20% off for 1 more week! Big update coming in August/September
We have only 1 week left in the Steam Summer sale. Below the Stone is 20% off for a limited time. All the positive reviews are incredible appreciated by the team, and we'd love to have you all join the discord for the news of our roadmap coming soon!
We plan on having a huge update near the middle of September, revising parts of the kingdom, giving better access to layer 2 of the caves, more NPCs, multiple new missions, and giving players the full layer 1 + 2 experience before delving deeper into development of layers 3 and beyond.
Let us know what you're looking forward to most, because we'll be listening to player input from old and new players alike these coming months.
- Mike @ Strollart; Below the Stone
Hotfix! - Alpha 0.5.4
Changelog:
# Alpha 0.5.4 - Hotfix
[Fixes] * Fixed an issue with spikes being able to kill things after they have already died * Fixed an issue where dead creatures could be "killed again" by certain effects like "burning". Leading to more than one loot drop for that creature.
Small Content Update! - Alpha 0.5.3
Enjoy! This update includes some new content, plus some improvements to combat based on player feedback. And many other bug fixes.
Changelog:
# Alpha 0.5.3 - Small Update
[New Features] * "Unfortunate Dwarves" can be found in the caves. * Added a few new dungeons with new traps inside of them. [Music] * Added 3 new tracks! "Iss'songr" "The Eye of the Geode" "Domain Mundane" [Caves Awakening] * Reduced shade spawns by 50%. * Reduced Nightmare damage to 80. * Reduced Nightmare AoE frequency to 2 seconds. * Made Nightmare hittable. It will now disappear and reposition when hit. [Improvements] * Updated melee weapon sweep effects so that they more closely match up with the "attack area" of the melee weapon. * Updated "hit collateral" of all melee weapons to 10. Most of you probably don't notice this stat existed. [Fixes] * Shopkeep no longer sells bottles, it's been replaced with glass shards. * Fixed another issue with wardrobe rendering. * Fixed bug where you could get infinite wood from golden chests. This was solved by disabling chest breaking for now. But now the colliders are soft.
Caves Awaken Hotfix - Alpha 0.5.2 - IMPORTANT COMMUNITY MESSAGE
Hello again my bearded brethren! We have another well deserved hotfix for Below The Stone.
Before moving onto the changes, I do have something important to say, and I want to make sure everyone reads this.
So, admittedly, Alpha 0.5 was not released with the amount of grace we were hoping. There have been quite a few bugs, and many other bits of confusion here and there. And we want to clarify some of those things, and also state more clearly our plans related to the Caves Awaken update. Also, you will have a chance here to shape our plans for future updates as well, just be sure to read this entire post ;)
Firstly, the "Caves Awakening" feature we have added in Alpha 0.5 was originally meant to be a timed event that triggered if you spent a certain amount of time in the caves. After that point, "shade creatures" of increasing levels of difficulty would spawn the longer you stayed in the caves. However, later in development there was a quick shift to changing it so the shades would only be player triggered, either by using a lodestone, or defeating a cave troll. But there were concerns from some people in the team about how players would respond to that and how it affected other features that were also being introduced in Alpha 0.5.
With this being said, we have changed it back so that the Caves Awakening events are timed, in the same fashion as I mentioned before, as they were originally planned to function. But also, we want everyone to know that we do not intend on this being the final behavior of the Caves Awakening system. This is where you come in! We want your feedback on what you think about the current state of the system (after playing this new update). Whether you hate it, like it, whatever you think, but we want your 2 cents! We also want to hear about if you have other ideas for the Caves Awakening system. If you think it should be triggered in different ways.
One way or another, we'd love to get your feedback on this feature. The best way to reach us and give us your feedback would be on our Discord server https://discord.com/invite/MW72QReXKh Where we already listen to people feedback every day.
We will also be posting an updated roadmap soon for what you can look forward to in Caves Awaken Part II, combat update, and Kingdom content.
