
Beat the Devil at his own game. The Killing Stone is a deckbuilding card battler wrapped in a 17th century occult horror narrative. Clean the sins of a cursed family by bargaining against a series of demons - and outwitting the Devil himself.
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About
From the makers of The Blackout Club and The Magic Circle comes The Killing Stone. A card battler with beautiful stylized art, animated figurines, dazzling effects, haunted sound and music, and an original first-person narrative set in the 17th century in a remote region of the Arctic circle.
At the center of the ceremonial board is the Fanghella, the Killing Stone. A collection of magical creature figurines, spells, and incantations allows for a variety of clever tactics. The game pieces are full of life and character, giving a very tactile and responsive experience while still allowing players to deliberate their every move.
A novel Reserve System allows for more strategic plays, letting you stack units and buffing incantations above the battle line for later deployment. Creature placement, spellcasting, and bargaining to add powerful banes and boons to your deck all affect your chances of success.
In between matches, the story plays out in first-person with a painterly stylized presentation. You are a Maven, master of the dark arts - and Mariken's final friend. Explore the mansion and talk with family members - and animal familiars - to learn the circumstances of her final days.
The eerie tone of the game and setting are further enhanced by the game being told in two styles: a period 17th century English, and a more modern prose. Players will be allowed to switch both text and VO to enjoy the game in the version they prefer. Branching dialogues let you dive deeper into the story, learning the origin of the familial curse, and shedding light on the characters' motives and fears.
Simplified Chinese 中文, Latin American Spanish, French, and German are supported for all UI and text. You can still choose whether to listen to Modern English or 17th Century Period English for the VO when these languages are selected.
Battles feed into a Ritual bargain against the Devil’s minions for the soul of each family member. Like a cat with a mouse, Demons love to play with their victims. Their pride cannot resist a wager if they think they can tilt the outcome to their advantage - but you can call their bluff.
Each Svangård has their own card deck representing their souls, cursed with debts left by their Matriarch. The outcomes of a Bargain offer powerful effects which permanently affect the family member you are helping with helpful Boons or heavy Banes.
You only have a few rounds to negotiate before the Ritual is completed, and only a few Rituals to make a difference and alter a family member's fate before the final Reckoning is due.
These bargains and the opposing demons change as you progress. No two playthroughs are identical. Replays grant you new dark miracles, and ways to change the ending.
Purge the Svangård family’s hereditary curse before the devil arrives. Hopefully, without losing your own soul.
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Reviews
Themes across 44 recent reviews and how positive each mention is. A keyword signal, not full sentiment analysis.
Reviews
A really interesting combination of Inscryption style gameplay and a novel deck building mechanic I haven't seen in other games. Definitely worth it.
I really like this game. I think it's exceptional. I want more people to play it so we can all yell about it. The writing is phenomenal. I chose the 17th century English option and I found it absolutely beautiful to read and listen to; I think it is deliberately written to be poetic (although it's hard to disentangle that from the language of that time period sounding poetic to modern ears in general!) and it has the effect of heightening the emotion and atmosphere while still effectively communicating important plot details. Related to that: the voice acting is genuinely some of the best I've ever heard. And the story! It's just the right balance of revelation and mystery to get me immediately bought in to the feeling of being genuinely, viscerally tempted to risk everything to learn hidden secrets. I've also gotten sincerely attached to my "clients" and invested in helping them -- not that I don't have stars in my eyes for the characters who have endangered/are endangering them! I am also a big fan of the music and the art direction! I think the animations of the first character you meet are particularly good. He moves like exactly what I understand him to be, if that makes any sense at all. The gameplay is fun! I have only limited experience with deck building games, so I'm not the best person to evaluate the mechanics, but I'm having a good time. I will say that the rituals can be pretty swing-y between being very difficult and very easy, and I'm interested to see what balance changes will be introduced between now and the final release. What I find most enjoyable here is how the card games tie into the atmosphere and narrative, like how each of the Pacts has a name that implies something about the character it belongs to and/or just has generally sick occult vibes, while simultaneously alluding to the Pact's mechanical theme. I think the best spoiler-free way I can sum up why I like this game is that its creators have a strong, specific artistic vision, and they've done a ton of research and carefully crafted the narrative to achieve that vision. There's nothing that eats my brain like a story that feels like its creators really care about it, like making This Story about This Time and This Place and These Themes with These Vibes is more important than achieving the broadest appeal or whatever. I think there are many people who would bounce right off this game, for example, because they might find its themes disturbing or unrelatable, and that is totally fine because things that are made with intention are never for everyone. For me, it fits into a Killing Stone shaped hole in my brain that I didn't know was there, and I'm so glad it exists.
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Languages: English*, French, German, Simplified Chinese, Spanish - Latin America*languages with full audio support
Hours played at review time, across 44 reviews with recorded playtime.
positive critical· bar length = how often the theme comes up
While there can be some improvements, overall, this is an excellent game. Some highlights for me are: a.) Superb Voice Acting. b.) Intuitive yet complex gameplay. c.) Engrossing story premise. 2c.) I am absolutely in love with the story so far. I will update this review as I get deeper into the game but as it stands I am impressed with Question, and hope to see more games of similar quality from them as time goes on.
Very interesting and stylish game. The excellent use of shadows, mysterious style of dialogue and occult themes give the game a rich atmosphere. The deck-building is super fun and unique too, you build multiple decks to save for a mega run that they're going to add by end of early access.
Pretty deep card battler mechanics, and even deeper story. Exploring the spooky mansion is cool too. Sacrifice me, devil daddy!!
A devious mix of Monster Train-esque card battles, ominous faustian bargains, and contract negotiations with various demons. I wish the game had full voice acting for all the characters and demons but recording two whole separate tracks, one for period-accurate English and one for modern dialect, is probably really time consuming and expensive, and what VO is there is incredible. Emma Gregory kills it.
It is somewhat muddying to call The Kililing Stone a deck-builder. Other games in the genre often follow the roguelike formula of creating decks and then discarding them between runs, saving persistent card changes for custom game modes. The Killing Stone instead has you slowly curate your cards, perks, and quirks across multiple runs within each "chapter." To me, this is much more interesting, as it forces you to try new builds mid-run, rather than starting over again and again. The emphasis on not fully starting over also helps keep the player invested. However, it's still a little rough around the edges.
I will be the first to say that I am not the target audience for this game; I don't usually have much patience with deck builders. However, this one is an exception, and I will keep on playing it - the presentation is fantastic, the voice acting is remarkable (Liam O'Brien in perhaps his best game voice role to date), and the writing is terrific. On those merits alone, I would recommend playing this. Gameplay wise, it is absolutely interesting (even though, again, I am not personally the target audience for games of this genre). There is a lot of strategy involved with each battle in each "ritual" as the game calls them, and the difficulty feels just right; challenging, but never impossible. For the atmosphere, the writing, and the voice acting alone, this game is definitely something I'd recommend. If you enjoy deck building games, getting The Killing Stone is an absolute must - you won't be sorry that you did!
Still early, but enjoy much of what the game has offered so far. The premise is great, the voice acting is superb, and the gameplay seems like it will give me a lot of options and strategies as I get deeper into the rituals/challenges offered so far.
As always with Question, a game that is ever so slightly not what you expect of it while being an absolute treat. Takes the slay the spire formula into a more deliberate, narrative focused route with fantastic art, writing and sound design. Maybe a bit linear for some.
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