I'm taking a break from the new combat system (more on that below) to finish up the game world changes. I have all of the birch trees and bushes placed now.

I wrote a tool that spawned all of these flora and avoid placing them on dirt or rock. With that done, I'm now going to audit all of the tree placements to make sure nothing is floating and nothing intersects with the dynamically placed caves, monster spawners, etc. Would be weird if you go to a cave and there's a birch tree sticking out of it!

The last step will be to place all of the new flowers and add some other touches such as fallen logs. Then I'm going to create one or two more versions of all of these for various quality settings. So a lower settings would spawn less birches and bushes. This will use the same slider setting as the tree quality setting. The nice thing is so far, even at maximum placement, the framerate remains basically the same. We can thank dynamic occlusion (hiding things that aren't in your view) for that! :)

I really like how adding all of this fills out the map more and makes the forest feel more dense. Hoping to have this done and in a build tomorrow or Friday!

As to the combat changes...I've been working on them for the past few days and overall I'm not happy with it. The core of what I showed in the combat update preview is still there, but I don't like the way it feels in my current implementation. Just feels clunky and the monster reactions don't feel right either.

So once I finish the world map update I'm going to take another crack at combat while I also work on some new quests and other things.

I did create a neat little tool to help me test combat. The monster has text over his head that tells me what he's trying to do.



That way when he does something unexpected, I at least know what he *meant* to do. This will help me make the system more fluid and find anything that causes monsters to get confused. It's kinda fun to "see" the monster's thought process! When I make the test map you'll be able to toggle this on and off to get a realistic feel for combat without it vs. just testing with it on.

Home from my trip so it's time to get back to work! I'm hoping to spend the rest of the weekend working on the new combat system.

In the meantime, some WIP shots of the new armor sets from the 3D artist. These are high-poly sculpts that will be used to create the normal map on the actual in-game assets.







The other three armor sets are done with Jade still needing an update to its texture. Work continues on the weapons too and I should have some textured versions of some of these ready to show over the coming days!

Tonight's build includes some changes to the starting amount of some resources to take some pressure off starting a new town and not having time to build up each building.

• Increased food from 160 to 200.
  
• Increased tools from 15 to 20.
  
• Increased clothes from 15 to 20.
  
• Increased raw meat from 10 to 20.
  
• Increased coal from 12 to 30.
  
• Increased cotton from 25 to 45.

This build also includes some bug fixes:

• Fixed a bug that caused the Build Menu to fail to close after changing the stone on your home.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the resource icon in the townsperson UI for miners to not display Coal if the miner was set to coal. (it showed copper as the default)
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the ore mining choice UI to not show Coal as the actively mined resource when the miner was set to collect it.
  
• Fixed a display bug with Cotton in the town resource UI.

Making some good progress on the new combat system. Focusing on the monster AI part of it and then will build the character controls. Once that's done, I'll set up a test map and add a button to the title screen UI to go to it so you all can check out the system.

Also just a quick heads up that I am traveling out of town Thursday to Saturday so I may not have any updates for a few days. I am bringing my laptop though, so we'll see. :)

Today's build includes a new story quest and some other fixes and improvements! Have Grrrumble show you where an abandoned mine is location so you can gather some cave crystals for one of your townspeople. One of the neat things about this quest is although there are monsters in the cave, you don't have to fight them to win the quest.

This actually required a pretty big change to the quest system as normally what tells the system to complete a quest in a cave, dungeon, or other underground location is the monsters being killed. This opens up a lot of other opportunities for non-combat or optional combat quests!

This build also includes an update to the build camera that allows you to view the edges of the town building area when the camera is zoomed in all the way.



And a small change, but I like it. I updated the cave and mine exits to be a bit more organic looking. Old is on the left, new is on the right. This made me way happier than it probably should have, but sometimes it's the little things. :)



The update also includes some other changes and fixes.

• Fixed the location of where the male hairs and beards are placed on the characters. This looked off to me and I probably spent WAY too much time fiddling with them, but I like them way better now.
  
• Gave Grrrumble his helmet back.
  
• Fixed a bug with the optimizations that would cause buildings, trees, and other objects to disappear when in build mode.

Today's update includes the new craftable paintings! There are 10 paintings in total. Five of the paintings will *only* available to Early Access players.

Paintings a require a painting frame, a painting canvas, and an alchemy ingredient. Frames are crafted by Carpenters and canvases and the paintings themselves are crafted at the Tailor.

This update also includes some fixes:

• Masterwork armor can always be used to craft decorative armor sets.
  
• You should no longer see blue orbs on your radar map. These were used when I was testing the falling leaves system.
  
