Stoneshard & Police Stories: Release Dates Reveal Next Week
We at Hypetrain Digital have exciting news for both Police Stories and Stoneshard coming your way!
Next Monday, JUNE 10 5:30 pm PT (Tuesday, 11 June 2:30 am CEST), we will announce the exact release dates for both games and also a new gameplay footage! Tune and be the first to learn all the details!
Feel like you could've forgotten some aspects of these games? We're glad to help you with a quick rundown!
Stoneshard is an immersive hybrid of roguelike and RPG. In it you travel through procedurally generated world of Aldor as an opportunistic adventurer with his caravan. On your journey you will manage your own needs and those of your followers, fight relentless enemies while trying to preserve your own life and sanity. All while creating your own unique hero and shaping the fate of the whole country.
Police Stories is a top-down tactical shooter, in which you play as on-duty police officers — John Rimes and Rick Jones. Create a unique loadout out of multiple equipment choices and carefully coordinate your actions with your partner to fulfill your task. Just remember that you don't have permission to shoot on sight — less-lethal approach is preferred.
In order to not get lost in all the news coming from E3 — subscribe to HypeTrain Digital publisher page and our Twitter and Facebook. We will make sure you don't miss any important bits of information from us!
Famous Video Game and Movie Cops that couldn't make it into Police Stories
Robocop
There is just so much that we love about the original Robocop movies: great satire mocking mega-corporations and blind consumerism, incredible action that holds up to this day, and even stands out among modern fights in cinema; gripping story about a protagonist finding his lost self and unleashing vengeance on the villians who robbed him of his normal life.
But as cool as Robocop is -- meeting him in real life would be scary, even if you’re not a criminal. His sense of justice is heightened to an extreme, where he would uphold the law in an extreme way - even in the most trivial cases.
Leon S. Kennedy
One of, if not the most recognisable characters from Resident Evil games. He officially worked for Raccoon City LPD for a whopping one day! But we’re sure that he would make a great police officer in real life.
Though, it’s debatable, how Leon himself would think of such an opportunity. If he didn’t go to work in Raccoon City LPD, his life as a cop would be a lot more mundane. Just patrolling the local suburbs and filling tons of paperwork. And anything beats paperwork -- even being chased by an ex-bodybuilder, dressed up in a trench coat and fedora!
Since there are no zombies in Police Stories, Leon would probably be pleasantly surprised that his assailants don’t take two boxes of ammo to put down. With his experience, he would be fine adapting to the new surroundings and make an overall great in-game cop. Though, we suspect that being such a hoarder, Leon would probably stash away any ‘herbs’ he would find at the crime scene!
Max Payne
One of the first things that comes to mind when discussing the crime fiction is, of course, noire. And if we’re talking noire in video games -- story of Max Payne is one of the most famous ones.
While working as a police detective Max is very focused on his task. But his determination mostly stems from his vendetta. Maybe, in a different life, where his family wasn’t brutally murdered, he’d be a regular cop and his life would go mostly uneventful. Still, being your regular police detective is a great deal of work anyway!
Now let’s imagine he’d end up in Police Stories. Maybe with a different background, but retaining his signature ‘Bullet time’ mechanic. Max would probably become a polar opposite of Robocop — acing every mission, while taking his sweet, sweet time deciding on what course of action he would take! Please nerf!
Which cop do you think would make the cut for Police Stories? Share your thoughts with us!
Don’t forget that Police Stories releases soon, so add it to your wishlist!
Thank you for your interest in our games! Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter to stay updated.
Level Editor, Nintendo Switch, Final polishing
Hello, officers!
We’re happy to share some fresh news about Police Stories development.
Level Editor
Right now we’re working on the Level Editor. It will be available for Windows as a separate free application and will feature Steam Workshop integration. We really hope you will have a lot of fun sharing your creations and playing community created levels!
The plan is to ship the editor with the base game on release, but we don’t have any hard release date just yet.
Nintendo Switch
We’re almost done with the Nintendo Switch port! It took us a bit more time to polish everything and make some final changes. But we’ve made sure to provide the best portable experience. The Nintendo Switch version will be slightly different from the PC version of the game: it will feature only a couch co-op, but you’ll be able to play with just one Joy-Con.
We will make an official announcement once we have an eShop page and a new trailer ready.
What’s next?
Now we need to add sprint animations for suspects
Apart from the Level Editor we’ve finalized all the main parts of the game. What we have to do now is put them all together. Currently we’re working on implementing tutorial tips and story cutscenes. Police Stories will not only provide a tactical action, but will also keep you engaged till the very end with a detective story full of twists! We’ve also listened to your feedback and added more depth to AI behaviour. Suspects might now try to avoid open confrontation and leave the room to find a more advantageous position for the firefight.
We’re expecting that we will need 2 more months to implement all the features and finish language localization.
P. S.
Thanks to everyone who played Police Stories during PAX South this January. It was a great deal of fun!
For the last several weeks we’ve been transferring the project to GameMaker Studio 2. Finishing this part of the development process allowed us to proceed to implementing some of the features we had planned for quite a while. As you can see on the gif, Police Stories is now both working on Mac and has a controller support!
For now the Right Stick is responsible for aiming, which isn’t very convenient. We’re going to upgrade it with a more classic twin-stick approach, plus a special button combination to command your partner. Luckily, the menu is optimized for the controller since the very beginning, so most of the work is already done.
Adding a controller support required us to upgrade the whole input system. It turned out to be a good thing, as now we’re able to implement changing control keys more easily.
After finishing this part of the development, we’re moving to widely anticipated Couch Co-op. Aside from the tech side, it also includes update of the HUD.
