish Candle action to appear before other actions when interacting with a candle using mouse click.
  • Fixed several items that didn't react to mouse interactions as expected.
  • Fixed an issue that made NPCs hard to click to activate their Vision Cone using mouse.
  • Fixed an issue that prevented climbing down if the clicked location was on top of a crate.
  • Fixed an issue that prevented interacting with Leonora to give her lockpicks during the prologue when using mouse controls.
  • Improved mouse detection on small items that were too hard to click.
  • Fixed an issue that could cause mouse navigation to teleport the character to unreachable positions in some cases.
  • Fixed an issue that caused unintended behavior when unreachable crates and ledges were clicked.

• Skills
  • Fixed an issue that caused Mockery skill to increase Amelia's Punishment meter.
  • Fixed an issue that caused the wrong log to appear when using "Blessing" on an Anima.
  • Fixed an issue that enabled some switches to be activated twice with Leonora's "Gunshot"
  • Fixed an issue that caused Animas to be selected as valid targets by Agnes' "Goetia" skill

• Graphics and VFX
  • Fixed an issue that caused certain skills' visual effects to remain in place after their effects ended.
  • Fixed several VFX sorting order issues.
  • Fixed some item materials that were not correctly updated after being highlighted.
  • Fixed a lootable crate sprite that was not showing its lid when closed.
  • Fixed an issue that caused NPC shadows to disappear during certain animations.

• Campaigns
  • General
    • Fixed an issue that caused the spell "Flies" to not work on certain bodies.
    • Fixed some doors and gates that were not interactable from all sides.
    • Fixed some buttons that could be pressed from unintended locations.
    • Fixed some locks that could be picked by Leonora from invalid locations.
    • Fixed a Gargoyle that remained invisible during a certain objective.
    • Fixed several walls that allowed NPCs' Vision Cones to pass through them in certain situations.
    • Fixed some items that did not award the intended amount of Knowledge on interaction.
    • Fixed some Forbidden Areas across all campaigns.
    • Fixed some issues that caused certain items to not be interactable.
    • Fixed some issues that caused certain items visibility to not update as intended.

  
  

• Campaign: Prologue
  • Fixed an issue that caused an invisible trapdoor to appear during the Prologue campaign.

• Campaign: Corrupt Hand of the Church
  • Fixed an issue that caused the Inquisitor to turn invisible in certain situations during the "The Secret Meeting" objective.
  • Fixed some issues that prevented players from getting the Inquisitor Ring during the "The Antidote" objective.
  • Fixed an issue that could cause some breakable planks to reappear after they were broken during campaign "The Corrupt Hand"
  • Added new gargoyles in Laundry.
  • Moved the special item "Broken Doll" to Mother's Superior room. This item was referenced in a conversation but was not in the correct location.
  • Moved a certain lever in Laundry's garden section. Now it is located inside the abandoned tower.
  • Fixed an issue that allowed the Wine Cellar scenario to be accessible sooner than intended.
  • Fixed some NPCs' collisions.
  • Fixed Inquisitor's Ring inside an inaccessible chicken's inventory in The Corrupt Hand of the Church campaign.
  • Fixed barricade in Laundry scenario allowing players to pass through when clicking a door behind it with mouse controls.
  • Fixed soldier in Laundry's balcony during a specific objective which was referenced in a conversation but never activated.
  • Fixed an issue that caused a certain Saint George chest in Cloister to be empty.
  • Fixed a clue inside the Laundry building that was visible even if the building was invisible.
  • Fixed a guard in the Library complaining about a fence placed in the middle of his route.
  • Tweaked Inquisitor's office puzzle to make it clearer.
  • Fixed an issue that caused a certain special corpse to disappear when a guard detected it during the "The Last Sacrifice" objective.

• Campaign Gate of St.Jerome
  • Fixed an issue that allowed hiding inside an unintended piece of furniture inside the pianist room.
  • Fixed an issue that caused a certain stained glass window to not show during a cutscene.
  • Fixed an issue that caused a certain NPC to remove Alfredo's priest costume on certain situations.
  • Fixed an issue that caused performance loss during "The Fire" objective.
  • Fixed an issue that caused Fray Pedro to become immune to knock outs if "Flies" and "Knock Out" were used in sequence during the "Screams and Shots!" objective.
  • Corrected position of light switch in pantry, so now Agnes can solve the puzzle to save Leonora in Refectorium.
  • Fixed clue leading to the pig inside the slaughterhouse.

• Audio
  • SFX for player step sounds on different surfaces have been reviewed and updated.
  • Fixed an issue that could cause Bell Ring sounds to keep ringing in certain situations.
  • Fixed an issue that caused certain music themes to keep playing after entering the Curfew phase.
  • Fixed an issue that caused certain SFX to play after loading the game.
  • Added SFX to some object interactions that lacked one.

• UI, Texts and Localization
  • Adjusted UI scaling to properly account for Windows DPI settings, preventing UI from appearing too small on high-resolution displays.
  • Fixed an issue that caused the time elapsed since last save to show incorrect values.
  • Corrected information shown during the "Get My Chickens!" objective.
  • Corrected information shown during the "The Mechanisms" objective.
  • Fixed a dialog option that didn't show up during the "The Harvest" objective.
  • Fixed several names that were not translated if Simplified Chinese was selected.
  • Fixed typos on tutorial tooltips.
  • Fixed a tooltip that was showing up before it was intended.
  • Tweaked certain objectives' texts to improve clarity.
  • Improved feedback when a character is unable to reach a clicked location.
  • Improved feedback when a dialog option is not available due to the lack of inventory space.
  • Updated video preview for some disorders, tutorials and skills.
  • Fixed some tutorials that were not showing up during the campaigns.
  • Fixed some tooltips that did not appear after possessing a Gargoyle using Agnes Possession skill when using a controller.
  • Fixed an issue that could cause some character dialogs to play on unintended situations.
  • Fixed an issue that caused some items' description to not display properly if some settings were selected.
  • Fixed a message during the campaign "Gate of St.Jerome" related to the Pianist.
  • Fixed an issue that caused the game screen to display artifacts at certain aspect ratios.
  • Fixed an issue that caused the "Take All" button to not work in certain situations.
  • Fixed an issue that caused some icons and UI elements to display in incorrect positions on certain resolution settings.
  • Fixed an issue that caused chapter number to not show on the Objective menu on certain language settings.
  • Fixed some items that were displaying the wrong description.
  • Fixed some texts that were not displaying correctly during the Night Phase.
  • Fixed an issue that caused a certain special corpse to not be marked with the intended UI marker.
  • Improved button feedback for mouse actions on different menus.
  • Fixed a few texts that did not show the correct font after selecting a different font setting.
  • Fixed several issues related to UI elements displacement after selecting certain settings.
  • Tweaked some texts across the three campaigns.
  • Fixed several generic localization issues.
  • Fixed an issue that caused an incorrect number of days to show up after curing a character disorder.
  • Updated tactical pause UI.

To those who made it this far down without despairing or unlocking a latent trauma: we salute you. And to all of you, we thank you for your patience and continuous support. It is only thanks to your feedback that so many issues could be fixed in such a short amount of time. Please be sure to join the community on Discord, and do leave us your comments about the game. Panecillo loves reading those.

We hope you continue your stay in this monastery. The beds are not the best, but they will grow on you. Maybe literally.

The Game Kitchen Development Team