Stoneshard Devlog – Knockback and UI

Stoneshard, a roguelike RPG from Ink Stains Games will be coming to Kickstarter in early 2018, but, according to the game’s Steam page, a lot of work has been put into it already. The latest development update, for example, explains the role of knockback in Stoneshard’s turn-based roguelike combat and showcases the game’s revamped UI. Check it out:

Greetings elves, dwarves and players!

Another devlog that sheds light on mechanics before we reveal interesting innovations. A fun, but quite important knockback mechanic is a necessary part of Stoneshard combat system. We will also show you the UI we are developing and take a little look forward.

So, the knockback. In a genre where correct positioning traditionally means half of the success, the “enforced” movement of the hero and enemies looks like an interesting opportunity, adding a challenge and making the player evaluate the situation carefully.

Knockback can be triggered by some skills after usage, as well as maces, two-handed hammers or simply by large creatures – in case of critical hits. By the way, if there is another enemy behind the knocked enemy, an impenetrable tile or some other object, they both receive additional crushing damage, the amount of which depends on the number of HPs of the colliding objects. Throwing an ogre on the back of a standing rat (or vice versa), you are most likely to crush a poor animal. This opens many interesting tactical opportunities, for example to watch how the collapsing enemies die, or how a heavily armored skeleton breaks the crates behind him, is hell a lot of fun.

Now a more complete teaser of what takes the most time from us last week. The new interface that came to replace the simpler previous one. Perhaps some players liked our old design much more, but we were prompted by the obsolete obsolescence of the previous UI. It was created at the very beginning of our work on the game, and now just doesn’t meet our requirements. Attempts to adapt turned out to be meaningless, and we drew again most of the menus and windows from scratch taking into account new features and capabilities. However, we will return to this topic in one of the following devdiaries when we finish the work.