(click to see full size)

Still a work in progress but I wanted to show one of the new trees so I created a quick test scene. I wanted something that was more stylized than the current trees and I think these are perfect. I really love how these came out. They have a nice hand-painted look and match the characters' look better than the current trees, which imo were too realistic and didn't have the character that these trees have.

There are two more trees that just got completed in addition to the medium tree you see in the shot. The leaves on the tree can be hued to create different looks. The bark will be darker in the final trees.

In the above shot I also used a different ground texture and modified the grass a bit to add some yellow to them. Right now they're really saturated and green. I think the yellow adds some more depth. You'll also notice that the grass aren't all pointed in the same direction like they are currently in the game.

And, the trees move in the wind too. :)



One more sneak peek...the Jade Sword. I'll add some shine to the jade "gems" but I really like how the artist translated the concept to the model and reduced the glow effect from the concept. The green tint to the blade came out really great too!



I might change the gold looking parts to be more of a copper or bronze so they don't look too similar to the gold weapons. Will have to see how they look when they're all done.

I hope you are excited as I am about these updates!

Today's build includes the new Leveling and Skill System!



As you play the game your character will gain Skill Points. These points can be spent to obtain and upgrade skills. Each skill can be upgraded twice, creating three tiers for each skill counting the initial purchase.

Upgrading a skill will increase its chance to take effect and its potency. So for example, when initially purchased, "Tough Skin" reduces damage by 7%. Upgrading it will increase that to 14% and upgrading it again increases it to 21%.

Some skill are always on, such as Tough Skin, so it always reduced the damage. Other skills have a chance to occur, such as Killing Blow or Luck. When these skills work, you will see floating text letting you know.

When a skill works and when you gain Skill XP, the floating text is blue. When gaining a level, the text is purple.

Skill Points are gained from completing quests, placing buildings, and killing monsters. There is no skill tree with prerequisites, so you can pick and choose whatever skills you want. There is also no maximum skill points that you can earn. I might add that later once I add more skills however.

Please let me know what you think about the Skill XP gain rate as I am likely going to do a balance pass on it and your feedback would be a great help!



The current skills in this build are:

• Second Wind - when your hit points are reduced to 0, there is a chance that your health will partially regenerate, keeping you alive in the fight.
  
• Block Hit - when successfully blocking an attack you have a chance deal damage back to your opponent.
  
• Athletic - use less stamina when sprinting.
  
• Hard Head - dash attacks do additional damage. Stacks with the Ram Helmet.
  
• Killing Blow - when killing a monster with your power attack, there is a chance your power attack will immediately recharge.
  
• Tough Skin - reduces melee damage taken in combat.
  
• Spell Resist - reduces damage from spells.
  
• Luck - chance to increase the amount of loot (such as alchemy ingredients and ore) you get from treasure chests.
  
• Riches - chance to find more gold in treasure chests.

Placing a Barracks will allow you to assign the "Trainer" job to a townsperson. The Trainer gives you a bonus to your Skill Points earned and can be used to reset your spent skill points if you want to change where you spent them. This will obviously be more useful once there is a skill point cap.

This build also includes a bunch of improvements and some bug fixes.

• Quality Wood and Quality Stone now stack in your inventory.
  
• The same floating numbers that are used for the Skill System now also work when you take damage. They should be much easier to see now. Damage numbers appear in red.
  
• The Barracks are now cheaper to place (less gold) and only require a Carpenter and Stonemason rather than needing the Weaponsmith and Armorsmith Shops.
  
• You can now press and hold the Left Mouse Button to continue to attack. While holing the mouse button down, you can perform a power attack, block, or roll. Once that action is completed, your character will start using normal attacks again.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the spellcasters to cast a spell after they died.
  
• Fixed the Close button in the in-game settings UI.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the New Ore Discovered quest to not be given when it should be.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused Alchemists to go to their home rather than their shop.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused Shaydee to not accept the Quality Wood that you bring him to help build his shop.

Quick build tonight to resolve a bug that caused Elementals to not advance a quest that they were a part of. This fixes both the Walking Stone and the Orc Obsidian Quests as well.

This update also fixes a bug that allowed sprinting while moving backwards or strafing.

I turned off the Skill System in this build as I haven't tested it enough yet but I wanted to get this fix out asap as it is a progression blocker.

Also...Gold, Diamond, and Blood Stone Armor Concepts!