With this being said, thank you for reading this post, enjoy the update, and we will see you in the caves! ⛏ Rock and Stone!
Changelog:
Alpha 0.5.2 - Hot Fix
[Fixes] * Reverted the Cave Awakening system to be entirely time based. The events will begin after being in the caves for 10 minutes. * Added haunted skull creature to cave troll dungeon. Since we never actually made it spawn anywhere in [[Alpha 0.5]] even though we said we added it. * Fixed an issue where gamepad ui navigation would break on main menu in certain situations. * Moved a thing that could be seen on the main menu for people with super widescreen monitors (or high aspect ratio windows). * Fixed a potential crash related to the Megamap. * Fixed a "ghost block" bug where sometimes certain tiles would not be updated at the correct time, leading to the colliders not being disabled, leading to an air block that is solid. * Fixed an issue where revealing a lodestone structure with another lodestone would mark it with a skull icon on the Megamap, when it should've used the lodestone icon. * Fixed an issue where having either of the Cave Maps closed would cause parts of the map color data to not be updated the way it should, leading to "gaps" in the fog of were where the player definitely was, but it still looks black, like they were never there. * Fixed an error where updating the Cavemap color data could cause an out of bounds error.
[Improvements] * Made Megamap resolution able to adapt based on the game view's resolution and aspect ratio. Which assures that the Megamap never gets stretched in strange ways. * Added more options for higher fps caps for the "limit framerate" slider in video menu. * Lodestones are now a lot less likely to reveal a structure that has already been revealed. Keep in mind, this can't always be guaranteed. The game doesn't track what structures you've visited on your own. * Lodestone now reveals 2 different structures, rather than just 1. This is something we can adjust in the future though.
Caves Awaken Update - Alpha 0.5.1 Hotfix Update
Please disregard the previous steam announcement regarding a hotfix, as that was not the intended hotfix update to go out. This is the actual update with all of the fixes that were.
Changelog:
Alpha 0.5.1 - Hot Fix
[Fixes] * Fixed both Minimap and Megamap not rendering at all. * Fixed issue with bats that caused many other creature's ai's to not function at all. * Fixed issue with "Nightmare" creature. * Fixed Minimap being visible in Kingdom.
[Tweaks] * Slightly reduced the health of bat to counter the fact that bats can't be hit when idle now. * CURRENTLY Caves Awaken only begins when killing the troll boss
Caves Awaken Update -- HOTFIX 1
HOT FIX 1 IS OUT NOW!
Thank you for being patient with the team as we worked on fixing these initial bugs in this update. We plan on sending out another hot fix either today or tomorrow to address the issues that still persist with the new "mega map" feature we've been excited to show. Keep up to date with the most recent news either on Discord or on our Steam Discussions page
Change Log:
Alpha 0.5 - Hot fix 1 - Caves Awaken Part 1
[Fixes] * fixed bat "verticality" bug where bat's hitbox would be placed incorrectly * fixed issue where bats were causing enemies to stand still in certain circumstances (part of the bat verticality bug) * fixed minor rendering issue on a certain new big bad enemy * fixed minimap being open in the Kingdom
[UPCOMING CHANGES FOR NEXT HOT FIX] * addressing "mega map" not rendering caves and "fog-of-war" * mini map will return to showing nearby locations/caves * lodestone interaction will discover new areas for you * mega map working on controller * and more
Again, thank you for being patient with our team as we try to get these updates out to you as quick as possible.
Caves Awaken Part I -- Update
Below the Stone's new Caves Awaken Part 1 update is now out!
Delve your way through new structures, enemies, and many community driven additions we've continued to work on to improve the game. The "Mega Map" is a new expandable map which will come in handy at pointing out undiscovered structures. By interacting with Lodestones, you will spot nearby structures and dungeons on your map, which will help in getting to layer 2 of the caves! We plan on expanding this feature more with further updates, adding new ways to sense nearby goodies and objectives to complete.
