Below the Stone - Locking in Addresses soon!
over 3 years ago – Mon, Apr 03, 2023 at 11:27:08 PM

Locking in Addresses sometime in the near future.

Hey guys!

I wanted to send out a quick update regarding our Kickstarter rewards. Much of what we're sending out has been created already, but we still have a few custom-made items that are being produced as we speak. Some of these include the music CD, Artbook, and the physical copy of the game which will be stored on a custom-made USB.

The artbook will contain several sections, including a Forward written by myself as the lead artist, early concept art, illustrations, characters and creatures, environments, conventions + photos, and credits to all our amazing kickstarter supporters!

Here are a couple early pages.

More will come soon, and a digital artbook will also be created for you guys to enjoy as you wait for the physical copies to ship out! We want to ship these items out when Below the Stone enters Early Access, which the date is still pending, with an intent to announce this alongside a new trailer which will be coming out! We also aim to have a public demo very soon on Steam for everyone to play. 

Keep your inbox open for the news! We want it to be a surprise.

I hope you all look forward to it, and what we're creating for you guys~. 

Thank you for everything you've done for myself and the Strollart Team. Your amazing pledges to our project has made what we are doing now possible.

- Mike @ Strollart; Below the Stone

Kickstarter Devlog 11: UI updates and preparing for Demo!
over 3 years ago – Tue, Feb 21, 2023 at 09:42:30 AM

BACKERS: Locking in orders on Backerkit & Kickstarter!

We plan on locking all orders sometime at the beginning of March. 95% of our supporters have filled our Backerkit Survey -- Make sure to check your email, and update any information such as shipping location if you had moved recently!

(2-4 minute read)

 Art updates:

   Dust sprites will be a passive creature you find in the darkness of the caverns. They are curious creatures which may follow you around, and if harmed, poof into a cloud of obscuring dust. They may also take an arrow for you if you are nice to them!

    Purple mushroom men are another friendly face you can find in the shallow layers of the caves.  They are friendly creatures which offer a source of light outside of your regular light sources you make yourself! This is an effort on our part to make sure even if a player enters the caves unprepared, there is some level of back up!

We're doing more and more work with the biomes we currently have, making sure they are polished for both the demo and Early Access!

PRIVATE DEMO! 

We plan on having a closed demo for all our Tester supporters! We've done several demos before which you have received in your emails, but this is going to be a limited time opportunity for us to receive your input directly. Please fill in the information below if you'd like to take part in a 1-on-1 test with one of the lead developers to get your input on the game before its release.

     By signing this, you have a chance to be randomly selected to take part in a Discord call. In this call, we will be taking careful notes while you play an early, pre-launch version of the game. All input is appreciated and welcomed.
https://forms.gle/gCNzh8oF5yKZEPsMA

JUNE PUBLIC DEMO!

   Later, we want to do a Public demo this year in June, followed by our Early Access release in ~July!

   Public Demo plans:
   - Streamline UI (in progress)
   - Add all Layer 1 biomes (in progress)
   - Dungeon structure gen additions (in progress)
   - Dialogue and tutorial reworks to guide new players
   - Final enemy additions

Interface updates:

   We recently welcomed a new developer on Below the Stone, Dean, who has helped us immensely on the new crafting UI. After many of you had suggested we update the blacksmith crafting design, we put together a list of our top suggestions --
   - Crafting multiple items at a time
   - "Search"/Filter functions
   - Crafting tabs
   - "Craft max" button
   - Conveniently show how many items you have
   - Show how many of an item is needed to craft a batch.

   For weeks we spoke about the design and how it could be done, and Dean made it happen. This is a preview of what we got!

We also made sure to update the Journal, an important feature in Below the Stone for players to record their progress and creatures they have encountered thus far! Player statistics will also be stored here. 

Reward updates:

   Sticker set that will be coming to you guys in the mail and in your Big Boxes!
   Featuring @DIGGYVT's artwork! I wanted to make these stickers extra special and feature original new artwork professionally done by a special person in our community, so who better than DiggyVT!


   We still have several more things to order, which are being planned and put together as we write this! Last on the list to create are the following:

Physical copy of the game:  A physical edition of the game stored on a custom BtS USB!

Shirts: Will be ordered next.

Instruction booklets/pages for physical game: Will be written and produced this year.

Art book: I will be titling: "Below the Stone, Alpha Art Edition" Which will describe some of the tales of development, and showing the evolution of the art of the game.

Closing:

   Despite the short time span, there is still quite a lot our little team needs to accomplish to get ready for our demo and Early Access, so Please join us on Discord and Twitter if you have any suggestions or simply want to follow our development as we go into release.

