Stonehearth is 1.0

Development
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Years ago, I backed a game that was on Kickstarter. It was an interesting little thing that used voxel graphics and gave you indirect control of a group of settlers who would try to build a town in the wilderness while defending themselves from monsters and other creatures that happened along. While it had obvious potential, ultimately it was abandoned by the developer and released incomplete.

The thing that I like best about that game is that it led me to discover Stonehearth.

Stonehearth might not be everything that was originally envisioned when it was released, but it’s everything that I wanted it to be when I purchased it three years ago even if I still can’t decide if it should be pronounced ‘harth’ or ‘herth.’ I’ve been invested in every group of Hearthlings I’ve sent out into the wilderness, whether I found myself haranguing the early AI for questionable pathfinding in combat or interpreting the speech bubbles as my plucky pioneers take a break from harvesting turnips to discuss the merits of red woven supply baskets.

I’ve restarted over and over again every two weeks as a new update was released, and looked forward to the full-screen art showing off the latest developments. I’ve pushed the builder (old and new) to try and make fun places for my Hearthlings to live and pondered over and over again what to bring- whether it was individual items with a budget (when I could never quite justify the trapper’s knife at 120) or deciding on what collection would suit me best (the one with the trapper’s knife, obviously). I learned why you shouldn’t cut down too many trees at once, and happily embraced the possibility of peaceful solutions to all of the goblins’ demands.

Yesterday I received the last hardware necessary for building a brand new PC from the ground up, and while there’s still a few things I need to get it up and running, I’m hoping that this weekend I will be able for the first time to livestream on Twitch, rather than just recording videos for YouTube. It feels poetic, if bittersweet, that the first game I’ll attempt to livestream will be Stonehearth, playing 1.0 for the first time, so soon after the last official stream.

You have made something great, something unique, something that we will share and enjoy long after today, long after the 1.1 release in December. Knowing that any of you are attached to future projects will immediately perk my interest simply because of what you have done here, over the last several years. The title screens may change, the content may be new and different, but that’s never stopped me before.

Thank you.

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I joined somewhere between the Kickstarter and the release of the first ever launchable alpha for the public. I was hyped by the demo video, showing the big scale that Stonehearth should achieve.

Seeing the baby steps the project took afterwards, I realized that it would most likely be a difficult task. I early settled on a mindset that it would take long to reach that point, if it was ever reached. A mindset you should have for every Kickstarter or Early Access game nowadays anyway.

Now that it is finished, it might not have every aspect that was promised but is far better off than most other projects that I helped funding. It was nice to watch SH grow via DT and dev streams and by playing a new build every 2 or 3 months. I have the feeling that I not only paid for a game but also to be part of a journey. I got more hours of playing SH than I have from most other games that I bought as finished projects.

With the game being so moddable, our (the players) journey with SH will last for quite another while. Best of luck for the devs and theirs.

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@wbroussard I sent you a PM.

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I’m not gonna lie; I don’t have much to say to those so upset. I glanced briefly at the Steam comments, had a bitter laugh, and closed them again. Frankly, as stated above - there are plenty of Kickstarter projects, games especially, that get funded and then relatively disappear or offer next to nothing compared to their promises. Or they get bought out and pretend the funding from Kickstarter effectively didn’t happen.

Stonehearth’s team didn’t do that; they pushed, they did their best, they admitted to limitations, and gave a fine final product.

Do I think the game engine was a bit of an overreach that might’ve impacted the expectations (read: promises/goals) vs. the final result? Yes.
(Granted, I don’t know it firsthand; just is one of those things that made me wince from a game development studies point of view)

Do I think there was a bit of side-tracking, particularly where they had to spend a lot of time placating the tide of naysayers and people complaining for a multitude of reasons, resulting in time being detracted from the final product for that? Yes.
(Mind, some significant bugfixes and such likely came out of this as well, so silver linings)

Do I think it’s still good as a final product? Yes.
Is it perfect, no, not by any means, and I am saddened by some of the things that never made it in - the Magmasmith, the dwarves, the Animal Trainer, etc.

But you know what this game did that a lot of others that popped to release didn’t?
It has a great support for modding, including a community for it. Meaning it isn’t over just because the dev team can’t do anything more; there are plenty others of us still adding in the things we wanted to see, feel are missing, or otherwise want to throw in the game. And being mods, gives more options to the player base - you can opt in/out of content you don’t like instead of having to work around it.

Yea, it’s a bittersweet, sudden feeling release.
Yea, there’s gonna be people who will never be happy.
(Yes, I feel very bad for those who didn’t get a port).

No, it’s not really the end.

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At the end of the day those of us that love this game are still going to love it. Some are going to feel robbed. While I’m sorry for that, I’m also at peace with it. It’s not going to affect how I feel about the game.

The haters are going to try to poison it for everyone they can and some folks are just opportunistic D bags that are looking for any and every excuse to profit off of negativity. That has nothing to do with the quality of the game, but the character of the individuals. The best thing you can do is not watch those vids (you don’t wanna give the troll ad money for their effort), and ignore the stuff on Steam (totally called it).

Thanks @Kittyodoom that post just about covers it. :jubilant:

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Another 2k hours here I come,

Congratulations :jubilant:

Thanks for the wonderful game, it was a long one. :merry:

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16.79€ is a very good price for what you get and will get with Workshop Mods :slight_smile:

bild

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Congratulations with the 1.0 release, you guys did an amazing job on creating a fine game.

However, for me it’s a bitter feeling that remains when seeing Stonehearth. It is not finished. It is a fun sandbox, yes, but it did not become a full game and has lot’s of unfulfilled potential in it. It’s a pity as the game backbones finally feels a bit solid now. I don’t feel ripped off, as I have an okay game for €30. But it’s not the very super fun game I was hoping for: too little story, too little challenge, too little expansion possibilities within 1 game.

My hope is some of you guys takes up working on Stonehearth after a break again, and develop some nice DLC’s. I’m sure there’s plenty opportunity for DLC content in a format like Stonehearth, and I would definitely invest some money in that.

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Now there is a point to posting here. Thanks for the macOS port.

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we have waited in the stream for you - to test it ^^

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To be fair, it really depends on the types of projects. I’ve had about a 10% failure rate, probably less if I bothered to really calculate it. But I’ve also mostly backed physical goods, and video games from groups that appear to have strong development maturity. I still get some duds, but far fewer than you’d expect, simply because I’m really choosy and careful about what I back (and how much I risk).

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It’s running good, so far. :slightly_smiling_face:

And then the crash to desktop.

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Awww you’re getting the full stonehearth experience with the crash. :smiley:

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i noticed that the color picker tool when using it is actually the paint brush icon which is a bit confusing if your trying to paint or trying to capture a color :slight_smile:

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Wait we have a collor picker tool?
Since when?

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Since the new builder was added :merry:

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Are talking about the same thing, just checking if I read collor picker tool I’m thinking… What’s it called in English, a pipet? One of those small tools where you can release drops of liquid from? That’s always used in photo editing software to say ‘use this to get the collor of something you already have’

So not the "turn your blocks into other blocks and act like it’s paint’ tool :stuck_out_tongue:

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Yes indeed, must put the auto save on.

What do you know, I finally get the game after 400 moan hours and I can’t play. Why do I have to go to work and go to friends’ weddings? :wink:

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For the cake. Obviously. :birthday:

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Good point!

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