• Falling leaves now correctly disappear when a tree is chopped down.
  
• The falling leave system will no longer place falling leaves on trees that aren't fully grown.
  
• Fixed a bug with Ram Helm Decorative Armor that caused the icon to fail to display in your inventory.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the Grrrumble Quest to fail to start.
  
• The Stonemasons will no longer lose Shopkeeper status after loading a save.
  
• Optimized the system that creates the crafting list when you speak to a shopkeeper.
  
• Removed the glare from the 3D crafting view.

I'm also working on the new Story Quests and the new combat system. Hoping to have the story quests complete this week.

I normally wouldn't show something this early in development and I may scrap it if I don't like it, but you all have been so great and supportive that I feel like I should let you in early on this one. A new combat system!

When I say "early", I mean really, really early. As in, I just started work on this last night. So it has a long ways to go before I'd put it in the game. The basic ideas are to make combat less predictable, while still allowing time for you to react, to create more meaningful choices in combat, to make combat more visually interesting, and most importantly, make combat more fun.

Lots of animated gifs incoming!!! ːsteamhappyː

Movement and Targeting
In this first gif you can see the "lock on" part of the system. Locking on to a monster changes its health bar to blue, letting you know you've locked on. When locked, your character will face the monster and strafing will allow you to circle the monster. Attacking a monster will automatically lock you on to it. If there are more than one monster you'll be able to cycle through them or break lock on all together to escape if you need to.


Dodge rolling breaks the lock on temporarily, allowing you to dodge to the left or right without continuing to face the monster - which would look really weird! When the dodge is ended, the system snaps you back to face the monster again so you can focus more on what the monster is doing and decide your next move.



Attacking
Attacking a monster is dynamic based on your positioning. If you're a bit far away, your character will perform a powerful attack that gets you in range quickly. If you're close, a more basic attack is selected. Note the monster reacts to getting hit and the slow-motion effect to emphasize successful hits. The reason I dodge roll back after my follow up attack is because Ratman are more likely to counter-attack after being hit. More on that later.

The monster's health bar doesn't drop because I don't have damage hooked up to this yet.

Blocking
In these next two gifs, you'll see that the monster's health bar doesn't blink before he attacks. Instead, his "wind up" before the attack is slower, giving you time to react.

Unlike in the current system, blocking requires timing. Starting your block too early or holding it and waiting for the monster to attack, will result in the monster's attack pushing past your block.

Your character plays animations for both a good block and a bad block.

Monster Dodging
Monsters aren't stupid (well ok, maybe a little!) and will attempt to block or dodge your attacks as well. In this gif, the Ratman jumps back and I miss, resulting in an attack without the slow-motion effect.


And More
This is what I have working so far. In addition to the above, monsters will also have different tendencies in combat. So Ratman might be more likely to dodge an attack and then immediately charge in with an attack of their own whereas Goblins might dodge, but then not counter right away. And Orcs may never dodge, preferring to stay stuck-in and keep the pressure on you.

Attacks (both yours and monsters') don't interrupt attacks. So timing is important if you want to avoid getting hit at the same time you hit the monster. This is where tendencies will matter. An Orc might attack with either one big attack or three smaller attacks in a row. Learning these tendencies will allow you to know when it's best to strike, dodge, or block.

I think the current combat system is fine, but I don't love it. So while I work on other stuff like more quests and finishing up the game world changes, I'll be working on this in the background. I think this new system will create a lot more variety in combat while keeping the system simple to learn and enjoyable to play Even in this very early state it already feels more fun to me, especially with removing the health bar blink and focusing on what the monster is doing instead.

My next goal with this is to finish up the prototype and then allow all of you to load into this test map and try it out! The test map would be a one-on-one fight similar to the gifs above that you could play to get a feel for the system and give me feedback and ideas if you want to. Then we can add and expand on it.

Oh and don't ask me how Brutes or Spellcasters factor into this. Haven't gotten that far... key word here is "early", remember? ːsteamhappyː

We're making some good progress on the new weapons and armor again and I wanted to show some progress! Concept images are on the right.

Tonight's build includes the new tree settings with more options, an override to use the old trees if you prefer them, and the falling leaves system. The new cherry blossoms and new weeping willows are also in this build!




There are five tree options in the slider. These can only be changed in the title menu settings window. Old saves can use any setting so you don't have to start over if you want to use the new trees or want to try switching between the settings.

1. One tree type, one color (green), not animated. This is the highest performance setting but has the least diversity. The falling leaves system is also turned off for this option. The cherry blossoms and weeping willows do animate with this setting, but I'll be creating non-animated versions so this setting is super focused on performance.
   