Again, thank you all for your amazing support.

   - Mike @ Strollart; Below the Stone

Kickstarter Devlog 10: The year 2023 -- The year of Below the Stone
over 3 years ago – Sun, Jan 08, 2023 at 03:18:13 AM

This year we plan on making Below the Stone the game that thousands will dig their time into.

(3-5 minute read)

Below the Stone is on track to release THIS YEAR! Yes I said it -- THIS YEAR. To be saying that is both exciting and surreal. To imagine we would be putting all our work out there for the world to enjoy is a monuments accomplishment that we couldn't do without our fans and supporters here on Kickstarter & Patreon. Without any further delay, here is just some of the things we have been working on to prepare for launch.

General updates:

We recently had roughly a dozen playtesters try Below the Stone to assure we're on the right path to making sure the game will be as fun as possible for when we plan on releasing. We had a few bugs and gameplay improvement issues, but mainly, testers had a huge amount of fun, and we hope to make it even more fun and long lasting for when it finally gets into our fan's hands.

We also recently added new mission types (kill quests), generation adjustments, several new enemies, and a ton of general game improvements.

Along with all this, the Cave Troll is finally in the game, but in an early state. We will be adding a boss room to dungeons to allow for the cave troll to have a more 'full' boss fight experience we plan on giving him. He will be voiced by the amazing memester Kyle Blessious, a hugely talented voice actor with years of experience in entertainment online and on radio -- More to come on this!

Art updates:

The art must flow! Below the Stone is a game about variety, so we need to make sure we keep pumping out more and more enemies to oppose novice dwarven explorers down in the undergrounds! Here is just a few new creatures, with many more in the works!

Mimics are planned to be one of the next creatures our new team member, Eric, will be working on. These chests like to get their jaws on both treasure, and treasure seeking dwarves! Their fast movement will be the bane of many adventurers. One will need to be very careful how they deal with them, particularly with other enemies about.

Stone golem has had a new animation added for when he attacks. Pixel amazingness by our new artist, Matt! He will be crashing the ceiling down with his new 'ground pound' ability. Watch out for falling rocks!

Many testers and people who played the Below the Stone demo said they loved exploring the small 'mini-dungeons' that were placed around the caves. With this in mind, I had put together plans for a potential feature that could be coming to a caving roguelike near you -- The Crypt/Catacomb.

In the current version of the game, these structures that spawn are usually 1-3 rooms, nothing much to explore, but expanding on their idea and adding theming would be to make the structures something more to adventure through, with hallways and many rooms with treasure and tombs to disturb and find!

Plans for 2023:

We plan on making 2023 the release year of Below the Stone, where we will finally publicly release the game to the world! In 2022, Below the Stone was introduced to literally millions at events like PAX, OTK Expo, and more, so we have a lot to live up to. We want to make sure the game is not only fun, but in a state where people can spend hours a day playing, and still have more to go -- which can be difficult to balance sometimes when the mid-game and end-game content is still in the works. 

We'd want to release the game in such a way that at least 2 Floors of the caverns are available at Early Access launch. This is to make sure we have as much content for players to explore, while also giving us time as developers to make sure the additional floors we add will be just as fun and thrilling!

Updates on rewards:

Nearly done the Kickstarter Box art -- This piece was VERY inspired by the art from Apogee and the amazing artist Vanette, but we wanted to make the art similar in the theme, but with a distinct style that felt like a call-back to the original Kickstarter animation art... Our original artist did this new piece because he wanted to improve the art he originally created. There's still quite a bit of work to be done, so please make any recommendations in the comments, as we want this to be the best box we can make for those who are getting it!

As you are reading this, I am working on the many rewards you guys have been waiting so long for! Some of these things include:

Physical copy of the game:  A physical edition of the game stored on a custom BtS USB!

Sticker set: Art will be done by DiggyVT!

Shirts: Will be ordered this year.

Instruction booklets/pages for physical game: Will be written and produced this year.

Art book: I will be titling: "Below the Stone, Alpha Art Edition" Which will describe some of the tales of development, and showing the evolution of the art of the game. 

Closing:

As always I want to close this 10th devlog by saying thank you to all our fans who made this happen. It really is thanks to all of you out there who made this project a reality by sharing it and supporting our development. Please join us on Discord and Twitter to continue following our development as we go along and get closer to release!

 As always thank you and I hope to hear from you guys soon!

- Mike @ Strollart; Below the Stone

Kickstarter Devlog 9: Road to Release 2023
over 3 years ago – Wed, Nov 30, 2022 at 03:27:51 PM

Splash on into the new content, Water updates, new enemy behavior, & a look at the new dungeons!

