This patch fixes a handful of reported issues: * A certain portrait not loading in an Act 2 flashback cutscene * Missing crowd asset in that same flashback * Story flag not showing up on Lightning Ruins * Lightning Ruins interior area black screen/softlock * Gear stats not showing up on game load

Hello adventurers! We've been quiet in 2025, but not for lack of progress: we've just launched the first MAJOR post-update patch for Flowstone Saga! The change list is way too big to itemize, but here are some of the highlights:

Patch Trailer

Patch Highlights

BFF Perks

Once the Bistro is built and you begin getting to know eight of the villagers better by seeing their side stories, you can now Buddy Up with one of them to unlock a special BFF Perk! For example:

• Gon will toss you a random fish buff at the start of every battle

• Deja boosts your elemental damage

• Christine increases your damage multiplier from large clears

• Pari gives you mana regeneration every X pieces dropped

These perks grow in strength as you deepen your relationships, and are perfect for players that want more ways to customize and complement their playstyle/build.

Fishing Upgrades

You can now purchase & upgrade better rods and fishing bait from Gon in town to unlock higher rarities of fish, and make your struggles with them easier! Higher-rarity fish have even more potent buffing effects!

New Game+ Mode

For those that have conquered all the game had to offer, you can now play it again with increased challenge across the board! In NG+, you keep things like your experience level, stats, perks, and gear, but battles become tougher in several ways:

• Monster health and damage values are scaled up, especially if you are particularly high level

• Monsters take less time to wind up and execute their basic attacks

• Monster charge abilities take less time to charge, and require a minimum of two hits to interrupt

Demolitionist TNT Revamp

When talking to players, we learned that the Demolitionist Frog Spirit was considered the most difficult to use, mainly because of the randomness of the position TNT drop. Previously, the TNT block could drop anywhere on the board with potentially disastrous consequences.

We've revamped this mechanic so that now, the TNT block alternates between the left edge and right edge of the board. This predictability makes things feel much less frustrating without the Frog becoming overpowered. It should be nicely in line with the others now.

Endgame Boss Overhauls

Without giving away story specifics, the consensus was that the last few bosses of the game were a letdown in terms of their difficulty. We've gone over these and reworked their stats, skill loadout, and AI, which make them more challenging and appropriate to their place in the game.

Arena Rebalance

The Arena is a great way to both earn rewards and flex your battle prowess. However, the difficulty was inconsistent, with some early fights (even in the first tier) being way harder than fights even in later tiers, some boss fights being too easy, and others being simply too repetitive.

We've gone over every single Arena encounter and boss to make sure there things actually scale in difficulty as intended from the first fight of the first tier, all the way to the very end. This has involved adding and removing monsters from some fights, adjusting stats, adding and changing abilities, tweaking AI, etc. It feels much better!

Many, Many Bug Fixes

With a game as big as Flowstone Saga, lots of minor and not-so-minor bugs have been reported. We've fixed about as many as we were able to find.

Substantial Switch Port Work (That Helps on PC)

In working on the Switch port of the game (which is about 98% done) we went over many areas of the codebase to optimize memory/CPU usage and various other unexciting, but still important, engine things that should benefit all players on all platforms!

What's Next?

Though the game hasn't sold as well as we had hoped, we're very happy with the reception its received, and we're proud of our 5+ years of work. We have a 2nd major patch on the drawing board right now, but no concrete ETA yet, as our development team has been transitioning to work on Tangledeep 2. We're also working on finalizing the Switch port (with Switch 2 compatibility) here.

We'll be watching our Discord in the coming weeks for any bug reports that we can fix rapidly, and of course, if you have any other feedback we're all ears and will track + discuss.

Thank you for enjoying our game! (And don't forget to check out our first title Tangledeep!)

• Screenshake slider now displays current value properly
• Fixed NullRef that occurred in specific cases when collecting treasures
• Tanglefig boss progress fix... again
• Fixed issues with Storam Abrewin' quest - charts were not appearing!
• Fixed Sihd & Christine's quest requirement emotes overlapping in Blue Cove town hall
• On game load, checks for ruin completion, boss battle, and New Riverstone upgrade achievements

Hotfix for issue where progression jumped ahead.

