There are a total of 9 types of stones in this game: Rubies, Topazes, Onyxes, Jaspers, Sapphires, Jades, Opals, Amethysts, Rocks, Ambers and Diamonds. These are split into three categories: Primary, Secondary and Misc.
Primary gems (Rb,Tp,Ox,Js) which increase one base stat at the defecit of another. These are desinged to specialise your run into a tank, dps or glass cannon build. Rubies grant extra Health, at the loss of Speed. Topaz grants Apeed for Armor, Onyx grants Armor in place of Damage and Jasper gives Damage for Health.
Secondary gems (Sp,Jd,Op,Am) which increase one bonus stat at the defecit of a base stat. These are designed to add nuance to your run, secondary stats are much like the base stat they reduce but have vital differences. Sapphire, for example, grants Sheilding instead of Health, which cannot be healed in combat once lost and is ignored by armor pierce (granted by Amethysts), but is always full at the start of combat.
And third: Miscelaneous (Rocks,Ab,Di). Rocks have no stat bonus or deficit, and can't even be applied to gear. However, while they are useless on their own, they are used in crafting so you should still hold onto them, not that She lets you drop them. Amber is used as Forge fuel to craft gems more efficently. Diamonds are the single most powerfull gem, granted only by taking on, and killing, a particularly powerful opponent. When used in a forge, a Diamond will grant a single, universal slot for a gem, ability or plant (your choice), or can be used in place of any other gem.
As for items, at the moment there are very few. The starting equipment, a longsword, crossbow and chestplate as well as a few obtainable through looting after combat or at springs. Your longsword and crossbow have the same base damage, the only difference is the longsword takes time to swing and resets instantly, while the crossbow fires instantly and takes time to reset. At each spring, you can refill your flask, which grants up to three Health when used. Your armor doesn't do much, as there currently aren't any other armors.
Each of your item slots, armor and weapon, have one gem slot, to a total of two. Your weapon gem applies to both your longsword and crossbow, so you don't have to worry about that. I have considered changing this to a primary only slot, a secondary only slot and a third gemstone slot usable for any gem.
Every Plant variation is a type of tree, each one doubles both the negative and positive effects of their respective Gemstones. There are four basic plant variants and one much rarer variant.
Each of the basic plants doubles both the stat bonus and reduction of a primary gem and its secondary gem. For example, willow trees double the effect of Rubies and Sappires, while Cedar trees double the effects of Jaspers and Amethysts, the same goes for Maple with Topaz and Jade and Oak with Onyx and Opal.
And the other variant is Mustard. These are only half as likely as each of the other variants, making it a 1/9 drop. It doubles the effects, so stat increases and decreases, of every gem, primary and secondary. As you can only have one plant active, Mustard is best used with two different gems, while the others are ideal for doubled up gems.
I plan to maybe add a plant variant the doubles every primary gem, but only primaries, and one that does the same but for just secondary gems.
The "continue" command is used to confirm game settings, initiate combat and leave springs. The "swing", "shoot" and "load" commands are only used in combat, "swing" taking an action to make an attack, "shoot" being used as a free action before main your action, or as your main action if you're dumb (/j), but requires your crossbow to be loaded. Which is where "load" comes into play, taking an action to, you guessed it, load your crossbow.
The "turbo", "fast", "standard" and "slow" commands are used to change the game's text output speed, to 4*, 2* 1* and 1/2 respectively. Output speed has no effect on gameplay whatsoever, but it can cause some interesting glitches. The "bleed" command applies damage over time, rather than all at once, and the "cleave" command resets this. This means that while the player will not die in one hit, neither will the enemies. And the "sun" command deals a small amount of damage to the player and enemies every combat round. With this on, your enemies will die without getting hit but so will you.
At springs, you can use the "apply" and then "armor" or "weapon" commands, coupled with the name of a gem, to apply any gem to either of your two gem slots to modify your stats. The "flask" command, when used at a spring, will refill your flask, and, when used in combat, will heal up to three Health and empty the flask. The "break" command is used at springs to shatter the pool's surface, allowing you to apply gems, plant a seed, refill your flask and respawn there once, but it overrides your previous respawn point.
You have probably noticed a set of brackets and pipes (this character: |) below the black text display box, beside the "confirm" button. This, as you may have infered, is the stat bar. It should look like this: [|||||] (||) {|} <||> at the start of every run. Each pipe represents a primary stat point, for Health, Speed, Armor and Damage respectively. And each / represents a secondary stat point, for Sheilding, Bonus Attacks, Damage Reflect and Armor Pierce respectively.
This bar updates everytime you are attacked, even if it doesn't hit, heal, or apply any upgrade. Health and Sheilding wise, the bar won't go over the normal maximum, so if you mess around on the console, please don't do that, She doesn't like it, it won't get any longer. The bar will extend for damage, armor and speed, however.
There are only three debuffs, Oil Sickness, Radiation and Stun. I'll get right into it: every time you heal your Oil Sickness increases. The higher your Oil Sickness the less effective healing is, up to the point where you can't any more. It decreases over time though.
Radiation, however, increases everytime you're hit by an attack. Radiation deals a small amount of damage everytime it passively decreases by a full integer. On top of this, to mimic actual radioactive isotopes it decreases faster the higher it is. If it reaches a sertain threshold, you'll take greatly increased damage from every attack. Radiation also decrease when you heal, too keep things painfully balanced.
Now Stun is a little bit different than what you might expect. Logically, it prevents you from taking actions, but it also prevents you from dodging, guaranteeing that any attacks hit. It lasts for at least an entire combat round, nullifying at least one action. Not many things apply stun, but it'll hurt when it happens.
In short, don't get hit and you'll be fine. I did say that this game is hard, after all.
Abilities charge slowly over time in combat and all apply at least a small amount of Stun. However, you can take an action to gain a significant amount ability charge, and a small amount of your charge is retained between combat. There are only four abilities, two are offensive: Execution and Retribution, and two are defensive: Regenerate and Parry.
Execution, the simplest of the offensive abilities, does a large amount of Damage with a high change to hit, Dtunning you for a single round. That's it, more Damage the more your basic attacks deal and longer Stun and higher hit-change the higher your Speed. Retribution, while mostly the same, procs when you're hit, and always hits. It's Damage scales the same as Execution's but it's multiplied by how much lower your current Health is than the base max Health (thats 5 points, btw). Execution is a good finisher, splitting your opponent in half with one swing, but Retribution can throughly vaporise anything that hits you, if your one-shot protection procs as well.
Regenerate is pretty simple as well, healing a lagre amount of Health (60% of your max, so 3 points base). Parry, however, grants a massive pool of Sheilding for one combat round. You will be Stunned for that round, but the sheer size of that Sheilding pool makes it perfect for countering you opponents abilities (yes, they get those too).