Recent reviews by ⸸ Gobbo ⸸

TLDR; a difficult rogue-like worth supporting despite its slow updates, solid 8/10.

There's two must know things about Stoneshard that being unaware of seems to cause the most negative reception.
1. The developers are a small team that are active within their community but put out updates for the game at a relatively slow pace. Development started in earnest 2018, early access launched in 2020, and we're not yet close to the finish line. Progress is there, potential is absolutely there, but it's still something to be aware of.
2. The rogue-like is so true to form here that it's borderline to full-blown masocore ("a focus on intense difficulty, often featuring complex or unfair mechanics" definitely describes it well). Difficulty is the goal, challenge is the constant, death is the expected, and it won't be everyone's cup of tea.

Having said that: it's still a fantastic game.

++ all the rogue-like bases are covered
++ stands on its own two feet as a unique take to the genre in a package that you'll be hard pressed to find elsewhere
++ the promise of a challenge is definitely delivered here, all without relying solely on RNG
++ almost every aspect of preparation matters (not just personal knowledge), and can be the difference between survival and another "You Are Dead" screen
++ lots of build variety that directly impacts how you play
++ fast travel system is a caravan that comes with portable shops + save & its own upgrade system
++ not getting any good loot? Pfffffch, we can make it! >:D
+ exploring the map, taking your time, and progressing slowly is both heavily rewarded and encouraged
+ very stylised, clean & well-done pixel art
+ simple UI that is easy to use and understand

+/- RNGesus has blessed us with its "balanced" presence, now get your chess goggles on and pray. I wouldn't hesitate to bring your Goats to this one; we ain't playin main characters with plot armor to protect them here.
+/- NPCs don't magically know when you've stolen goods, or what you've stole (guards, on the other hand, will still know about stolen goods from across the map & be able to identify exactly what was stolen from a glance @@)
+/- currently lacks any narrative depth (though developers have very clearly stated that it's among the last of their priorities)

- - a fast forward button is sorely missed when making long (and slow) treks on foot
- - the lack of a respec system is brutal; wherever the stat and/or skill points go, that's where they stay. This can completely cripple a build and force you to have to completely restart the character over from scratch when you get around level 12 and realise your build hits like a wet paper towel and/or gets yeeted into the sun from a casual breeze.
- no save/autosave system outside of manually doing so at a bed means each and every death comes with some form of back-tracking (caravan update mitigated this a decent amount, and bedrolls do exist, but the pain remains)
- has a very steep learning curve

Sure, it's worth 2$.
But treat it as a 2$ game led by developers with a bad track record, as overall it's just not worth your time and certainly not worth full price.
Though if you're here for the PVP mode, save your money.

- Game is over 6 years old, and has always been PVE exclusive, yet they decided to add a PVP mode this late into its life. While this in itself wouldn't be an issue, they adjusted the balance of the ENTIRE game to fit this new PVP mode. Don't be fooled into thinking this was in actual development for years, Fatshark themselves have stated they only started in Spring 2023 despite announcing and subsequently shelving it in 2019.
- A Versus style PVP mode being put into a PVE exclusive game that revolves around the brutal efficiency of a team immediately removing threats (and has always been balanced around a PVE exclusive playstyle, in every aspect) is not a good choice. This style of mode only works in places like L4D2 because they made the game with it in mind from the get go and there aren't a bunch of PVE skills/equipment around. Most specials don't even have strafing animations.
- said new PVP mode should have been left in the oven longer. Poorly designed, poorly executed, and packed to the brim with bugs instead of features. It even has no matchmaking criteria (an issue that cannot be fixed thanks to their releasing this system to a dwindling playerbase of primarily PVE preferring players that can't support an MMR system), leaving veterans who've clocked in thousands of hours of merciless efficiency mopping the floor with new players as a constant.
- said new PVP mode's queues are relatively inactive + there's no option for premade/private lobbies.
- Game now tries to force install Windows Edge Runtime every time the game is launched.
- EAC got shoved into the game, over 6 years past its original launch and all thanks to said new half-baked PVP mode.
- EAC's sudden inclusion into the game adds more performance and connectivity problems in a game already plagued by them. + Linux cannot naturally run EAC & the work-around does not work for every game (especially when the devs do not internally support Proton).
- EAC did absolutely nothing to stop the immediate downpour of cheats/hackers.
- connectivity/lag issues have only been getting worse over the years.
- AI competency mod is no longer supported & their replacement for it fixed a grand total of 0 AI issues.
- DLC keeps getting nerfed. They even nerfed the already nerfed to the ground memehammer.
- Balance changes to DLC classes/items have been demolished, all for the sake of their new PVP system.
- These changes also made the grind for PVE a LOT harder. Chests AND crafting have both gone from the old +10/-5 system at max to a range of 260-300. Getting 300s is now extremely rare, regardless of what level your characters are & multiple people have reported getting dud reds (potentially as low as a 210PL red, when they were all 300 before this PVP update).
- Devs claim the 260-300PL range & outlandish Trait priorities currently on Crafting is a bug, but is not prioritizing fixing it nor are they intending to reimburse people for the 100s of crafts they performed while these "bugs" were present.
- Devs have apparently developed amnesia; Veteran has been rolled back to a 200PL max. Moving from Veteran to Champion is back to being a massive difficulty hike that will become an inescapable wall for the average player. Introducing your friends to the game/playing with your lower level friends is, once again, back to being a pure time sink with 0 reward for experienced players.

