Hello miners!
Check out the full development process, visual breakdowns of the improvements, and a sneak peek at the new animations in our latest devlog video below:
The Steam Summer Sale is officially starting today, and Deepstone Rift is part of it with a special discount!
To celebrate, we have just pushed a major update packed with brand new features, highly requested improvements, and extensive quality of life changes based directly on your play feedback. We took a hard look at the areas that were causing friction or hurting the player experience, and we’ve spent the last few weeks polishing them to a shine.
Here is a deep dive into all the new features and improvements hitting the game today:
1. Brand New Sprint & Stamina System
The Gameplay Flow: Deepstone Rift features two distinct core phases you mine resources on the left side of the map, and you defend against incoming threats on the right side.
The Improvement: When the mining timer runs out, rushing across the map to build and prepare was taking up too much precious time and felt frustrating. We have added a dedicated sprint mechanic tied to a brand-new stamina bar, complete with crisp new animations to completely improve how moving feels.
The Strategy: Use it wisely! If you burn all your stamina dodging threats during intense combat, you won't have any left to sprint back to the mines. This introduces a great new layer of tactical choice to your resource runs.
2. Technical Improvement: RVO Pathfinding
The Issue: Previously, whenever a fast-moving enemy caught up to a slower enemy unit, it would run directly into it, clipping through the 3D model and looking incredibly messy.
The Fix: We have updated the enemy AI pathfinding using RVO (Reciprocal Velocity Obstacles). Fast enemies will now dynamically calculate a path around slower units in real time, passing them smoothly without overlapping.
3. Total Health Bar & UI Polish
Bug Squashed: We isolated and fixed a weird bug where hitting an enemy caused their health bar to randomly flash pitch black before resetting.
Juicier Combat: Health bar colors now work perfectly, and the bars themselves are cleaner and more compact. We’ve also added subtle visual screen shake on impact to make your weapon hits feel substantially punchier.
New UI Elements: We designed custom, unique health bars specifically for your defense doors and your own stamina bar.
Economy Management: Defense doors will now clearly display the exact gold amount required for repairs right on the UI, allowing you to manage your economy mid fight without guessing.
4. Massive Readable Fonts
The Problem: Originally, we used a basic font just to ensure we supported every single language out of the box. Unfortunately, it compressed poorly and looked oddly blurry at different resolutions, causing real eye strain.
The Fix: We've totally reworked the system, hunting down specific, clean fonts for every single language we support and generating high quality assets inside Unity. Text is now bigger, incredibly sharp, and beautifully readable.
5. Re-designed Menus & Dedicated Reset Button
Main Menu: The old layout featured buttons that were far too small, and text would spill out if expanded. Pulling from UI lessons we learned the hard way on our last game, Northend Tower Defense, we threw out the old horizontal layout. We switched to a clean vertical stack with massive buttons, highly readable text, and a prominent community feedback button.
Dedicated Reset Button: Previously, if your strategy was failing and you wanted to retry a level, you had to exit all the way to the main menu and load back in, killing the flow of the game. We listened to your feedback and added a dedicated Reset Button directly inside the pause menu to instantly restart the map.
End Game Screen: We carried the same clean design language over to the victory/defeat screen, scaling up text for readability and using a vertical button stack so the entire game loop feels cohesive and polished.
Upgrade Tree: The old skill tree description text was tiny and blurry. We re-engineered the text blocks to be significantly bigger, sharper, and smoother to navigate.
6. Reworked Tutorial & Feature Introductions
Flow Improvements: In the old tutorial build, players were forced to lose a wave just to teach them how to use the upgrade tree. Losing in a tutorial doesn't feel great, so we fixed it. Now, you win the battle first and are introduced to the upgrade tree while feeling victorious.
Target Queuing: We discovered some players were missing a major gameplay feature, so the tutorial now explicitly teaches you how to target specific rocks for your diggers to mine, completely optimizing your economy.
7. Important Bug Fixes
The Treasure Chest Bug: Previously, when you opened a treasure chest to pick a card, the game was supposed to pause, but players could still slide around and mine rocks in the background. We've locked this down; time now freezes perfectly when cards are up, ensuring clean, exploit-free gameplay.
8. Recolored Act2 Maps
Recolored Act2 maps to reflect new biome look, to make more variations to the game, and be more consistent, with the visual goals we have in mind.
If you've been waiting for the perfect time to jump back into the mines, grab the game during the Steam Summer Sale discount and check out all the new updates!