Stonehearth is one of these games I really enjoy because it’s peaceful and relaxing, and I like playing it for an hour or two when I want to chill a bit. The gameplay, even in its current alpha state, is very enjoyable. I however have a question about your vision for the finished game : what will ultimately be the main challenge, or focus, of the gameplay ? Often, games that are similar to Stonehearth tend to focus on one aspect : survival, where you struggle for resources and must make sure your people overcome whatever is thrown at you. Economy, where you have to balance your resource generation and consumption, which gets more and more difficult as your town / population grows. Exploration and combat, where the main goal is to expand, fight new enemies and conquer new lands. And I could go on for a while
I see a bit of everything in Stonehearth, but so far I haven’t reached a point where I felt truly challenged in a way or another. Don’t get me wrong, I love the gameplay, but I’m just wondering if you have plans to make it challenging in some aspects, or will it simply be a peaceful simulation where nothing can go wrong and you can just play on and on without worrying of failing at something ?
Thanks in advance for your response, and keep up the awesome work !
We do have plans to make it more challenging, along whatever lines (building, crafting, fighting, exploring) the player chooses to focus on. We have a clear goal in mind, but I expect a lot of tuning before it’s done quite right
in addition to what @sdee mentions, let’s not forget the (as yet unrevealed) lore/storyline that is still being developed… which, if memory serves, is being headed up by the talented @sdee as well…
having a compelling reason to be in this world goes a long way towards making the experience even more entertaining…
Indeed, an evolving / ongoing story is definitely a good reason to keep playing ! It’s not always compatible with sandbox gameplay though, which the game seems to be focused on right now. I’m curious to see what you guys come up with ! I’m sure it’s gonna be cool stuff
Anyway, i’m glad to see you guys got plans in mind, and that the somewhat “lack” of stronger challenges in the game isn’t something that’s meant to last forever. And ah, if it did, i’d still love the game, that’s saying a lot
@sdee While I would like to see more of a challenge, I also enjoy the mostly-AFK-friendly gameplay we have going on right now. The normal vs. peaceful modes don’t really give me the selection I’d like to see in the end.
I particularly like what Rimworld has going on with its AI storyteller. You can select a difficulty curve, and a difficulty level. At the least, we need a few levels of difficulty for the two modes we currently have.
Agreed. Stonehearth is pretty good so far, but I’ve yet to have any !FUN!. The game is still very basic right now, though, so I’m sure we will see the gameplay change quite a bit as more and more features are added. It does seem like the current direction is for a more casual-friendly DF-clone experience, though, so I’m not getting my hopes up for a DF level of !FUN! in the end. I think the real challenge will be making the game feature-rich enough that you can encounter !FUN! in many different ways. Food shortages, goblin raids, infiltration of zombie-hearthlings, or a riot from your own hearthlings that leads to the death of your fortress from the inside out.
I think the biggest saving grace for this game is the level of modability. If everything works out, we should see plenty of DF fans bringing challenging gameplay to Stonehearth.