(3-5 minute read)

Below the Stone has some more mind blowing updates heading your way after expanding our team almost double what it was before. We've been hard at work setting up everything we want and need to make sure that the first experience that you, and new fans will have with Below the Stone will be an amazing and unique roguelike experience you hadn't felt before. Come join us below and see all the new stuff we've added!

What we want for the Below the Stone Demo.

Below the Stone has been a huge journey for us, one that we hope the game itself gives the feeling of when you're delving deep and risking it all in the underground! We have a list of major priorities which will be shown in this update. These priorities include:

Dungeons: The Dungeons in Below the Stone are the major milestone of progress. Dungeons are required to be conquered by dwarves in order to get to the deeper floors of the game. 

Bosses: Not only are dungeons required to be completed, there will be an ultimate test of dwarven progress with a boss who defends their treasure hoard within dungeons -- as well as access to the deeper levels of the caves. For a demo, we want to make sure that we give the full experience prior to delving to the next part of the game!

Exploration and mining improvements: Mining and exploring are 50% of what makes Below the Stone the game that rocks your world, so we need to make sure it is as exciting as the rest of the game. (More on this later!)

Combat improvements: Combat as it is now is functional, but nowhere near the strategic movement we and players want involved. Actual strategy should be involved with fighting groups of monsters. As it is now, kiting and swinging your melee weapon is the best strategy, but the improved combat will involve much more footwork and timing of your swings. (Addressed in our 'New Enemy Behavior section!)

Bug fixing: An obvious one but one worth mentioning. We do our best to avoid a buggy experience by you, the players. We hate it when a game is released with 100 bugs, and we'd hate it if you had to deal with this too. Indie-devs should know better than our Triple-AAA cousins!

The best experience for YOU READING THIS!: The most important person of all, are those who are reading this now. Whether you're a backer of our Kickstarter, a fan checking our the latest news, or someone simply cheering us on with dwarven spirit -- Below the Stone is a game FOR YOU to enjoy, and we're here to cultivate that.

MINING -- The lifeblood of Below the Stone and dwarves alike.

We also discussed many ideas we want to feature which we want to use to make mining and exploring far more exciting! This is a list of those ideas:

✨ - Glitter Traps : ores glitter in dark parts of the caves, and occasionally we will have false glittering ores, which will lead players to dark cavities and crypts within the walls which will be filled with enemies

💥 - Boom Stone : Small pockets of naturally forming highly explosive stone within walls which will shock players who don't pay attention and hit it while mining in the dark. Think of this like hitting a pocket of sulfur, it will sizzle, and blow up if you stay around!

🪨 - Cave-ins : Occasionally while mining the player may find some stone which seems already cracked/mined. BE WARNED! Hitting this will lead to a small cave-in event which will have boulders falling from the ceiling. A small shadow will give a warning as to where these boulders will land. 

🧱  - Living Walls : There will sometimes be walls which will hold stoney creatures within them, lying dormant for hundreds of years until someone decided to stick their pick in them.

⭐ - Rich Ore Veins : This was a certified Miller idea, Occasionally players will find extra dense ores inside walls, mining these will give WAY more material than regular ores, and will slowly drop ores as you hit them during mining.

💀 - Fallen Dwarves : Players will occasionally find the skeletonized remains of previous dwarven adventurers. They ill have a nearby backpack which you can open for supplies (Like a new pickaxe! or weapon!) Be warned, even the dead dwarves are greedy enough to come back to life and stop thieves!

🍯 - Vases, abandoned camps, and small ruins : Classic RPG treasures, no explanation needed.

 These are but a few of the big things coming up to reward exploration, and to make treasure seeking dwarves keep themselves on their toes. More big things coming up!

New Enemy Behavior

We are in the works of adding a 'warning system' to most of our current creatures, and also including these same systems on newly made monsters. We want to take advantage of audio and visual warnings on all our monsters for now on, giving each creature it's own unique way of attacking and warning experienced dwarves. We hope that the demo had roughly 10-15 unique enemies to encounter and face off.

We've also been making new design documents on these creatures, which you can read below, this gives a bit of insight on how we design these creatures, and how much detail we put into each one.

Dungeon & Water updates:

Dungeons, being one of the most important parts of Below the Stone, deserve a huge amount of love from us developers. What you are looking at is the work in progress version of the randomized dungeons. Before, each dungeon required us to hand-make the entire design of the layout, but this made dungeons very predictable, as there would only be so many designs until you could figure out which way to go. 

This new way will let us design individual rooms, but also randomize their placement, making it so that we get the best of both worlds -- hand designed, and randomized. Due to this, each dungeon you enter will be as dangerous as the last, you might see a familiar room once in a while, but more likely than not you will have to approach it completely different from the previous time!