It's late here but I had to share...concepts for the new Copper, Iron, and Jade armor sets! Helmets, Ram Helmets, Shoulder Armor, and Bracers.



Similar to the Jade weapons, the jade parts will be more like polished jade and have less of a glow when they're modeled. Will likely also have the horns on the Copper and Iron Helmets be a bit more bone colored.

I'll have the Gold, Diamond, and Blood Stone armor sets ready to show soon and I just got the first tree back from the artist who is working on those so lots of progress is being made on a lot of different fronts!

I also finished adding the Skill System functionality to the Barracks. Placing a Barracks will allow you to give the "Trainer" job to a townsperson. A Trainer will give you a passive increase to your Skill Point gain. In addition, the Trainer will also allow you to reset your spent Skill Points so you can reallocate them if you decide you want to use them on different skills.

I need to add some visual feedback for when the skills are used and do some balance testing for Skill Point gain, but the system is very close to done!

I'm making progress on the Skill System and I wanted to post a quick update on the work as well as other aspects of HammerHelm's development!

The core parts of the Skill System are done. Skill XP can be earned from killing monsters, completing quests, and placing buildings. Skill Points are awarded when you reach the required amount of Skill XP and those points can be spent on skills.

All of the nine planned skills are functioning in game too! I need to add some feedback however so you can easily tell that the "Second Wind" skill worked or that you got some more gold from the "Riches" skill.

The skills have mouse-over text letting you know what each of them does. Gaining and spending a Skill Point is also part of the tutorial now.





In the above shots you can see that I have 1 Skill Point. Each skill can be upgraded 3 times, including the initial purchase, by pressing the arrow next to it when you have 1 or more points to spend. Once a skill is at level 3, the arrow no longer appears.

After getting some great feedback on the forums, I'm also going to be using the Barracks as part of the Skill System. The Barracks will allow you to place a Trainer, who gives you a small buff to your Skill XP gain and will allow you to "respec" your Skill Points if you decide to spend them in another way. This will likely include a Gold cost depending on how many Skill Points you have spent. I'll be working on that part of the system next.

You'll notice that I have some of the concept art for the weapons being used as Icons in the second row of the Inventory. This won't be in the next build but I wanted to try them out and figured I'd show them too. I want to play around with them a bit more, perhaps adding an outline or some other effect. Zoomed in shot so you can seem them better.



Once the 3D models are in the game, I'll change out the icons as well. Eventually I'm going to have all of the icons redrawn in the same style as the weapons and shields.

Speaking of which, some very exciting progress is being made on the new weapons and more!

The 3D work has already begun on the new weapons and the concept artist who made those designs is now working on designs for the Shoulder Armor, Helmets, and Bracers. I'll show those once they're ready!

Work on the new trees is progressing nicely too. The artist and I have gone over some sketches and we're on to the 3D model phase. We're going with a much more stylized look that I think will fit the game much better than the current trees. I expect that they will really change the look of the game and match the look of the characters better.They should also be more efficient from a performance stand point.

So, lots going on. Since I have to finish all of the Skill System work before releasing a new build I wanted to keep you all in the loop in case you have any questions or feedback. Feels weird not updating the game in almost a week! :)

The final weapon and shield concepts!





Note, the diamond models in game will have more of a blue marble texture rather than the ice looking texture in the concept.

We decided to go with a darker color for the Blood Stone weapons and add Blood Stone accents rather than make the weapons red as the red just didn't look right. In game I'll probably give them a bit of a glow similar to the Skeleton Swords.



One final shot of the weapons and shields together!

Making some great progress on the skill system and wanted to share. I have nine of the ten skills already working and decided not to do the tenth one, Nimble. It just didn't seem all that useful as it's pretty rare that you get knocked down in the game. Going to replace it with something else. Open to suggestions!

Also, a quick WIP shot of the UI for the system. I added it to the Inventory UI to avoid requiring another key to open it and that space isn't used unless you are looting a chest, selling, imbuing, etc.





And yes, the Pumpkins are placeholder. :P You'll be able to mouse over each of the icons to see what bonus you currently have (if you've spent a point on it) and what the next bonus is if you spend another point on it. Each skill can be upgraded three times, including the initial purchase. There is room for 10 skills in the UI. If I add more skills I'll just update the UI to accommodate them.

I'm going to be building the system that allows you to earn Skill Points and spend Skill Points next.

For more information about the Skill System, check out this announcement:

Skill System

And one more Weapon Concept - Gold!

Late night build! Alpha 9.2 includes a bunch of fixes and optimizations to existing systems.

