Today's build is a big one and it includes a a full texture update for the entire town! The old graphics didn't really match the game anymore and were always a bit dingy looking to me. The new textures are cleaner and hopefully create a more cozy and inviting look.
This update is pretty close to the 1.0 build as far as content goes. There are still some things I want to do before locking it down, which I will list at the end of this announcement, but the core of what makes up 1.0 is here. Now on to the images!
A quick before and after for the town:
Note everything has been updated, from the walls, to the roofs, even the windows. There are two different stone brick looks (plus the new marble look), two wood, and two stucco. The lanterns and chimneys have also been updated. Even the chimney smoke has been changed!
The walls and towers stone
The Champion's House. I'm probably going to change the champion home upgrade system a bit to allow for all of the new stone, wood, and stucco looks. Maybe even some mix and matching. Maybe. :)
And the new Marble House! Note the roof, windows, and door are different as well.
You can't see it but I've also optimized a bunch of the buildings as well. I'll be doing more of that over the next week or so.
If you want to check out one of your existing towns in the new look you should be able to load your save and take a look. The save won't work for playing and advancing, but you'll be able to look around the town. Just make a back up of your current save so it doesn't get corrupted. Also, the Champion's Home can't change it's look until I update the system to use the new texture. I plan on leaving the original textures as options as part of the Early Access Rewards.
This update also includes a lot more. Next up, a new building management window for things like roof colors and upgrades. I also updated the instructions UI to use larger text and only show commands based on the mode you are in.
Larger Instructions. And the road placement tool is a button now!
The building management UI. You can also move buildings with this UI in addition to the mouse click to pick up buildings and skip this window.
Road Placement Mode. Once again the UI to the right updates to show me the commands I can use in this mode.
One thing to note is I haven't tested the new building stuff with a controller yet. Will be doing that tonight.
The Stone Fountain now has streams of water and a sound effect. I think Nika is going for a drink!
(Funny aside, in the test build I sent to Soedesco, I forgot to make the fountain sound a 3D sound, so it played constantly at max volume even from across the map. Oops!)
This build also includes some other changes and updates:
- Drawves will never have two negative traits. In the live build there is a small chance of that, but it just never felt fun and didn't create interesting choices. I might migrate this change to the live build today or tomorrow as well.
- Added another quest to specifically allow you to get the lightning attack as part of the Stronghold quest. You also get a free skill point to ensure that you can unlock it.
- Stone Houses can be upgraded to Marble Houses after finishing the Stronghold quest. You can't directly place a Marble House although I might add that.
- Fixed a few things and tweaked a few things related to the Stronghold Quest.
This is what I have left on my list. I may not get all of this done so the usual grain of salt applies. :)
- Add a UI to explain all of the rewards from finishing the Stronghold Quest.
- Allow customization of Champion Home in the new system.
- In addition to the lanterns lighting up, make the windows in the buildings light up at night as well.
- Update the Stronghold NPCs so they don't all have the same beard and hair style.
- Add some more decor to the Stronghold.
- Change up some more of the buildings to use different parts of the new texture.
- Add a special ability to the Deep Dweller Boss. Right now I'm thinking he can self buff *both* buffs at the same time. He'd be the only enemy that can do that. And also possibly a big special attack.
- Change the storehouse to store regular bloodblossom, rather than pure bloodblossom. This is causing confusion and makes more sense since the Herbalist makes the regular kind.
- Add a sound when opening a town building door.
- Allow workers who are quarrying stone to sometimes find Marble once you have unlocked it.
- Update the rest of the UI to ensure readability.
- And of course fix any bugs and continue to optimize the buildings.
Some other things as well, but those are the highlights. Most of the rest of my day today is going to be spent testing this update some more. Then tomorrow I'll work on some of the above tasks.
One last thing is the new content isn't localized yet, so it's all in English. It's set up to be localized though and will be once we finalize the text.
If you want to check out this test build you can follow these instructions:
1. In the Steam Client Library where it lists all of your games, right click on HammerHelm
2. Click Preferences
3. In the window that opens, select the "Betas" Tab
4. Enter the password to download this build - StoryTest2021 - and click Check Code
5. You should get a message that the code is correct
6. Click the drop-down box and select BigUpdateTest
Steam should immediately start a new download with the test client. The new game should be called "HammerHelm [bigupdatetest]". Once the download is complete you can launch the game and you should see "Beta 15 - test" in the title screen.
Again, this build isn't really compatible with current saves so be careful if you load an existing save to check our your town in the new look.
To get back to the main build:
1. In the Steam Client Library where it lists all of your games, right click on HammerHelm
2. Click Preferences
3. In the window that opens, select the "Betas" Tab
4. Choose “None” from the drop down
5. Steam should then revert back to the main client
Would love to hear your thoughts on the new content and the new look!
Thank you everyone!
-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
[email protected]
- My Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuperSixStudios
- Discord Channel: discord.gg/soedesco