HammerHelm News

Tonight's build is a small update to a couple of controls based on feedback and a UI fix.

• Attempting to block will no longer pull you out of performing a power attack. While you can block to interrupt a normal attack, there is no reason to try to block when using a power attack since you are immune to damage while performing it. Since doing this would stop the power attack (often by accident) without any need to do so, I removed this from the controls.
  
• Decreased the delay between keyboard taps for the double-tap rolling based on feedback. The previous delay would result in unwanted rolls too often.
  
• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused the Inventory UI to fail to close after interacting with furniture in your home.

-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
[email protected]

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

Today's update is a new quest, Give a Dog a Bone - a quest requested by the HammerHelm community!

This quest is fairly simple and mostly meant to give you another opportunity to go into a dungeon. Dungeons are the best sources of gold as you not only get the gold from the treasure chest, but you also get more from the crates. I want to add one more dungeon related quest as well.

This quest is not repeatable although it could be if you all would like it to be. It unlocks once you have placed a Champion's Home and completed the Orc Quest.

This update also has an adjustment to reduce the volume of the sounds for the fountain and apiaries and an addition to the controller mapping UI to allow you to ensure your connected controller is recognized by the game.

-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
[email protected]

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

Tonight's build has a fix for the Deep Dwellers not spawning in the Stronghold at the start of the second quest and a change to the way stones work in the world.

Previously a quarried stone would be removed from the world. This new system allows them to return after a short period of time, similar to how trees grow. This reduces the change that Workers set to get stone will have to run far away from the town.

This build also includes some other improvements and fixes:

• Updated the NPCs in the Stronghold to clear out their quest flags so you are always directed to the correct NPC to speak with.
  
• Updated the falling leaves on trees to match the color of the tree's leaves.
  
• Removed duplicate trees on the Orc Island.
  
• Fixed a localization bug that made the mouse-over text for Glowberries to read Pure Glowberries. The Glowberries in your town are the regular variety. You can make Pure Glowberries using those and other ingredients at the Infirmary.
  
• Updated the weapon trail for attacks so the trail remains close to the weapon's swing arc. This also solves the issue of the trail sometimes stretching really far off the screen when first attacking.
  
• The Infirmary and Mage Tower will now correctly use the town storage ingredients in addition to your inventory when determining whether you can craft something or not.
  
• Updated the pickaxe system to correctly allow Jade Pickaxes to mine Diamond Ore.

I'm also almost done with the Give a Dog a Bone quest for Nika the Dog that I mentioned in a previous update. Hoping to have that, and some other things, live either Thursday or Friday.

Thank you again everyone for the feedback and support!

-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
[email protected]

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

Tonight's build has an adjustment to the way Special Attacks work. In order to hit a monster with an attack it must be in your front arc. However, when using a Special Attack it is possible for a monster to move out of that arc while your character is playing the attack animation. I've changed this so that if the monster is a valid target in your front arc when you start the Special Attack, it will get hit even if it moves. This should greatly reduce missing with Power Attacks.

In addition, I have turned off the "got hit" animation for spell casters while they are actively casting a spell. They will still take damage. Playing the "got hit" animation could result in them flailing the spell wildly. Kinda funny to watch, especially with the mushroomman puke attack, except of course when the spell hits you!

And lastly, I made a change to the Goblin Spellcasters to stop his lightning spell from damaging you if his animation caused the spell to appear to the left or right due to his animation. This happened so fast it you never saw the spell until it was shooting straight ahead and looked like he missed you by a wide margin, but still did damage. This shouldn't happen anymore.

This build also includes some fixes:

• The text after finding the Orc flagpole will now appear properly.
  
• After leaving Orc Island the music will revert back to the main island exploration music.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the Orc Town to fail to reload if you die while outside of the Orc Town. This is due to an optimization as while you can't see the town it is turned off.
  
• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused the Ancient and New quest to appear twice.
  
• Placed blockers on either side of the bridge in the orc cave.

HammerHelm launched out of early access 25 days ago. Today's update is the 26th update. I normally don't keep up that much of an update cadence, but there's been so many great suggestions and feedback that I'm having a blast implementing them!

Some more suggestions that I really like but haven't had a chance to work on yet:

• Give a small amount of XP from dungeon and cave spawners rather than only giving the quest XP for clearing it.
  
• A quest for Nika!
  
• Auto-stack potions into your quick bar if that potion is already in a quick slot.
  
• Easier way to find NPCs that you are looking for.
  
• More town management options.
  
• An update to storehouses to allow you to upgrade them and potentially need to place fewer.
  
• Pop-up text for other buildings other than houses.
  
• Add red and orange birch trees as options for the town.
  
• Make imbue gems a bit less dependent on pure randomness.

Just a partial list, definitely more than that too! Note, some of these may take longer to get to than others so don't take this as a priority list. And I have some other things on my own list I want to work on. Mostly just want to give you an idea of what I have on my "to do" list and that I really appreciate the ideas and feedback. :)

-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
[email protected]

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

Tonight's build includes some updates for Build Mode along with a bunch of other improvements and fixes.

Build mode has been updated to be more controller friendly and make the pop-up information for houses easier to read and less intrusive.

To select a building using a controller you enter Building Management Mode as normal. However, rather than using the d-pad to cycle through buildings, you can now move the camera and whatever is in the middle of the screen will be the target building. When in this mode there is a little white dot in the middle of the screen to make it easier to select the building you want.

The pop-up information for houses has been moved from appearing over the building and now appears under the build mode instructions. The UI overall is larger and easier to read as well. I'll likely be expanding this pop-up to work for other buildings too. Would love to hear what kind of information you'd like to see there for other structures!



You can also now move the camera freely up to the mines and down the fishing piers. Build mode has been updated to disallow buildings to be moved too far off the grid. This reduces the chance of a building being placed off the gird when moving the camera.

This build also includes some other fixes and improvements:

• Fixed a bug that caused the Mine buildings to have red footprints even when placed properly.
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause to build mode to fail to close after placing or moving a fishing pier.
  
• Updated the special attack system to not use stamina or the gem if a special attack is out of range and therefore isn't used.
  
• Increased the range of the Power Attacks by a small amount.
  
• Updated the part of the combat system that chooses between Kick and Dash so that it will choose Kick at a slightly longer range.
  
  • This range is closer to the melee attack range.
    
  • So if you are close enough to hit a monster with your regular attacks, then kick will be chosen as your attack. Dash will be used if farther away.
• Updated the Deep Dweller AI to keep him from getting stuck in a run loop and fail to attack.
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause the character to be unable to immediately start attacking after getting back up from being knocked down.
  
• Fixed the roofs of the Weaponsmith and Armorsmith so they hue properly.
  
• Fixed an error with the roof coloring system that could cause it to fail to close.

Thank you again everyone for the feedback, suggestions and the reviews. I really enjoy reading all of your comments and I appreciate that you take the time to post them and help me make this game better and better!

-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
[email protected]

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