• Hopefully fixed more softlock scenarios with Demolitionist TNT! Stupid frog!
• Fixed Purple Power Potion issue where it could sometimes be used infinitely
• Updated cutscene assets & SFX for some late-game visual issues
• Fixed the Cheese flask mix-in not working in certain scenarios
• Fixed Marcus missing a run down/front animation during a sequence later in the game
• Fixed issue with game saves not loading after Cheri's Cookie was added
• Fix for players who were never able to complete the Fulminating Forest ruin puzzle (go there and you can do it now!)
• Gon's 3rd bistro scene will no longer be available during a certain part of the game
• Fix for Tanglefig progress issue if the proper flag was not set after beating the Mud Elemental

• Snell (and others') Power Up can no longer be used infinitely
• Fixed issue where Fulminating Forest and Eden Lake shared a Ruins puzzle reference, causing them both to be completed if you did either one
• Adjusted balance substantially for Snell fight
• Grammy Ferret demo quest should no longer come up in the game
• Expanded Powers UI horizontally; power mana costs now show in descriptions
• Fixed incorrect Smashamander journal description
• Changed Storam Abrewin' quest so that charts can be found in any order, updated dialogue accordingly
• Fixed unlocalized 'Will of Cerule' track name
• Resonance Band / Overcharge Necklace no longer have the same description
• You can actually really retry Zodiac fights if you escape, for real
• Fixed spoilery Mirai portrait in some quests
• Fixed Chattering Thicket progress issue where boss would keep respawning, preventing progress flag from being toggled
• Added quest reward to Cheri's line (Cheri's Cookie) which is very good
• Added description to Flask mix items indicating how you use them and that they are not consumed
• Weapons that deal damage to enemies when they have full health have had their descriptions clarified.
• Also, their damage multipliers have increased and are not bugged anymore (they were only dealing +25%)
• In perk UI, locked tiers are now colored red
• When talking to Eric to plant seeds, item quantities are now shown in the dialog
• Going forward, the number of each monster you have defeated is now tracked and displayed in the journal

• Fixed major issue on Mac version of the game where many monster powers simply did not load/work at all, which made the [spoiler]Crimm[/spoiler] fight impossible
• Fix for loading in impassable area if the game crashed in Pioneer's Isle
• Fixed incorrect progression % for Star-Crossed Isle
• Fixed issue where Zodiac fights could not be retried if escaped
• Fixed incorrect and static-y SFX at the end of building VFX
• Fixed Honey Avalanche targeting lines not displaying & lack of damage debuff
• Fixed Flask debuffs from monsters persisting outside of the battle it was applied
• Fixed case where Flask visuals could get out-of-whack when quickly using multiple flask charges
• Minor dialog typo fixes
• Fixed grass tile visual bug in Flowing Strand
• Fixed typo in game credits

• Fixed issue where post-credits, input was locked on the world map
• Removed Save options from the Settings tab, added new "Save Game" button in the main nav
• Save & Quit option (now part of the new button) has a confirmation before doing so
• Perk upgrade UI when leveling up should now show all tiers where you can upgrade something
• Fixed missing story flag in Felidae's Landing
• Likely fixed issue where you could softlock the game by talking to certain NPCs in the final Spelunks area
• Fixed payload timer visuals persisting after being destroyed when a payload from the Tree Frog lick monster power was destroyed by demolitionist TNT
• Fixed missing Rohan in some cutscenes & missing Borras
• Fixed issue where Rohan was not back in town when she should have been
• Fixed missing journal entries for some monsters (specifically, the monsters not being on the list at all)
• Added new options for 'Centered Camera' (locks camera to 1:1 movement with Mirai while moving around maps) and 'Screenshake' amount
• Fixed item quantity (for example, Spirit Frog food) resetting to quantity = 1 on load; this may not work retroactively depending on your save file state
• Changed Sihd's building requirements to use IRON instead of AGATE
• Hopefully fixed issue with [spoiler]Borras[/spoiler] boss fight healing/phase changing infinitely
• Fixed inventory UI up/down arrows appearing on other UIs
• Fixed duplicate 'OK' buttons on post-credits dialog
• The button that is defaulted to 'Cancel' can now be reassigned without closing the control remap dialog

