Stone Story begins with the birth of a singular “o”, blinking ceaselessly at the centre of a pitch black screen. Shimmering like buried silver, the text on screen informs you that this is all you see; the rest of the universe lays concealed beneath a veil of darkness. You can’t see or hear anything, but you can, at least, feel the rocks that chafe your feet. So you gather them. The fifth stone you pick turns out to be that flickering “o”—a strange one with peculiar etchings on it, with an artfully amassed cluster of punctuation marks and symbols that’s somehow visible to you. You fumble with it. Then a blinding light engulfs the scene, but only for a brief moment. Your surroundings are revealed. It’s still a dark place, but now it’s also a sprawling world rendered by dashes, dots and a collection of ACSII characters.

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