Hello everyone, I hope you’ve been having an excellent weekend!

It was a long work week, so I chilled and spent some time thinking thru things I want to write about, and came to the conclusion that I’ll keep a couple topics handy, but for the most part I’m just going to blog about whatever comes up organically. After a floppy recovery weekend like that that’s going to be a small game review!

I felt the itch to play something, but wasn’t feeling all that deep like Stellaris or Cyberpunk would require. So after a bit of looking around, I came across the demo for Below the Stone, and it fit me quite well!

This is a roguelike dungeon delver with a simple premise and lots of flavor planned. You prep on the surface in the kingdom, then pick form one to three quests from the ones offered to you. Then you jump in the caves and get to killing monsters, mining, and exploring to collect loot! When you want to go back to the surface you can summon a rescue pod, but there’s two minor details to deal with. First, you can’t call for a rescue unless you’ve successfully completed at least one of your quests. Rescuing folks is expensive so you gotta earn your return. The second detail is a surprise and you have to see what it is for yourself by playing the demo. I didn’t know about it when I played the first time, and it was a good twist that made things a bit spicier! :D

Now, it’s a roguelike. If you die in the caves, you lose everything you had with you forever, and start back in town. Stuff you put in the bank is safe, so you can stockpile and prep for when you do die, and you probably will. Worst case you always start with a soup ladle to beat people with and a rusty pick to mine with, so you’re never empty handed. The full version is supposed to have over 500 items available, so you’ll be spending gold to expand your bank to keep the un stuff safe!

The graphics are a step up from pixel art but still has a particular look about it for this type of game, check any youtube video or the Steam page to see. I really liked the look of it and how it moved, it was easy to me to keep track of what was going on and where I was. The music was good, and the sound effects fit well to the game and didn’t distract or annoy me, which is a bit thumbs up.

There’s 25 different underground biomes with over 50 planned for future expansion. Also planned is about a dozen NPCs you’ll be able to rescue in the dungeon/caves and have them set up on the surface to expand services available to you. Already in the demo is a blacksmith to smelt your found ores and make equipment, a shop keep, a potion maker, and a banker. Items I found in the caves mentioned they were ingredients for recipes, so at some point there’ll be cooking. There’s also a magic-related character in town that you can talk to but doesn’t have anything for you yet, so I get the feeling some sort of magic system will be available later as well.

Overall I had fun with the two hours I played it, I did die and lose all my stuff but it wasn’t that difficult to recover from as I had supplies stored away, and that’s just part of the game. I’d recommend giving the demo a try, and I have this on my wishlist for when the full version comes out.

Feel free to discuss or comment about it on my related Mastodon toot here!