Idle RPGs are amongst the most downloaded mobile games on the market, and manababa‘s recently released title, Stone Adventure, could’ve easily been swept under your radar despite its glowing reviews.
An engaging auto-battler like Dino Knight, Stone Adventure‘s gameplay mechanics are surprisingly deep despite its minimalistic graphics (consumes fewer phone resources, though), and this guide can help you familiarize yourself with them as seamlessly as possible.
One Stone To Rule Them All
Stone Adventure is as straightforward as it sounds; you play as a cute rock who’s on a mission to defeat every powerful foe on the planet (consisting of enemies made from different earthen elements/ metal types).
Photo: manababa
Story-wise, there isn’t any in the game. Instead, you’re put straight into the action as soon as your profile is finalized.
The game does aid you slightly by introducing Guide MIssions for you to complete, as well as in-game prompts to follow when new features are unlocked upon you reaching certain levels.
Photo: manababa
Still, it’s an idle game that’s better seen as a time consumer if anything else, but a cheekily good one, though.
The game adopts a simple and cartoonish art style that doesn’t necessarily appeal right off the bat, but it grows in charm as you continue to defeat the countless mobs on screen.
Plus, Stone Adventure won’t hog your phone’s memory due to its minimal system resources used, so there’s good to the game’s chosen visuals, resulting in fluid animations and faultless playing time for a game that’s stuck in constant combat sequences.
Photo: manababa
What you do need to understand are the game’s core mechanics, and they’re quite comprehensive for a game of this casual stature. Let’s start by exploring the game’s overall gameplay loop, shall we?
The Gameplay Loop
Photo: manababa
Just like other idle RPGs, everything revolves around combat in Stone Adventure, particularly in-game progression. Before going into the details, here’s the general gameplay process that you’ll be doing repeatedly in the game:
- Defeat mobs (gain EXP and materials/ resources).
- Use resources to improve abilities (under the Enhance tab) and summon new weapons/ skills (under the Shop tab).
- Empower your gear (under the Equipment tab) and skills (under the Skill tab).
- Beat the different game modes (in Adventure) to collect additional resources and materials.
- Repeat everything from the beginning.
Photo: manababa
Now, the primary in-game tabs/ sections that you’ll be cycling through are as follows:
- Enhance (represented by the smiling face icon)
- You can bolster your basic stats of Attack, HP, etc. by spending Gold here.
- Equipment (represented by the sword and shield icon)
- All collected gear (Weapon, Hat, Accessory) will be cataloged here, to be combined to create better ones for you to equip.
- Skills (represented by the book icon)
- Your unlocked spells/ skills are found here, letting you choose which to use or improve.
- Adventure (represented by the compass icon)
- Challenge different game modes by going to Adventure.
- Shop (represented by the house icon)
- Spend your currencies collected on new equipment, skills, and other necessities here.
Photo: manababa
Regarding the in-game currencies, they consist of:
- Gold
- The basic resource that you’ll need for enhancing player stats (in Enhance).
- Gained by defeating waves of enemies, beating Gold Island and Pirate Village (in Adventure), etc.
- Gems
- The important currency consumed for summoning new equipment and skills (in the Shop).
- Collected by defeating mobs, completing Daily/ Weekly Missions, beating Gem Island (in Adventure), etc.
Understanding these will help you breeze through the other in-game content, now that you know what to do and where to look to spend your accumulated currencies. Speaking of which, the equipment and skills come next.
Equipment And Skills
Photo: manababa
Your hero can only fare so well without the addition of high-quality equipment or the use of powerful skills. As you level up, enemies become stronger and more durable, forcing you to strengthen your own combat prowess as well.
This is where the Equipment and Skill tabs come into play, letting you tweak your character to your liking. To help understand each, let’s explore them one at a time:
Equipment
Photo: manababa
Under the Equipment tab, you’ll find three different segments to check out, each being:
- Weapon
- Hat
- Accessory
Each gear worn adds bonus Attack and Skill damage to your character, and you want to wear the best of them at all times regardless of how weird they might look on your hero.
Additionally, as you summon more equipment via the Shop, you’ll get multiple duplicates. You can combine the duplicates to enhance the respective gear, increasing their respective level and combat output.
If you’re conscious about your hero’s appearance, you can change the overall attire by equipping different Costumes under the Enhance tab. So, there’s no point caring about looks here when you’re trying to build on your fighting effectiveness.
Skills
Photo: manababa
For the juicier part of battles, you can find all sorts of magic spells and abilities to arm yourself with under the Skills tab. Here, you can opt for various destructive solutions to destroy your enemies, such as throwing shurikens or lobbing dynamites.
Your skills are separated into five different elemental types, each being:
- Fire
- Lightning
- Wind
- Ice
- Earth
All skills are useful during the Stone Adventure early game regardless of their typing, but eventually, you’ll need to swap things around when you’re going up against tougher foes or unique challenges later in the game, such as the Pirate Village.
Still, skills are your most damaging utility in Stone Adventure, so make sure to prioritize upgrading them the moment you have the chance to do so.
Photo: manababa
An aspect that both your equipment and skills share is tier grading. This means every gear/ skill that you have is classified under a certain tier, ranging from (weakest to most powerful):
- Tier 6 (grey)
- Tier 5 (green)
- Tier 4 (blue)
- Tier 3 (purple)
- Tier 2 (gold)
- Tier 1 (red)
Different tiers affect your combat proficiencies significantly, meaning you should always change to a higher-tier alternative as soon as you acquire them in-game.