Together we stand, divided we fall
You don't rock and stone, you ain't comin' home
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TLDR; get a different Phasmophobia clone, one that actually respects your time & doesn't just want your money. 0/10

It's pretty.
Pretty makes for a decent atmosphere.
That's all it has going for it.

The bad, however?
>>> IT'S ALMOST ENTIRELY AI ART <<<
- If you look too close, that "pretty" becomes a lazy pile of thrown together assets (they didn't even try to hide what AI pack they got what from & did a horrible job compressing the majority),
- This game should not have come out of Early Access when it did. It still doesn't even have all of the promised maps, a TON of content was cut so they could call it finished, and there are multiple game breaking issues that have been around since early on into said Early Access,
- The "support" these developers offer is laughable at best,
- MASSIVE memory leak issue that has been around for over a year,
- Voice chat/commands do not work for the majority of players; when they DO work, it's incredibly inconsistent & it has been this way in a game that revolves around voice chat/commands for over a year (an issue that has been getting progressively worse over time),
- New player experience consists of relying on third-party websites,
- 0 Insurance is available (meaning death = crying wallet as you cough out your kidneys to pay for replacements), including if you're a new player,
- Equipment is overall way too expensive, making the trial & error process of learning the game with no tutorial needlessly punishing to the point of alienating solo players,
- Multiplayer lobbies are inconsistent & like to yeet you out of them,
- Game wants you to have your audio up to hear for footsteps, then blasts your ear drums into nonexistence with incredibly over-tuned noises/jumpscare sounds (I honestly wouldn't be surprised if it's at the range to cause hearing damage, they're that bad),
- Ghost noises are inconsistent, unreliable, and arguably random,
- Almost 100% of the scares are jumpscares, and boy oh boy are most of them cheap sensory overloads,
- The scares are NOT "random events"; they're house/map-dependant, and they repeat every single time you're on said map as you're forced to go through every maps linear progression style (sure, it's a decent experience the first time, but it's one of those things that becomes so stale that by game 3 on that map you're annoyed by their existence and go out of your way to avoid every event trigger you can). Every event can be seen, without fail, every time you're on that map,
- And the cherry on top: you have to replay those repetitive maps many, many times to get anywhere, thanks to the extremely grindy leveling system,
- The differing personalities and habits of each ghost are irrelevant,
- Wireless headsets like to not work and a lot of microphones are flat out rejected by the game, but the developers only answer to this is "buy a new one";
- Ghosts can STILL see & kill you through closet doors,
- Ghosts can STILL see & kill you through floors,
- Ghost rooms are STILL inconsistent enough to be bordering on a long forgotten myth (they interact with & provide evidence in multiple rooms at once, an issue that is astronomically amplified on maps with more than 1 floor),
- Ghosts are either "haha I can loop you for days" or "hello instant death"; there's no in between,
- Maps are either "I have a loop route" or "I am completely screwed"; there's no in between,
- Almost every map sorely needs more hiding places (not that, you know, they work, seeing as ghosts can see you in them),
- Your sanity is ALWAYS going down, regardless of where you are (or are not) on the map; anyone sitting in the tent watching cameras will drain at the same rate as the person inside slapping at the ghosts corporeal body,
- Devs couldn't even be bothered to line up the ghost names in their lazy journal UI x_x,
- Statues in safehouses have had messed up textures/shapes for so long that it's a joke,
- Be prepared to spend 90% of your time in matches trying to force a ghost to interact with the ESG/Canvas, even on the highest difficulty where they're supposedly the most active.

This is not the first time, and likely not the last time, that these developers have made a cash grab playing off of what's most popular at the time. My condolences to those they tricked into becoming part of the toxic posse for this game.

Oh how I miss the old developers...

The new DLC, regardless of if you have it or not, injected all of their changes into the base game. Not only do these changes completely throw the games balance out of the window, it has introduced a plethora of bugs that will ruin a run on top of that. The list of bugs is massive, including ones that destroy all of your save data, and with every "fix" we get more problems in return for those they fix.

