How to play › ADVENTURE
STONE RANCH
Your grandmother left you the ranch, a shed of tools, one humming stone and a shrine that answers to website addresses. Stone Ranch is a raising sim: hatch a beast, train it week by week, and take it through the tournament ranks to a cup nobody has held in forty years.
PLAY NOW ▶The goal
Raise a beast from cub to elder and win cups. Climb the ranks from D to S, claim the Rank S cup, win the Rank S Gauntlet, and then climb the endless Ladder.
How a season plays
Every week you pick one action from the ranch menu. TRAIN power, speed or guts through a short minigame: stop the marker on PERFECT to push the boulder, mash the button to sprint, or release in the best zone before the gauge bursts. Each session raises a stat but adds fatigue, and a very tired beast may be injured, so REST matters too. Once a week you can also CARE for (fuss over) your beast to build its bond.
In a TOURNAMENT you fight a semifinal and a final. In the ring you choose STRIKE, SURGE or GUARD, and you read the other beast's tells: CIRCLING means it will strike (a surge out-hits it), WINDING UP means it will surge (guard and counter), WINDED means it is guarding (a strike breaks it). Read it right three times in a row and it shows you an OPENING, a free critical strike. From rank A the tells can lie. A bonded beast hears you CALL OUT over the crowd and finds a second wind.
A rival rancher raises a beast beside yours, takes the final at every rank and learns from every loss. Beasts age and do not live forever, but each one leaves a legacy for the next. Expeditions bring home relics that bend the rules.
Controls
| Keyboard | Pad | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Up / Down | Stick / d-pad | Choose |
| Left / Right | Stick / d-pad | Stone, wager, scout, fuse, ring action, info page |
| Z / Space | A | Confirm; minigame button |
| X | B | Back; guard in the ring |
| C | C | Fuss over your beast; CALL OUT in the ring |
| Q / E | L / R | Info pages, jump through lists, ring action |
On a phone or tablet, a see-through joystick and A, B, C, L, R and SPACE buttons appear over the game and do the same as the keys above.
Gamepad: the stick or d-pad moves and the buttons follow the Pad column (Start is START). Esc, P or Back pauses, and the HOW TO PLAY button over the game shows the basics any time.
Modes
Stone Ranch is one long game run from the ranch menu: TRAIN, REST, TOURNAMENT, CARE, EXPEDITION, EXHIBITION, SHED, SHRINE, RETIRE and more open up as you go. At the SHRINE you can type any website address and it becomes a beast, worked out entirely in your browser. Past Rank S wait the Gauntlet and the Ladder. The DAILY BOUT is on the ranch menu.
Mastery stars
Each star pays tickets the first time you earn it.
- Bronze: First Cup: win any tournament.
- Silver: Forty Years Ended: claim the Rank S cup.
- Gold: The Old One Yields: win the Rank S Gauntlet.
Daily challenge
Yes. The DAILY BOUT is the same for everyone that day and plays on NORMAL; its best is kept apart from your ranch.
Beginner tips
- Watch fatigue. Training always adds some, and above the warning line your beast may be injured and lose stats.
- Learn the three tells and their answers: circling, surge; winding up, guard; winded, strike.
- Chain three correct reads for the free critical strike. It often decides a close fight.
- Fuss over your beast once a week. The bond lets you CALL OUT in the ring for a second wind.
- Remember the type triangle: fang beats wing, wing beats shell, shell beats fang.