Nevertheless, the better ones are obviously harder to come by, but it’s something to always keep in mind while playing the game.
Game Modes in Stone Adventure
Photo: manababa
With the general knowledge now covered, it’s time for you to dive into the distinct game modes available in Stone Adventure. The game’s different challenges provide unique rewards too, giving you the incentive to play each of them separately.
Almost all of them have a pre-requisite for you to play them, though, limiting your overall progression to a degree. Still, they’re all important to help your character grow, and each mode can be categorized into:
Islands
Photo: manababa
These small islands are the earliest you’ll unlock, providing access for you to collect more materials and resources outside of the primary idle gameplay. They are:
- DPS Island
- Calculate your latest damage output by attacking a test dummy here, and setting new records.
- Rune Island
- The most direct way of getting Runes to empower your Skills is by defeating different Boss stages on this island.
- EXP Island
- Destroying Bosses here rewards you with more EXP.
- Gold Island
- Defeating multiple enemies per stage lets you collect numerous amounts of Gold.
As their names imply, each island provides you with the respective rewards except for DPS Island where you can get Gems for beating your own damage-per-second (DPS) records.
Villages
Photo: manababa
Villages are the difficulty spikes in Stone Adventure, but they’re also the most exciting! Each village pits you against Bosses with varying elemental immunity and effectiveness.
Challenging these mighty foes will mostly require you to change your skills accordingly unless you’re already overpowered, of course. A few examples of these villages are:
- Pirate Village
- Wizard Village
- Swordman Village
- Bear Village
- Etc.
The rewards for beating them are amongst the best in the game, so these are what you should be building your hero for.
Mines
Photo: manababa
In Stone Adventure, a small part of the game revolves around crafting too. You can do this by clicking on the Factory label on top of the screen in Adventure.
You can either craft new equipment or skills depending on the materials that you have inside your inventory. These aren’t too varied and complicated, so it’s really basic and simple.
Regardless, most of the crafting materials can be found in the Mines, being collected passively out of combat.
Bonuses And Events
Photo: manababa
Although the game is already brimming with multiple ways for you to accumulate in-game currencies and resources, the developer continues giving by introducing extra events and features for you to get freebies every day.
Many rewards await you just by playing the game daily, and you can plan your in-game progress around them too. The current events and bonuses that you should take advantage of are:
- Roulette (represented by the spinning wheel icon)
- Battle Rewards (represented by the gift/ present icon)
- Buffs (represented by the sword icon)
- Time Rewards (represented by the clock/ watch icon)
- Quests (represented by the pencil and notebook icon)
- Passes (represented by the golden ticket icon)
Photo: manababa
Ideally, you’ll never find yourself behind as long as you play the game consistently. In fact, the game plays by itself automatically, so you only need to plan out your character’s general progression and build while you watch everything unfold hands-free.
However, it’s worth noting that subsequent uses of these add-ons are normally locked behind free ads, so there is still a restrictive factor there.
That being said, these ads help the developer recoup the costs of the game’s creation, and they’re only a few seconds long, so it’s actually a win-win situation for everyone.
Tips & Tricks
Overall, Stone Adventure isn’t a difficult game at all. Still, your hero’s growth does depend on you playing the game for longer if you want to unlock the cooler stuff in-game.
Photo: manababa
To help your character develop faster, here are a few tips & tricks that you might find useful:
1. Spam the ads
Photo: manababa
Truthfully, nobody loves in-game ads, especially those that lock your game’s progress behind them. In Stone Adventure, though, they’re entirely optional and don’t affect your enjoyment of the game.
The developer, manababa, has gone out of its way to share awesome rewards in exchange for you spending a few seconds (literally!) watching ads, so use the chance to get some exclusive gear or materials that you can’t get easily otherwise!
2. Manually move your hero
Photo: manababa
Although the game is quite thorough in holding your hand during the ‘tutorial’ phase, there’s one thing that the game doesn’t tell you at all: you can actually move your hero around the screen!
This is done by pressing a finger on the screen, keeping it there while dictating where your hero needs to go by moving it toward your preferred direction. Manually controlling your character helps tremendously in beating later challenges, such as Gold Island or Wizard Village.
3. Spend, spend, spend
Photo: manababa
In certain games, you might be advised to save your precious currencies for better items to buy in the late game. In Stone Adventure, spending your currencies IS a vital practice for getting to the late game!
By keeping your Gold and Gems reserved, you’ll limit your hero’s overall effectiveness, slowing down in-game progress. So, go crazy spending those Gems to summon equipment and skills.
Gold is easily replaced as well, so make sure to enhance your character’s stats using every penny!
4. Change skills around
Photo: manababa
Yes, Stone Adventure is an idle auto-battler, but different challenges will test your hero’s capabilities in more ways than one. As such, swapping your skills around depending on the potential obstacles you’re trying to take on can help you get past them a lot quicker.
Plus, the game becomes excruciatingly boring if everything is done for you by the AI, so this is one of the game’s ways to keep you engaged in fights as well.
Photo: manababa
Conclusion
Stone Adventure proves that an enjoyable mobile RPG doesn’t have to be breathtakingly gorgeous; it just needs to nail the core mechanics correctly for players to love the grind.
While you’re here, check out our guides for other idle RPGs, such as Cat Hero or Pixel Fantasia, too!