We'll soon be working on Part 2 of the update, which will include new missions, saving NPCs, new enemies, treasures, and more things to do while in the caves. Layer 2 will get a heavy focus in the next update, and we want to include new methods of getting to the second layer (such as saving the engineer dwarf and building a drill pod to skip layers).
We will be sending out an updated roadmap soon.
If you hadn't yet, please join our Discord for more game updates, and write in on our Discord/Steam Community page if you have suggestions/ideas/bugs you have found.
Change Log:
Alpha 0.5 - Caves Awaken Part 1
[New Features] * Added "Caves Awakening" timed event to the caves. After interacting with lodestones, A timer will begin which will spawn new "Shade" enemies, that will begin to thwart your run. * Added "Megamap" to accompany the Minimap. With a larger map, you can now see much further and get a better sense of places you've explored. And look for good places to explore more. You can also pan around the view with mouse (panning only works for Keyboard at the moment, Controller support for this feature will be added soon). * Added "map markers" within the Megamap. Most markers will represent interesting/important locations to explore to in the caves. This will reduce the amount of aimless wandering the player has to do to make considerable progress in the caves. * Lodestones will be visible on your larger map immediately, giving a direction to head toward the moment you finish generating caves. * Interacting with Lodestones will now show structures on your minimap. * Added cool dwarf animation to Cave Generating screen (thanks to PixelPigeon)! * Added settings for screen shake intensity. So yall can now tone it down a bit. * Added haunted skull enemy. * Added boom-stone ore to caves.
[Bat Improvements] * Bats are no longer guaranteed to attack you every time (your muscle memory may take some time to adjust to this, lol). Sometimes bats may fly around and just ignore you. * Bats now have proper movement when they die (they dynamically fall to the ground). They also move up a bit when perching. * Bats are now invulnerable when perched. * Bats may sometimes group up and follow other bats around.
[Improvements] * Updated music system to change how songs are played. Songs should no longer cut off other songs abruptly. And new songs will be played when moving into a different biome. * All potion's are now crafted with a new item, "glass shards", which replaces the glass bottle ingredient in any potion recipes. * Glass bottles are effectively being replaced by glass shards. Any place where you could get glass bottles, you now get glass shards instead. (Glass bottles still exist in your inventory, so you are free too treasure them). * Updated which songs play in which biomes to more closely reflect theming (Certain songs are meant for specific biomes).
[Fixes] * Fixed a bug where being too close to some breakable objects would result in the pickaxe hit not registering. * Flying bats no longer make ripples in water. * Fixed skull head cosmetic using the wrong data. * Fixed a bug where the wardrobe dwarf preview would not display properly.
BORE BELOW Bundle! 10% off our new dwarven duo collab!
In the heart of any dwarf is the urge to seek the depths. Dig deep into the pixelart dwarven roguelike duo of BORE BLASTERS & BELOW THE STONE. Find dwarven delights buried deep below the rock and stone, bore your way into the treasure that awaits in this bundle. ːcraftsdwarfː
This dwarven duo have joined forces to provide you with the 'BORE BELOW' bundle! This Bundle includes both BELOW THE STONE by Strollart Studios, and BORE BLASTERS, by 8BitSkull.
Below the Stone is now 20% off ahead of the Caves Awaken updates!
Caves Awaken part 1 & 2 are meant to be our Rock and Stone/Bread and Butter when it comes to player feedback and content that we plan on introducing. More to do in the caves and kingdom has always been our plans, and this is the realization of those plans coming to life. If there are any features, fixes, suggestions you look forward to most, please let us know either here on Steam discussions, or in our Discord Channel
Reviews have been incredibly helpful to us reaching more people, improve the team's morale, and improving the game!
Below the Stone -- Our gamedev journey.
We wanted to put together a video describing the journey of making Below the Stone for everyone who has been interested in our journey. We plan on making uploads about the game more regularly, and posting our efforts to continue improving the game in the future.
Please feel free to leave a comment, give a like, or drop a review on the game to help us out as we continue making the game better and better through Early Access!
