Stonewards

After 21 hours, I can confidently recommend Stonewards. For me, it’s around a **9/10**, especially when played with friends. The game’s biggest strength is how well it combines two very different phases. First, you explore the mine, gather resources, upgrade, and prepare. Then the wave starts and everything turns into a fight for survival. That contrast keeps the gameplay varied and prevents it from becoming boring. Even during the calmer resource-gathering phase, there is always some pressure because you want to squeeze in just one more upgrade, collect a little more, and be as prepared as possible before the next wave arrives. Stonewards really shines in co-op. You can split responsibilities, decide who focuses on what, support each other, and try to recover when things start going wrong. And when the plan completely falls apart, that’s often when the funniest moments happen. In my opinion, the game is at its best when played with a group of friends. I also really like how the roguelike elements are implemented. Choosing rings, picking different upgrades during a run, and progressing between runs all feel satisfying. One of the best feelings in the game is seeing how much stronger you become. At the beginning, even a couple of regular enemies can be a serious threat, but later, if you build and develop your character properly, you can start cutting through entire crowds. More importantly, that power growth feels earned. Progression is not only about character stats either. With every run, you personally get better at understanding the world, resource management, character roles, and different game mechanics. The game has a fairly low barrier to entry, but at the same time there is plenty of room to experiment with strategies, team compositions, and different combinations. There are still some balance issues, though. From my experience, difficulty depends heavily on your team composition. A team with the Miner, Warrior, and Archer feels very strong and can handle the game quite comfortably, while a weaker character setup can struggle even on the first difficulty. After my 21 hours, those three characters feel like the most consistently useful and impactful options. Some of the others either overlap with roles already covered by these three or do not yet provide the same level of value. I hope future updates expand the mechanics of the other characters and make team composition more varied. There are also a few technical issues. I’ve experienced occasional FPS drops, teammates getting disconnected, and characters falling through the map. However, considering that the game is still in Early Access, these problems have been relatively rare and have not significantly affected my overall experience. What I would like to see most in future updates is simply more variety: more unique mechanics for different characters, more weapons, more status effects and interesting build interactions, as well as enemies with more distinctive mechanics. The core of the game is already very solid, so now I mostly want to see more possibilities built on top of the systems that are already there. I think Stonewards can appeal to fans of tower defense, resource gathering, roguelike mechanics, and games where managing resources and dividing responsibilities within a team actually matters. And if you have a few friends who enjoy making plans together, arguing about who forgot to prepare for the next wave, and somehow surviving anyway, it is absolutely worth trying. Definitely recommended.