Here is a small list of features we’re doing next:
Suspect’s AI improvement – Escaping from the room or the level
Destructible walls (not every wall will be destructible)
Difficulty Settings for each mission
Tutorial tooltips
Enhanced smoke/gas grenade mechanics
And don’t forget about the Storyline. We have some progress there as well! Even though mentioned features will take quite a time in implementation, we believe that they are necessary to make a game lots of people will enjoy.
Police Stories Alpha 2 is here, be first to check it out
Hello officers!
I'm happy to invite you to try out Police Stories Alpha 2. This Open Alpha update features 3 levels, one of which is available in Open Alpha for the first time.This version also includes some of the new mechanics we worked on as long with 3 kinds of enemies, each having different difficulty and weapon set.
This is the final update for our Open Alpha before the game release. Keep in mind that this is the Alpha version of the game, so it might contain bugs. We encourage you to report all the bugs and other problems you might encounter during your playtime.
This version of Police Stories has 3 levels and 3 kinds of enemies. Each type of enemy has different weaponry and difficulty. We also made sure to add some new equipment to play with. Including brand new Heavy Ammo that pierces through doors.
Full version of the game will have lots of equipment to choose from, an online co-op and a story mode on release.
Thank you for playing our Open Alpha! Don’t forget to add the game to your Steam Wishlist so you wouldn’t miss the full release.
Current Development Status, Open Alpha Update, and more
Hey, officers!
It’s been awhile since we last shared details on our development process. But rest assured, we’ve been working hard on making sure that Police Stories is worth the wait.
The most important and time-consuming part of the development lately was the story. We’ve been working day and night to think of the best way to tell you the stories of John Rimes and Rick Jones. A lot of the ideas got scrapped because they were not good enough for our players. We want to give you the best experience with our game and now we’re finally on the right track.
Of course, our team was also working on improving the game from the inside. We improved our AI for both Rick and enemies. Now they’re doing a much better job at finding their way around with our improved pathfinding system. Also we’ve added the ability to shoot through the doors.
Additionally we worked on polishing the visual effects. Melee combat is now way more impactful as we’ve added blood splats. We’ve updated the explosion effect and some of the animations, for example the one for the stunned enemies.
And most importantly, we’ve decided to update our Free Alpha next week!
We know that a lot of players want to try out some of the cool features they saw in all the new Police Stories gameplay videos. We heard you and we will deliver. We’re adding a new mission for you to play, some new items you’ve probably seen on the videos and some other Closed Beta content. But no Co-op – this part stays exclusive for the Kickstarter backers.
Unfortunately, we can’t give you a release date of the full version yet. At the moment there are still so many aspects affecting the timeframe at which we’ll be able to deliver you the full version of Police Stories.
That’s all for now! Of course, all the feedback, opinions and bug reports are highly appreciated. Join our Discord channel to take a part in the discussion.
[Kickstarter] Multiplayer, now available in Police Stories Beta
Hello, officers!
We’re happy to announce that, starting now, all Kickstarter backers can try out Online Multiplayer in Police Stories Beta!
All of the tactical equipment works online - so you can heal and revive your partner, use C4 and other types of tactical gear to successfully complete even the toughest missions, together with a friend!
If you’re searching for someone to partner up with, there’s no better place to look than the official Police Stories Discord Server! Also we’re really looking forward to getting feedback about multiplayer’s online stability, as well as the game in general - so in any case, be sure to post your thoughts in Steam Discussions.
[Kickstarter] Updated Closed Beta is now Live for all backers
Greetings, officers!
Check the updated Closed Beta of Police Stories, which is now available to all Kickstarter backers. To find your key please check email from ib@hypetraindigital.com.
It includes the tactical tools which you can equip before starting a new level and use during the operation, new sprint mechanic, breakable windows and VHS effect (can be disabled in the settings). We unlocked first 3 missions, so that you can jump into new levels without having to play first two missions from Alpha again.
Here is a full list of available equipment:
Smoke Grenade
Motion Sensor
C4
Defibrillator
Pepper Spray
First Aid Kit
(we will add more tools in the full game, some mechanics will be updated as well)
Use [1], [2], [3], [4] buttons to select equipment while playing. We will be grateful for any feedback regarding the use of tactical equipment and any issues you might stumble upon while testing it. We want to make these items highly useful and fun so that player can rely more on a tactical approach rather than on the reaction time alone.
Please note that we’ve disabled multiplayer options for some time (couple of weeks) since it needs more polishing. We will unlock it back soon.
You can leave all your feedback in Police Stories Steam Discussions or Official Discord Server (Every backer will be given a special color theme there). We’ll be back soon with more news and updates.
Commands in a row
Just a little note to keep you updated!
While improving player's interaction with AI mate, we finally decided to add an option to give him commands in a row.
For such an interaction we use holding SHIFT + RMB for now, but may change to something else. Maybe it should be a standard option – your thoughts are highly welcome. Also some UI visualization and changes to officers' speech are definitely needed.
Equipment in Police Stories
Stealth is what you’ll use in Police Stories a lot. We've also been pretty stealthy with the development lately. But let's put an end to this!
Today, we’d like to share some info about the use of tactical equipment in Police Stories.
With a few changes to the controls layout, the player can now use all equipment without the help of a partner: explode doors with a C4, throw motion sensors and smoke grenades, use pepper spray to neutralize suspects and many other equipment will be available at your disposal!
We did not reach the desired polish on both visuals and some in-game mechanics, but our final goal is to get the game to a point where the player can spend hours experimenting with different tactics for better results. Also, since all equipment will be unlocking gradually with your in-game progress, you’ll be able to replay old missions with new equipment - and maybe get a higher score!