This video also shows the new water that Scott Host, the developer of Raptor Remixed, helped put together! He put a lot of time and energy into making this water look amazing for Below the Stone, so he deserves all the thanks in the world for making it happen! His Kickstarter is LINKED HERE, I will also be personally helping him with it -- So make sure to sign up and support him!

LAST UPDATES & Demo:

I want to close this devlog with a HUGE thank you to you guys. We will be working throughout the rest of the holidays to make sure Below the Stone can get to your hands as soon as possible! For all of you whom kept up with us for so long, we will be emailing EVERYONE a demo to try out as an early December gift. Check your emails after reading this, and keep up with us on Discord and Twitter . 

Again, thank you all for supporting our dreams as developers, and making Below the Stone a game we love working on. It really is due to the fans that we kept going on this journey together.

Thank you, Depth Dwellers!

- Mike @ Strollart; Below the Stone

Kickstarter Devlog 8: New Artist, New Programmer, Road to Early Access & Steam Nextfest!
over 3 years ago – Thu, Oct 27, 2022 at 03:33:41 AM

Steam NextFest around the corner!

(2-4 minute read)

Below the Stone is continuing its route to release, steadily making progress toward selling on our planned launch year of 2023. Of course many things still need to happen, including some of the things we'll talk more about in this update! Come join us on the BtS adventure down below!

New team members and support!

As Below the Stone is getting closer to release, we been lucky enough to have added a few new team members to Strollart Studios! These members would include our new artist, Matt (who was originally a fan and supporter here on Kickstarter!), as well as Eric "Vecima", our new programmer working on Below the Stone (who we had met while showing Below the Stone at Boston earlier this year). We also had Scott Host, developer of Raptor: Call of the Shadows temporarily lend us more than a decade of experience in shaders to help the new water tiles in the game.

On top of all this great news, we recently had a new community manager join the team, DiggyVT, who made this amazing art for us! He plans on helping us around Discord and with future Below the Stone content/events, so look forward to seeing more of this!

They all have helped us a ton, and have added so much to our team. Much of this updated is dedicated to them, and what they have brought to Below the Stone. We'd love to see what you think of their work in the comments! Without further delay, here is some of the new content!

Art Updates:

New 'Elven Mummy' enemy coming to the 'arid biome' of floor 2 of the caves.

 The arid caverns are going to be a subsection of the caves which spawn rare and unique resources. You can see a bit of our early concept below. What sort of cool enemies do you think could also join our Elf Mummy here?

We also discussed plans on adding pets to the game, which will assist by giving passive buffs during your runs Below the Stone!

We explored many new enemies over the course of the month. including the Imp and Cave Crab!

We also completely revamped the old dirt biome. Before it was quite generic, but now we added much more life to the game, while also balancing out the resources that will exist there. Each biome will have its own unique ecosystem, with enemies, creatures that live there, and resources to collect. The dirt/soil biome will be one of the first places many people (like you reading this) will encounter when first starting the game!

Below the Stone's water is also getting a big update visually. We don't have any screenshots to show in-game yet, but here is our almost finished work! Scott Host, the original creator and developer of Raptor: Call of the Shadows is lending us a hand with his decade+ experience with creating shaders like this. We plan on the different liquids such as lava, acid pools, and more having similarly cool effects.

New world generation

Biomes are an important part of Below the Stone, along with the variety of creatures, resources, and equipment you can get. We're inspired by games like Terraria, but to an even grander scale as we make our spelunking roguelike.

We want the biomes to get more difficult as you explore out to the edges, while also making it so there is a balanced difficulty curve, this is where the "Donut" solution has come in -- Where biomes will form something close to imperfect 'circles' around the middle where you enter the caves. Each layer will have its own version of this, so every descent will have a totally new combination of zones!

BOX ART & Merch update

 As for the progress of rewards, we've been hard at work on the design of the Kickstarter Big Box! Here is an early preview of what that will look like!

We still need several physical items to be produced, such as the art book, physical edition of the game, shirt, and several other things. We're considering making our physical edition of the game the original Beta release of the game for archival purposes, so those who originally supported the game will have an 'OG' copy of the game that first comes out to the public. Myself, and the whole team cannot wait for the Big Box to be done!

Closing⛏️

Many more things are happening in the background, even with all this big news to share. Please keep up with us on Discord & Twitter. We still have a few months before we get to Steam Nextfest, and we wouldn't be anywhere close to where we are now without supporters like yourselves. 

Thank you, and see you soon!

- Mike @ Strollart; Below the Stone