• Removed 'Immune' popup text in battle
• Increased the input lockout time when entering mining. (Fixes being able to open the pause menu while the screen is fading out)
• Added Scroll Arrows to Equipment & Inventory UI Screens
• Fixed 'Now Loading' flashing on screen after battles
• Fixed softlock if Mirai is in the "Got Item!" animation and a monster starts a battle (monsters no longer start battles or move during that animation state)
• Shortened post-battle XP bar to avoid overlap with resources from Scrounging Band
• Fixed 'mark cutscene viewed' not working when going to maps after a cutscene, which could cause some progress issues
• Fixed Fulminating Forest story flag not going away
• Fixed issue where XP/gold gain could stop after playing in arena
• Removed extraneous 'switch battle targets' control mapping
• Fixed snewtwar2 progress issue that could prevent quest from being turned in
• Possibly fixed issue where item quantity was resetting to 1?
• Fixes to various typos in dialogs
• Astral Dragon fight can no longer be repeated
• You can now select 'Escape' in the Zodiac fights
• Fixed softlock with Ancient Floraconda's Beanstalk Chopper attack
• The Arena 'NPC' is now available even if Rohan is not (with a different conversation)
• Fixed saved games sometimes loading in collidable tiles
• Added softlock protection for monster custom attack functions
• Fixed Crimm music going silent before loop
• Fixed ICEBOSS progression issue (beating Sentry but not being able to go through intended door)

• The game will no longer autosave between certain cutscenes, and will no longer resume a cutscene if you quit and load the save. This was leading to some bad edge cases
• Restored missing area labels for Gon's House, Amara's House, and Star-Crossed Isle
• Fixed issue where if you changed Frogs to something other than Freelancer, and back to Freelancer, then tried to edit the Flowstone, the cursor could become invisible
• Fixed "Cast Line" text sometimes appearing on the wrong UI
• Restored missing effect descriptions to Overcharge Necklace & Split Ring
• Fixed issue with parsing cutscene data that was causing users in certain regions (that use commas instead of decimals) to end up in the wrong place after a cutscene, particularly in the late game
• Fixed music inconsistencies when skipping cutscenes
• Various monster powers should no longer softlock the game if they hit Demolitionist TNT
• Seemingly fixed bug where you could use a decor item, switch areas, and place an invisible item in the new area
• Fixed chapter display being different in-game compared to title screen

• The control mapper now allows multiple actions to be bound to the same physical control
• Fixed behavior of the 'Auto-Skip' checkbox (it was inverted before)
• Fixed several interior cutscenes having wrong camera bounds
• Fixed some visual object issues in Blue Cove
• Adjusted the Harbinger boss fight to be a little harder & more interesting
• Fixed the dark background overlay when the main menu is open to go behind the navigation as well (it was previously making the text look dark)
• Restored missing treasures from Harbinger
• Fixed Frog Powers sometimes being equippable when using a different Frog
• Frigid Peaks interior area puzzle fixed

• Steam connectivity (achievements, stats) correctly functioning again
• Fixed missing sprite in a lategame cutscene
• Fixed progress-blocking typo in final dungeon
• Lengthened fish escape times in the fishing minigame
• Picking up certain treasure objects like sand will no longer make that tile collidable
• Fixed possible softlock with monster tornado power
• Fixed missing story flag for Frigid Peaks
• Fixed possible softlocks with certain Flask items
• Fixed softlock with Gravity Flux monster power in certain scenarios

Hello adventurers! At last, after 5+ years of development, the day has arrived: the full version of FLOWSTONE SAGA is now available for Windows, Mac, and Linux! We hope you'll enjoy the unique battle system, charming characters, engrossing story, beautiful art, and epic 4.5+ hour soundtrack. And don't forget about co-op assist mode if you have another player who wants to help out :) During launch week, you can get the game at a 20% discount. This is the most crucial time for our visibility and we hope to have enough success to do lots of post-launch content and features. If you purchase (or have purchased) Flowstone Saga, consider writing a review on Steam to tell other players what you think. We really appreciate it! By the way, if you want to discuss the game, get help, or show off your awesome combos, feel free to join our friendly community Discord. From our entire team to all of you, thank you for supporting our game. - Andrew & the Flowstone Saga team

