If you’re one of those gamers who just loves to dig, and there are a fair few of you around, then Below the Stone is probably a game worth sticking on your proverbial radar.
This top-down dungeon crawler stars angry little dwarves who are trying to clear out caves and dungeons so they can restore glory to their kingdom. Unfortunately for you, as this is an extraction-roguelike, that means you’re going to die a lot to restore said glory.
To that end, Below the Stone sends you deep into caves filled will ore and monsters, to complete quests and gather resources. Then, once you’re ready to leave, you call for extraction, survive a countdown, and then get out via a giant drill.
The combat is quite simple, although it now comes with added dash and charged attacks. However, there are a number of more complicated systems to get to grips with, including nuanced gear and quest mechanics.
Each run requires you to explore, mine resources, kill monsters, and complete objectives to earn gold. However, you’ve got to get out of the level intact to keep said gold, and if you should bite off more than you can chew and, say, get shot loads by an archer while fighting someone else, you’ll die and lose all of your equipped gear (which can really hurt, if truth be told).
Your gold can be spent on new gear back at base, which has been remade as part of the update. There are also new quest types, NPCs, traps and puzzles, biome specific structures, and controller rebinding.
Caves Awaken Part II certainly adds a good wedge of new content to the game, which remains in Early Access while developer Strollart continues to build out the game with new features. You’ll find more details over on Below the Stone’s Steam page.
