HammerHelm News

Hi everyone!

As we've gotten quite a lot of new players with the Steam Summer Sale, I just wanted to let you know that we're still very much looking for feedback on the game! Any feedback we could work with is interesting to us, so if you have any, feel free to leave it as a Steam Community Hub post, or join our Discord server at https://discord.gg/soedesco to let us know!

Stay tuned for our next update post!

-Marten

Today's build includes two pretty big changes to the townspeople traits system and to combat, specifically monster AI.

Townspeople Traits
New Dwarves will now have a significantly reduced chance to have two negative traits. They will usually have either one positive and one negative or two positive traits.

Combat
Monster AI has been updated to make their attacks a bit more frequent. Monsters will now sometimes immediately attack as soon as they get in melee range. in the previous system monsters would be reset if you left melee range, creating situations where monsters would never attack. Monsters have also had their wind-up timer reduced so there will be slightly less warning before they attack, but still time to block or dodge. Monsters have also had their special attack probably increased slightly. Overall these changes should make combat more engaging while still remaining easy to understand.



Monster mages have also received some improvements. Goblin mages will now continue to turn face you during most of their casting "wind up" phase. Prior to this change, the goblin mage attack was usually wildly off target if you moved around. You'll still have time to dodge or move away from their attack, but you'll need to time it a bit now!

This build also fixes a bug that sometimes caused the Goblin Mage lightning attack to register a hit when you were close to it, but not in it.

I'll likely continue to do some minor tweaking to combat. My goal is to keep combat light and not super difficult, but I also want it to be more engaging and fun!

-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
[email protected]

• My Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuperSixStudios
  
• Discord Channel: discord.gg/soedesco

Today's update includes an overhaul of some of the UI elements to make the text easier to read. Specifically the resource numbers in the the crafting/building list and the amount numbers in the Inventory and related screens.

click to see full size

click to see full size

Other UI elements were updated including the character information UI in the upper left and all of the "monster part" icons to help make it easier to read.

This build also fixed a couple of bugs related to controller inputs.

-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
[email protected]

• My Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuperSixStudios
  
• Discord Channel: discord.gg/soedesco

Today's build includes a big update to the roof coloring system, a new dungeon entrance, and an improved monster special attack system!

Roof Colors
Ever since I added the ability to change the roof color of houses, I've been asked to make it available for all buildings. So I did! With the new roof coloring system, any building's roof can be colored. The system allows you to set each building's roof color individually as well as setting all house roofs the same and all other buildings the same.

All houses yellow and all other buildings blue.


Taste the rainbow!


There are 17 colors to choose from. If you think I missed a color that you'd like to have please let me know. It's fairly easy to add more. :)

Monster Special Attacks
I updated the monster special attacks system to make the special attacks more frequent. In the old system they almost never happened. The attacks are mostly the same with a few minor tweaks. Combat should be a bit more interesting now!

The Orc smash attack cannot be blocked. You can tell an Orc has this ability if you see one wielding a big stone hammer.


The Skeleton trip attack is sneaky and also cannot be blocked. Skeletons who can perform this attack wield halberds.


The Goblin stabbity-stab-stab attack can be blocked, however you must remain in the block stance for each attack! Goblins who can perform this attack wield curved swords.


Ratman with twin daggers can perform double-strike attack. And Mushroomen with twin clubs can perform a spinning attack.

Updated dungeon entrance!


This was literally the oldest object still in HammerHelm so it was way overdue for a refresh! You may not be able to see it in the screenshot, but the skull's eyes have little flames in them.

This build also includes a few other updates.

• Increased the default volume for one of the dungeon music tracks by a slight amount.
  
• Improved controller support for the change roof color UI.
  
• Fixed a missing texture in the Carpenter building.
  
• Fixed the roof texture of the Carpenter building.
  
• Fixed a sorting bug with the "Saving Game" message that made it appear behind the Escape menu.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the Weaponsmith footprint to not appear when in build mode.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the tutorial UI for the Helmet to display the controller button rather than the keyboard key.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused NPCs to fail to perform their "chop" animation when clearing the mines in the tutorial quest.

Thank you again everyone for all of your feedback and comments!

-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
[email protected]

• My Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuperSixStudios
  
• Discord Channel: discord.gg/soedesco

A quick build to improve controller support for build mode.

• You can toggle between the different filters using the d-pad (left and right) without having to press a button.
  
• Pressing Y will now toggle the town overlaps (water, beauty, etc) on and off.
  
• Added more instructions for how to enter building management mode.
  
• Fixed a couple of bugs related to the build management mode selector.
  
• Also fixed a bug that caused the Achievements UI to appear behind the ESC UI.

-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
[email protected]

• My Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuperSixStudios
  
• Discord Channel: discord.gg/soedesco