Good evening, bladesmiths!
A new Playtest build is fresh out of the forge. We added more fuel to the fire, brought a few new faces—and their stories—to the neighborhood, and spent several weeks hammering away at the anvil. At last, it no longer looks like a table whose only purpose is holding swords.
Rather than subjecting you to dozens of pages of balance changes, here are the updates you can actually see, hear, and get your hands on:
More Faces Around the Neighborhood
Several new special NPCs have arrived, each bringing their own side story.
A young woman dreaming of making a name for herself through sword dancing. She may need a bladesmith who knows both weapons and how to draw a crowd.
A down-on-his-luck adventurer sitting outside the tavern. Perhaps all he needs is an unassuming sword—and a little courage to set out once more.
They won’t simply stand around with exclamation marks floating above their heads. As their stories progress, they may take action, leave, or even return to your life in a completely different role.
Some stories are hidden a little deeper, so try talking to people when you pass by. Don’t worry—none of the NPCs will try to sell you an extended warranty for your anvil. At least, not yet.
A Major Overhaul to Anvil Forging
Manual forging has received a visual and tactile overhaul, from hammerhead to sword tip.
The transitions between heating, pressing the billet, placing it on the anvil, repeated hammering, and quenching now feel much more complete. Hammering also features new camera work, vibration, timing feedback, Essence effects, sparks, ash, and sound. The sword blank will now change more visibly as you shape it.
The water surface and particle effects during quenching have also been improved. Unfortunately, no matter how pretty the splash looks, placing a red-hot sword into the water with your bare hands is still not recommended.
The Shop Feels More Like a Proper Shop
The employee management and recruitment interfaces have been reorganized, making professions, talents, and work assignments easier to understand.
You can now set preferred jobs for employees, and managers are better at helping with restocking.
More visual feedback has been added when your shop gains a star, making your hard work easier for the neighbors to notice.
Performance has been improved for the hex map and Dungeon interface, so there’s less waiting and more “just one more tile, then I’ll go to bed.”
Extremely High Combat Power Now Comes with a Downside
Once an employee’s total combat power exceeds 10,000, they may decide that “a true hero should never remain beneath another forever”—and leave the shop to seek greater things.
When a number exceeds the integer limit, it will now be displayed using an infinity symbol.
And a Whole Basketful of Fixes
We’ve also fixed issues involving tutorials, switching between save files, customers and shelves, forging cameras, temperature calculations, quest interactions, localization, and several cases of “why would it even work like that?”
The Playtest is still in active development. If you encounter a bug, get stuck, notice a balance issue, or see an NPC behaving even more mysteriously than the story intended, please let us know through the in-game feedback tool. Every report helps us make the next hammer blow more precise.
Thank you for continuing to forge swords, run shops, and tolerate the development team occasionally forging ourselves into the game as well.
Keep the forge burning. See you in the game!