The new DLC, regardless of if you have it or not, bashed console with PC code together with a heavy priority for console. Not only has this caused a ton of the bugs, every PC player now has to be beholden to console rules for updates.

And instead of rolling it back, everyone is expected to "enjoy" a 12+ months long road map for bug fixes.

Beyond overpriced when not on an extremely steep sale.
Armory packs ARE p2w & give you guns superior to what's available in base game. (+the arguably OP sentinels)
And even then, you're going to be waiting 7+ days just for SOME of the DLC to show up.
They'll just keep telling you "it's Item Server issues!", yet refuse to fix said issues.

Try to get support and all you're going to get is:
Steam = "Talk to Tripwire, we can't do anything."
Tripwire = "Talk to Steam, we can't do anything."

Wish I could say I was surprised, but this is incredibly typical behaviour for this company.

A weird one, for sure.
Weird characters, weird + confused atmosphere, weird mechanics, weird story.
But don't let that discourage you if you're into a farming sim that comes with a kick; Kynseed is certainly still an enjoyable time with what's there, despite its flaws.
The last big update was Feb 12 2024 & hotfix on April 3 2024 as of this review.

TLDR; Solid 7/10 that finds itself unfortunately heavily hindered by serious money scaling issues & too fast of a progression speed. If that alone was fixed, EASILY bumped to a 8.5/10.

The Good
+ extensive tutorial that makes sure you've got your balance before kicking you out the gate
+ more than enough to do in a day (and a lifetime ;D) that you'll find yourself becoming part of the insomniac club to keep the enterprise going
+ no set bed times; no passing out at a set time at night, no forced sleeping schedule (except for children), and no rifled through pockets upon waking
+ camp fires and inns you can use to sleep/pass time are all over the place, removing the need to go back home
+ more than 1 method to teleport around map
+ skill trees & shop perks! (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧
+ decent selection of customization options & furniture
+ long live the glory of the pig-steed
+ game does not force you to do (almost) anything you don't want to; just throw some employees at it and get that passive income while you do stuff you're interested in
+ don't want to get married? No problem! Adopt some kids and boom, problem solved.
+ multiple mini-games for crafting (that come with bulk crafting options, and can also be skipped by having employees do it)
+ slightly more simplistic Megaman Battle Network-style combat that ends up being an enjoyable challenge (or a difficult one, if you're feeling spicy)
+ feels feature complete and not in need of mods outside of personal QOL choices
+ builders rejoice, there's fine tune placement of objects
+ pun-tastic humour & plenty of personality
+ monster design is on point
+ Fae (albeit less dark than lore accurate)

Worth Mentioning
+/- while there IS a "golden path" mechanic called thatterways, they only show you the map you need to be on (or what mailbox you're looking for, rather than leading you to the person).
+/- generally more demanding than something cozy like Stardew Valley; how much goes on, from festivals to auctions to sales to events to requests from multiple cities to goddess blessings to weather to multiple store management and etc, can get quickly overwhelming
+/- dark undertones that very clearly existed have been removed, despite it making parts of the story incoherent and underwhelming :c
+/- lot of the stuff villagers say is unhinged and/or out of nowhere (i.e: once I brought a dead rabbit to my mom and she threw it back outside. That's it, that's the story xD)
+/- animals have the whole colored butthole constantly visible thing going on
-/+ generic responses from NPCs that everyone uses flood both dialogue and mail; children have very few pieces of unique dialogue, subsequently turning every 5 year old into extremely articulate and respectful mini-adults that barely acknowledge your familial ties

