Hello Stone Story RPG friends! We hope youre enjoying the event. Its certainly been very challenging, even for the most experienced of adventurers! Poena was a great opportunity for us to expand upon the games world and introduce an interesting new mechanic.

Stone Story RPG's World Design

The process to building Poena is the same used for the rest of the games world design. Various elements from pop culture and mythology fill a bucket that, sometimes, will have ideas that line up together and work well naturally. Take for example Nagaraja, the boss of the Temple location. Nagaraja is constructed from several such pop cultural and mythological building blocks: giant fantasy worms from series like Dune and Star Wars perfectly aligned with the venomous nature of the Serpent King in Hindu myth.
But it doesnt stop there! The Temple itself is heavily based on the Red Temple from 1993s Prince of Persia 2. The reveal of the Red Temple can be seen in the way the Temple is revealed in Stone Story RPG: a cinematic landscape approach towards a mysterious towering structure. [previewyoutube=B3bOEBCZcPw;full][/previewyoutube] Funnily enough, the Temple and Nagaraja developed independently of each other until the pieces suddenly fit and made sense: giant worms are traditionally a desert character so why not fit Nagaraja into the Temples theming? There are countless other examples of this design philosophy at work in the game, but the general idea is that sometimes theres a gap in Stone Story RPGs design and its our work to fill it.

Creating Poena

Poena is the most recent product of this design. Lore-wise, we already had a solid base to work from: Xyloalgia is the corrupted remains of Leuce (whose positive aspects remained in Acropolis as a white tree). Thus, if Leuce has been considered a female character then it follows that Xyloalgia would as well!
Expanding upon this, Xyloalgias gender reveal took its lead from how Metroid revealed Samus gender. We wanted the moment of revelation to have impact, but the initial sketches felt a bit weak. Nothing that fit the personality of the character. This was where Polyducks came in. Polyducks took the idea of Poena and crafted her in a deliberate depiction of the female form twisted by corruption. Poena embodies the spirit of vengeance and punishment. The dark and dirty core of retribution lying deep within Xyloalgia. Its her very character that also informs how she works mechanically in a boss fight. The Mirror debuff mechanics underscore Poenas very nature: When youre fighting her, youre fighting the negative parts of Leuce.
You can take a look at how standardcombo animates Poena on his Twitch channel vods. --- -SSRPG Team [url=https://twitter.com/StoneStoryRPG] Stone Story RPG Twitter Stone Story RPG Discord

[ 2021-12-21 01:08:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

In a realm of perpetual evil, a single stone could change everything.

Stone Story is an RPG set in a dark and vile world. The game's fluid ascii art is painstakingly animated in plain text by a single insane game developer. The game has been in development since 2014 and is presently in closed beta testing. It features 8 locations to explore, 8 boss fights, mind-blowing ascii cutscenes and plenty of loot to discover.



The casual play contrasts with the retro visuals, providing a unique experience that blends nostalgia with modern design principles. One of the game's defining mechanics is that you have no direct control of the player character. You choose what items to equip, which location to visit and relax while an artificial intelligence does all the exploring, combat and looting. That doesn't mean this is an idle game. Potions and special abilities are maximized by good timing. Boss fights are intense and can keep you at the edge of your seat, requiring quick item swaps if the boss changes patterns. Additionally, an item crafting system allows you to combine otherwise disposable items--rewarding experimentation, giving you interesting choices and making full use of all the gathered loot.



Initial language support is English, Portuguese and Chinese. Further localization will be added based on regional demand.