Flowstone Saga is now launching worldwide on Thursday, September 26th with the complete 4.5+ hour soundtrack available on the same day! ... Wait, didn't we say September 17th before? Yes, we just hit a minor roadblock. We submitted our release build to Valve on September 8th - time to spare, or so we thought. However, there was a hiccup where the dropdown menus in the game launcher were not clearly accessible via controller-only. Since we marked the game as "Full Controller Support", this was an immediate fail. We addressed the issue and verified those menus are now properly controllable with nothing but a controller, and resubmitted our build. However, since it's <24 hours to our original planned date and we still have not heard back, it's too risky for us to go forward with our scheduled launch day marketing. This includes sponsored streams/videos that are intended to go live when the game is actually available for purchase. To ensure that we have ample buffer time to make 100% sure we have the approval AND time to reschedule these promotions, we (Impact Gameworks & our publisher in China, Doyoyo Games) decided to pick September 26th as the launch date. We know this is disappointing for those looking forward to purchasing and playing the full version of the game tomorrow, and believe me, we're disappointed too. But we also don't want to waste our tiny (relative to major publishers!) marketing budget by fumbling on launch day, so this really does seem like the safest & right call. We hope you understand. In the meantime, anyone who wants to hear about our continuous updates & improvements to the game prior to launch, and even catch a live dev stream, can head to our Discord server. We hope to see you there!

Hello adventurers! As a great philosopher once said, "a good game is late until it ships, but a rushed game is bad forever". Or something like that. So it goes with game development! But we've confirmed with our Japanese & Chinese localization partners (the latter of which is our Chinese publisher Doyoyo games) that September 17th is our v1.0 release date. For real. There's another saying that the first 80% of game development is the hard part, but the last 80% is the really hard part. When it comes to QA, polish, and localization, that is absolutely true, especially in a game as text-heavy as Flowstone Saga. We've been setting release date targets based on predictions of when launch-critical tasks would be done, such as localization QA, and then evaluating the progress as those dates approach. But as of today, the localization is COMPLETELY done and everything left is simply QA. Fixing text, fixing bugs, polish, game balance, that kind of stuff. Which means we can confidently set a specific date without any external factors involved, which once again is September 17th. 2024, of course. We have taken every minute of extended time to make the game as good as possible for v1.0, and naturally we have plans for post-launch as well :-) We've been working on Flowstone Saga since 2018 and we cannot wait to truly release it to the world. THANK YOU to everyone who has supported and wishlisted the game, played the demo, supported us on Kickstarter... it has been a hell of a ride but the end is really and truly in sight.

It's Finally Happening!

Join the Community

Watch as we improve and expand Flowstone Saga based on YOUR demo feedback! You'll see what goes into creating a game like this "behind-the-scenes" with Unity, C#, Aseprite, etc. with narration for what we are doing and why.

We're thrilled to announce that the Flowstone Saga demo is now playable! You can download it for free right on the store page, and we'd love to hear your thoughts. Featuring a small slice-of-life scenario outside of the game's main story, you'll get a taste of the look, feel, and gameplay that's in store in the full game. And once you complete the demo, you can even keep playing in a "New Game+" style loop that lets you find more treasure and fight a greater variety of monsters. If you like what you see & hear, please share it with the world and wishlist the game - it makes a huge difference for us. We really appreciate it! And just to whet your appetites for the full game, here are some hints of some truly awesome areas we have in store:

As part of Next Fest, the dev team will be showcasing Flowstone Saga gameplay! Not just the demo, but also content from the full game, featuring awesome skills, monsters, cutscenes, town building, and more. We can't wait to see you there!

As part of Next Fest, the dev team will be showcasing Flowstone Saga gameplay! Not just the demo, but also content from the full game, featuring awesome skills, monsters, cutscenes, town building, and more. We can't wait to see you there!

Want to be immortalized as someone who helped make Flowstone Saga the best game it can possibly be? Now through June 9th, you can do just that by backing the game on Kickstarter!

Why Kickstarter?

• More character portraits with additional moods or expressions
• Professional mixing and mastering of the soundtrack
• Additional live musicians to make some tracks sound even better
• A greater variety of particle FX and animations
• More sound effects to accompany the wide range of abilities and events
• Additional flavor text and character conversations
• ... and much more!