The Bad
- the family/generational mechanic is presented as a core part of gameplay that heavily defines it, but uh...you don't actually have to use it. At all. Whatsoever.
- The end game material meant for the final boss is obtainable at the start of the game without any special tricks or glitches, completely destroying the need to upgrade your tools in tiers.
- the last boss is a joke in general. Added insult to injury:It's not immune to the Scarecrow effect & can be turned into one for the entire fight.
- skills level extremely fast, and it doesn't take much effort to fill out the required materials/crafts to fill out the skill trees
- penalties for not sleeping are practically nonexistent, regardless of how long you keep the insomnia streak up
- anyone who can get a grip on the systems and has moderate RPG/sim experience will finish 90-100% of the game within the 1st year, nevermind going 10+ years or a generation. I fully understand that life/farming sims are meant to be taken with a casual stride, but this is EXTREMELY fast progression to a bare bones ceiling. Doubly so for a game that presented itself as needing a whole family lineage to complete.
- The most glaring issue: Money and Renown are generated far too quickly through shops, and the cost you pay for every shop you purchase is pennies in comparison to the profit you'll gain in just a few days of having them. Said cost to buy them barely increases with each town, despite their profit margins being massively higher. With the challenges you'll complete up to unlocking the ability to buy said shops within the first 2 to 4 weeks of gameplay, you'll have more than enough money to buy 2 out of 3 shops in the first town. The mats you picked up along the way will be more than enough to stock them before you get the perks to increase order inventory and enough money to order. Perks that you gain passively.
These 2 shops alone can allow you to immediately commence ignoring both Money and Renown for the remainder of the game. It does not take a lot of time for them to generate enough money to buy the next towns shops, and from there the remaining shops on the map. Even if you don't supply any of your own materials to them and solely restock through purchasing while having employees do the crafting, you will not run out of money. In fact, you'll be turned into Scrooge McDuck diving through gold piles.
Click spoiler for exact numbers:
You can sell up to 25g per blacksmith/general store. Max of 50g (first town) to 200g (once you have every Fel town unlocked) a day. It takes less than a couple casts of a fishing rod to get the max sell per day. Challenges average 25g per turn in, some going up to 250g.
It only takes you 500g to buy your first shop. This only takes 20 challenges (alone) to get the money for, and by the time I could unlock shops I had over 70 to turn in. 750g per shop in the 2nd town.
Blacksmiths are over 1000g a day and apothecaries over 1500g a day without doing a thing to them, while General Store can skyrocket up to over 8000g a day when manually controlling prices. With 4 stores, I was pulling in over 10k minimum a day from passive income alone within the first month of gameplay. All of the sold product was 1 to 2* (out of 5*) and purchased through suppliers rather than gathered myself.
- while you CAN order 50x of 1 item now, you cannot bulk order 50x of every item you want at once nor re-order everything you did last time without manually doing it every single time for every single store
- the marriage system is as bare bones as it gets; any of their relatives do not become yours or acknowledge you as family (including if they're supposed to be your spouses kid pre-marriage) + it only takes 1 pie and 1 turn in before you start getting harassed daily for not making enough money on the shops even when you're making crazy amounts of gold x_x
- time skip mechanic is irrelevant, nobody cares you were gone & shops pick up as if it's tomorrow instead of 10 years later XD
- pixel art on humans is a hit or miss (with the majority being a miss, imo)
- the lack of an "Order All" button for shop inventory is sorely missed with just 1 shop and is an absolute nightmare with 4+; makes the entire shop management system a tedious chore that gets abandoned once enough money is made because of how much time it takes just to order everything
- unlike everything else, cooking cannot be done by employees and there are absolutely no options available to order anything already cooked for shop inventory
- unlike everything else, fish cannot be ordered for shop inventory even after you make the store a Fishmonger

I regret nothing.
'tis but a scratch.

Wasn't expecting much when I originally got this, and ended up pleasantly surprised.
TLDR; challenging & enjoyable deckbuilder, 7.5/10

The Good
+ The art and character/monster designs are clean,
+ solid combination of jrpg + cards, with multiple builds per character & multiple character combinations,
+ who you pick, who you combine them with, and how you gear them is an integral part of the game,
+ feels well balanced, relying more on knowledge and strategy checks than RNG,
+ gradually increasing complexity that lacks the typical difficulty spikes, with each new unlock bringing new mechanics and strategies,
+ each run gives you enough draws that you have decent control of how your deck ends up,
+ events are randomised, giving you 2 to choose between & ability to re-roll the options 1-2 times per floor,
+ albeit full of anime cliches, compelling story
+ has a functioning fast track mode (speeds up events & movement on the map),
+ translation is pretty solid,
+ soundtrack is a bop (though a tad limited),
+ the developers found a creative way to make wiping not a big deal without stepping into roguelite territory.

Honorable Mentions
+/- the story gets heavy and is (currently) mostly given through archive entries
+/- RNGesus has come to bless us with its balanced presence. Now pray.
+/- Death Fog. Every match has a set amount of turns before it arrives, imposing a round limit per fight and eventually wipes your team. It's by no means a bad or otherwise cumbersome system, just something to be aware of.

The Bad
- the compelling story is let down by poor writing when it comes to a chunk of character interactions,
- not enough deck/card variety, outside of choosing different character combinations
- getting cash cowed already,
- a LOT of fan service (that only gets massively amplified by its DLC)
- the repetitive nature of its gameplay (and the genre as a whole) is very noticeable here,
- while each map is randomly generated, where you go and what order you go in doesn't change & the bosses have very little variation. Progressing further unlocks more boss options, but remains a small pool,
- rare cards don't give you multiple options to pick from & define what you now have to build on a handful of characters,
- the chibi art used for walking around is clean, aye, but it's a jarring quality jump from the rest,
- tutorial is lacking in some departments (i.e: there's no explanation for the relic display case and identification system)
- a few of the translations on status effects and cards are improperly translated, making it a little hard to decipher,
- some of the UI isn't ideal (i.e: the scroll bar that shows up for a list of cards is way too small and you have to put your mouse in between the card selections to use scroll wheel)