Below the Stone Preview (Steam Early Access)
For this Below the Stone Preview, we play a procedurally generated spelunking roguelike(lite) with completely destructible grid-based levels resembling that of many loved titles such as Terraria, Enter The Gungeon, Nuclear Throne, and Dwarf Fortress.
Below the Stone Preview Pros:
- Decent graphics.
- 281.46MB download size.
- Graphics settings – ui scale slider, auto ui scale button, v-sync, fps limit, and full screen.
- Full controller support.
- Controller settings – Invert hotbar scrolling.
- 3 save slots.
- Character creator – random, name, hair, beard, body, and hair color.
- Twin stick style controls for weapons amd tools. You get a clear line to show where you are facing.
- Top-down view.
- Opening tutorial section.
- Certain tools can break certain blocks.
- Hot bar for quick access.
- Choose up to 3 missions to do when in the caves.
- Nice soundtrack.
- Simple controls.
- Very accessible and easy to get into.
- The main hub above ground houses shops, blacksmiths, Missions, notes, etc.
- Craft new items, Weapons, and armor at the Blacksmith.
- The caves have many Breakable objects and blocks to mine that drop resources for crafting.
- A Witch in the Hub lets you craft potions of many kinds.
- Randomized caves every time.
- Mini map.
- Complete at least one mission in order to leave the cave.
- The map fills in as you play.
- Missions are shown on screen at all times and fill in as you complete them.
- You have a small circle of light around you and a torch does a huge circle of light.
- When mining it’s dark so you never really know where you are going.
- Blocks will highlight when you are near them and will be blue if you can mine them or red if you cannot.
- A brilliant game for people who love to just mine or cave dive.
- An excellent sense of adventure.
- Cave-ins can happen.
- Find rooms and secrets.
- Play how you want.
- As soon as you finish a mission you can call the escape pod which makes a load of enemies attack as you await the pod’s arrival.
- If you die you drop everything in you and lose progress of missions.
- High difficulty mostly due to the nature of learning the combat.
Below the Stone Preview Cons:
- No Steam achievements yet.
- Only a male character.
- Limited graphics settings.
- Cannot rebind controls.
- No voice work.
- The menu system is so clunky and swapping items between your hotbar and backpack is so slow and sluggish.
- The hub is so big and it’s just not needed.
- Way too many puns and yes I’m a killjoy.
- Combat is tough with poison enemies being a particular nightmare.
- Takes a while to get going.
- High difficulty.
- Having to eat mushrooms for health one by one is a real drag.
- No dodge or roll button makes the game a lot harder and less fun in a way.
- Cannot save mid-dungeon.
- The mission amd cave randomness can make for lengthy dungeon dives.
- No online play.
Related Post: Stray Souls Review (PlayStation 5)
Below the Stone:
Developer: strollart
Publisher: Apogee Entertainment
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