Turn based combat

Cozy through Custom

Launch news names Easy, Normal and Hard as a rising ladder of enemy stats and death penalties, plus Nightmare, recommended for those who don't enjoy fun, and Custom, where you pick stats from prompts and cannot change them later. Stone Tower achievements exist for every label: Cozy Tower, Easy Tower, Normal Tower, Hard Tower, Nightmare Tower and Custom Tower. Compare one or two difficulties with the buttons; the notes stay inside launch news and those achievement names. Adjustable Difficulty is a Steam feature flag, which matches this ladder rather than a hidden modifier screen. Custom is the trap door: picked stats cannot be changed later, and Custom Tower is the proof you finished The Stone Tower on that locked sheet.

Cornstalker and the command menu

The named combat still is a Cornstalker: lab coat, corn-husk head, and the intro line A Cornstalker appears. That is the official enemy name, not a community nickname. The second still shows a mustached enemy carrying shopping bags, which matches mall-side fights such as Hall Monitor and Mall Administrator on the achievement list.

The four commands printed on that menu are Attack, Ritual, Guard and Item. Official copy does not break those buttons into damage formulas. It does say you must utilize gathered resources, strategic buffs and diverse equipment to survive encounters with ancient Lovecraftian horrors. Die, learn, farm, and forage, then die again is the loop sentence on the store page.

The Gameplay Trailer on Kwalee Gaming is the moving version of that menu. Watch it for pacing, then come back to the stills for the exact four labels. Shopping-bag enemies and Cornstalker are the two named combat screenshots Steam actually sold; other enemy art lives on community wikis and is not duplicated here. A Cornstalker appears is the intro line on the still, so the name is locked the same way Hall Monitor and Mall Administrator are locked on the achievement list.

Deaths, mall fights and towers

The achievement named Welcome to Elderfield is Die. Groundhog Day is 10 deaths, Tis But a Flesh Wound is 100, and Borrowed Time is survive 5 deaths by using Rings of Immortality. Those numbers are the only official death counters. Mall-side kills include Hall Monitor, Mall Administrator, Ancient Mushroom, Ancient Tree, Gravemoss Colony, Soul of the Catacombs, and four Emissary names: Daeus, Delvek, Kaal and Xxarteck.

Read the mall and mines page for those locations and the Old Gods page for shrine blessings and alignment. The combat film is the Gameplay Trailer on Kwalee Gaming, and the Steam about text is still the rules paragraph for resources, buffs and equipment.

Curses and blessings share a five-by-five shape on the achievement list: Sickly and Jacked are five different statuses, Haggard and God Mode are five stacks of five. Rings of Immortality are the only named death-skip item. None of those rows print a damage number, so the command matrix above stays at the four menu labels Steam actually showed.

Easy, Normal and Hard raise enemy stats and death penalties together, per launch news. Nightmare sits above that as the joke rung. Custom locks the sheet you pick from prompts. Cozy Tower through Custom Tower are six separate Stone Tower rows, so you can clear the same task on a harvest save and later on Nightmare without Steam implying a New Game Plus. Die, learn, farm, forage, then die again is still the store loop sentence; Attack, Ritual, Guard and Item are the four buttons you press inside it. Borrowed Time's five Rings of Immortality saves are the only official way Steam named to skip a death without ending the run. You can compare two difficulties above without leaving this route. Hall Monitor and Mall Administrator share the shopping-bag still; Soul of the Catacombs sits on the sewers path; the four Emissary names sit with the shrine. Adjustable Difficulty is a Steam feature flag, which matches this ladder rather than a hidden extra menu.