2. One tree type, one color (green), animated. This is basically the same as #1 except the tree leaves do animate. In this setting and all others following, the weeping willows and cherry trees will also animate. The falling leaves system is turned off as this option is also mostly focused on performance.
   
3. One tree type, three colors (red, orange, green), animated. This is the middle range option and the first one to include the falling leaves systems. The next two options also include the falling leaves.
   
4. Two tree types, three colors (red, orange, green), animated. Similar to the above except there are two different trees.
   
5. All tree types, three colors (red, orange, green), animated. The highest setting and includes all trees and colors.

Note for now I have turned off the small birch trees as I didn't want them taking up spots for choppable trees. These will be added soon as decor similar to bushes and other plants and will be included in the last two options.

The last option is a checkbox that allows you to use the old trees if you prefer them. Checking this will override whatever setting you have in the tree quality slider. In this case the world will also load the old cherry blossoms and weeping willows. The falling leaves system is turned off as it's not compatible with the old trees.



I'd say I'm about 75% of the way through updating the world map with the new art. Still left to do:

• Update the chopping trees system to use the animated falling tree. This would be used in the last two options. The previous options will have falling trees similar to the ones in the game now.
  
• Add the birch trees, new bushes, and flowers. These will also be dynamic depending on which tree option you choose. The higher the option, the more bushes and flowers and the more variety.
  
• Decide what to do with the new pine trees. These look great and I'm thinking about changing the map so the pine trees are mostly closer together, creating a pine forest and something new to explore. If I do this for the new trees I'll do the same for the old trees. They're very different shapes though, so this might be a bit easier said than done. I plan to do this last.

And last, while this isn't specific to the trees, I'm also going to be doing a lighting pass as the sun's current brightness blows out the color on some of the trees, especially the cherry blossoms. This also happens with the new water that I previewed so I'll be adding that after the lighting pass too!

Some good news...all of the new trees and other flora are done and I've started the process of updating the map with the new stuff! These shots show the new cherry blossom trees at the ruins and the new weeping willows and Willow Grove. Like the other new trees, these also move about with the wind.



I'm also updating how the trees are loaded into the game, so there can be settings to use the old trees (for those that prefer them) in addition to reduced tree variety for those with lower specs while still maintaining good visuals.



The weeping willows branches moving in the wind makes Willow Grove look even more magical. When I get a chance I'll make an animated gif.



I'm hoping to have everything changed out with settings support over the weekend. Changing out the trees and rocks is pretty straightforward, but adding the bushes, plants, and the new flowers will take the most time.

There are also new pine trees. I'm probably going to section off an area of the map and make it a pine forest as a new POI and then scatter them just a bit around the rest of the map. I'll take a shot when that's all set up too.

And Now I need to come up with a story quest that lets you place a cherry blossom in your town! ːsteamhappyː

Quick build today to fix a few bugs and adjust some of the art.

• Fixed a bug that caused the Fishing Pier's footprint to always display red, blocking placement.
  
• Shadyee's selling UI will no longer display 1000 gold as the default price.
  
• Fixed a typo in the Gold Teleport Stone's ingredients that caused the icon to display as a white square.
  
• Fixed a bug that created the bit effect and sound when hitting ore that you've already mined.
  
• Reduced the saturation on the tree trunks.
  
• Added more orange to the yellow leaves.

The last two are part of a graphics polish that I am working on to as I think I was pushing HammerHelm too much towards a "toon" look. While I want to keep the hand-painted look, things were getting too saturated and too bright. I will likely be tweaking this again over time.

I received the new art for the Cherry Blossoms, Pine Trees, and Weeping Willows. We're adjusting some parts of the Weeping Willows but overall these came out great and I hope to show them off later today or tomorrow! Once those are done I'll be adding them to the world and performing a final update to the world map with tree placement and tree performance/quality options.

I also turned off the falling leaves system in this build as I haven't finished testing it yet, but I wanted to get these fixes out asap, especially the Fishing Pier bug.

Also, I'll be around today a bit so if you'd like to chat, feel free to drop by the HammerHelm Discord channel!
discord.gg/8326Jef

And be sure to follow HammerHelm on Twitter for some sneak peeks and updates. This account is officially for the game and I'm changing my personal Twitter to be more about game development, which of course will still be about HammerHelm too!

I'm working with "Take The Potion" to help me out with marketing HammerHelm and building awareness and they'll be running the new Twitter account.

HammerHelm Twitter: https://twitter.com/helm_hammer
My Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuperSixStudios