Hello everyone! A big update is here and we need your help to playtest living shadoodle out of it! This update comes with a complete new game mechanic and a rebalancing of more that 70% of the current stones in the game.
The update also includes a first iteration of a new player tutorial so if you haven’t tried Stones of Power yet, now is a great moment to try it out and give us all the feedback you can.
Energy and Activation
The biggest change in this update by far is the introduction of energy. We wanted to add more interesting choices for the player in the core game loop in addition to placing stones. This feature has given us a broader design space to create new and interesting stone abilities but also enabled us to balance some problematic stones (looking at you Hematite 👀). Activated abilities also open up new opportunities for players to be smart.
Energy in Stones of Power is used to activate the abilities of your stones on the board. They require different amounts of energy and once the stone is activated the ability happens directly
This game mechanic changes the dynamic of the game a lot and we would love to hear what your thoughts are around this system. Share a screenshot of you defeating the Abyssal OP AF in our Discord and you will be granted the role of “Abyssal slayer” for the ultimate bragging rights!
Added Tutorial
There is now a short tutorial for the Path of Initiation. It is a lightweight tutorial that focuses on getting players onboarded quickly into the basic gameplay mechanics.
If you are a new player we would greatly appreciate any feedback you have on this tutorial. Feel free to add your thoughts as a comment to this post or join our discord and give us the feedback there!
New Stones
Amazonite - Common Stone
Abilities
Preparation: Give +1 power to all neighbours for the turn
On Activate: Give +2 power to all neighbours for the turn
Yellow Stone - Starter Stone
Abilities
On Activate: Push neighbours away
Game Balance
With the new energy system, the abilities of the following stones have been rebalanced:
- Aquamarine
- Blue stone
- Clear Quartz
- Fluorite
- Gold
- Hematite
- Magnetite
- Marble
- Moss Agate
- Onyx
- Picric Acid Crystal
- Pietersite
- Purple Fluorite
- Pyrite
- Pyrrhotite
- Red Stone
- Sardonyx
- Soapstone
- Stalactite
- Torbernite
- Tungsten
- White Opal
Other changes
- Ground animations sped up even more
- A bunch of bug fixes