• Fixed a bug that caused Stones to sometimes not give you Quality Stone when breaking them.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the mouseover text for the Quest Item Slots to persist after closing and opening the Inventory UI.
  
• Various fixes and optimizations for the Cave maps. Will be doing more optimizations for these as well.
  
• Reduced the chance of getting the "Noises" Quest with the Restless Spirit. This is supposed to be a fairly rare quest.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused Townspeople to keep the "I'm sick" mood debuff even after completing the quest to cure them.
  
• Rewrote a good portion of the Overlay system for Houses to make sure the Overlays for Water, Cleanliness, Beauty, and Warmth update correctly when placing and moving houses and decor items.
  
• Increase the days before the Warmth system starts checking for Coal from four to six days.
  
• A bunch of fixes to Sound and Music settings to make sure they remain the same between saves and loads.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused Miners to not have a goal icon in the Townspeople Manager UI when swapping jobs with another Townsperson.

And last, but certainly not least, more weapon and shield concepts!




Note, the Jade weapons and shield won't have a bright glow. They'll look more like polished Jade. The glow is a bit too sci-fi imo. And the Iron items will likely have a bit more contrast between the dark and light metal.

I've started work on the Skill System that I mentioned in the Roadmap update a few days ago and wanted to share some information.



As you play the game your character will gain Skill Points. These points can be spent to obtain and upgrade skills. Each skill can be upgraded twice, creating three tiers for each skill counting the initial purchase.

Upgrading a skill will increase its chance to take effect and its potency. So for example, when initially purchased, "Tough Skin" reduces damage by 10%. Upgrading it will increase that 10% to 15% and upgrading it again increases it to 20%. I'm still working on the exact numbers, so take that as just an example.

Skill Points are gained from completing quests, completing construction of buildings, and killing monsters. I'm also considering giving a small increase to skill points earned if your overall town happiness is at 4 stars or above. I'm also still working out what the maximum number of skill points earned will be. Basically whether you can max out every skill eventually or limit it so you have to choose which ones to learn and upgrade and which ones to forgo.

There is no skill tree with prerequisites, so you can pick and choose whatever skills you want.

• Second Wind - when your hit points are reduced to 0, there is a chance that your health will partially regenerate, keeping you alive in the fight.
  
• Block Stun - when successfully blocking an attack you have a chance to stun your opponent.
  
• Athletic - use less stamina when sprinting.
  
• Hard Head - dash attacks do additional damage. Stacks with the Ram Helmet.
  
• Killing Blow - when killing a monster with your power attack, there is a chance your power attack will immediately recharge.
  
• Tough Skin - reduces melee damage taken in combat.
  
• Spell Resist - reduces damage from spells.
  
• Luck - chance to increase the amount of loot (such as alchemy ingredients and ore) you get from treasure chests.
  
• Riches - chance to find more gold in treasure chests.
  
• Nimble - reduce the amount of time to get back up when you are knocked down.

I'm sticking to passive buffs and bonuses over activated skills for now. And of course I'm open to skill ideas!

Also, the weapon and shield concepts are coming along nicely. So a sneak peek - The Copper Weapons! In addition to being the reference for the 3D models, I'm also going to use these as the icons in inventory and will eventually update all of the icons to match this style.

The concepts are being created by the same artist who drew the monsters. Really love his work!

And if you haven't checked out the roadmap yet, you can find it here:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/664000/announcements/detail/1710706508279875941

A couple of quick, but important, bug fixes in tonight's build.

Fixed a bug that caused the "days" to fail to advance as time passed in the game. This was also affecting coal since if the day was never increasing, the coal system was never kicking in. It will start to work properly once four days have past since this fix.

I redid the system that tracks what ore you are eligible to unlock. The old system was prone to errors, such as sometimes not giving you the quest to upgrade ore or giving it to you, but then not increasing the ore after you completed the quest. So I did a quick re-write and it is much more stable now.[/list]

Also making some good progress on the skills system and have about 10 skills planned so far. Focusing on passive buffs and specials rather than stuff that would require lots of F-keys. The system is more about tailoring your character a bit without becoming overwhelming.

When I say "buffs" though don't take that as just number increases. Some have special effects, such as the "Second Wind" skill that gives you a chance to not die when reduced to zero hit points and the "Killing Blow" skill which has a chance to immediately recharge your power attack if you kill a monster using a power attack.

I'll post an update about the skill system soon.