Hello Hammerwatch fans,

Right now, we’re busy working on our next update (persistent character save slots and more), but in the meantime, we wanted to share some tips for both new and returning players. We hope they’ll make your experience just that much better.

Let’s get into them!


At the beginning of your game, you'll choose a character class that is already equipped with a set of four distinct abilities. As your journey unfolds and you gain experience, your character ascends in levels. At each new level, you'll earn Skill Points, which serve as currency for enhancing your abilities. You can use Skill Points to upgrade your existing abilities or to unlock new skills, including spells and passive traits. This allows you to create a character that’s tailored to your personal combat style. If you ever desire a different tactical approach than you already have, you can visit a Vendor to spend some gold to completely reassign your character’s traits. You can use that trick to fine-tune your character any time you need it or if you simply want to experiment with skills you haven’t played with yet.


In Hammerwatch II you earn Gold in multiple ways and as you'll soon learn, Gold's value knows no bounds. As you defeat enemies, you're rewarded with crafting materials, which you can sell for Gold in shops. Interact with villagers and fulfill side quests. Adding to that, accomplishing main quests will also substantially increase your Gold reserves. Feeling lucky? How about a round of Gadir? Seek out fellow players in nearby towns, throw down a challenge, and let the games begin! You can bet as much money as you have in your pockets. But be careful, by gambling you can win just as easily as you can lose. And remember, before you embark on battles against the hordes of pirates, wolves, wasps, and other dangerous enemies, make sure you are strong enough to face them. Each death carries the cost of relinquishing a portion of your hard-earned funds. So make sure you stay alive. Death is a costly business.


Get ready to mix up some enchantments with a plethora of potions at your fingertips. Whether you seek healing, mana, speed, Ironskin, or more, gather flowers, mushrooms, and other materials scattered across the world to kickstart your concoctions. Once you've amassed all the necessary ingredients for your potion masterpiece, it's time to head to the neighborhood potion shop. Brewing potions isn't just about collecting ingredients because Gold's on the line too (nothing is free). And when you’re caught in the heat of the battle and your potion collection runs dry, relax. Find a Well and refill your empty bottles. This time, no need to dip into your Gold stash – it's on the house.


Before you embark from the cozy town into the wide unknown, make a pit stop at a local “general” store. With Gold in hand, consider grabbing a handful of keys. They can be quite useful as they unlock doors that you can find in dungeons. Behind these doors, a world of wonders awaits – from treasures that twinkle to shortcuts and secret passages that'll whisk you to new realms. It's like giving your journey an express pass with a dash of intrigue. Having a few keys in your pocket is always a good idea.


We have an amazing Discord community that is great at giving tips. Don’t forget that this valuable resource.

We hope that our tips are of great use because your journey holds many other surprises waiting to be uncovered.

Cheers,
Your Crackshell and Modus Teams

• Generated some performance enhancements by removing dynamic shadows from objects that didn't need to cast them.

As you already know, we released our new update Hellsplit: Arena 1.2 a few days ago, in which mods support has been added!

It is really nice that the game now supports UGC (user-generated content), but only one important detail was missing - instrument for mod creation. And now we are excited to share the news with you that our instrument for mod creation called Hellsplit: Workbench is officially released and is available to everyone! 🥳 🎉

Hellsplit: Workbench is a Mod SDK designed for Hellsplit: Arena is set to revolutionize the game by allowing players to customize their experience and create their own unique content. Built on top of Unreal Engine 4, it offers all the tools needed to design custom maps, weapons, and game modes. With its intuitive interface, customizable parameters and large set of predefined templates, players can easily create their own levels, weapons, and more.

Download Hellsplit: Workbench

We also began to prepare the tutorials, the first of which are available here ⬇️
https://deeptypegames.notion.site/Eng-aba62b4dffbd4ca2a36dfbfa83bdfdd4?pvs=4

As usual don't hesitate to join our Discord to share your experience with other developers!

We are planning to actively complement and develop this section by creating the new tutorials in the future!
If you have always dreamt of mod creation and wanted to start learning Unreal Engine - it is high time to try it! On the base of our game we have prepared a lot of templates and ready-made solutions which make the mod creation process easy, quick and enjoyable. Join our developers team right now!

Dear ladies and lords,

Thank you again for your patience! The time has finally come and we are updating our transparent demo again!

The client update is being uploaded right now and games will start shortly!


I sincerely hope you will appreciate and enjoy the latest changes, and that you will like the direction the game is heading. If you have any suggestions or just don't want to miss out on discussions about game features, priorities, new guides, playtesting and polls, be sure to drop by our discord - you'll also find me there almost all the time! Finally, don't forget to click Follow here on Steam to make sure you're notified of future demo updates.

Please note that there will be fundamental changes to the game, so despite any prior testing, the game may be less stable than you would normally expect. I apologize in advance for any inconvenience, but open builds in development are unfortunately like that. If there are any problems, I'll fix them as quickly as I can. Okay, it's enough of me now.

Please note that our demo focuses on multiplayer and is only in English. Unlike traditional demos, ours is a continuously updated, interactive developer diary, provided for full transparency and early cooperation with our player base, so Feudums can become the game you want.

While there isn't an in-game tutorial yet (it will be the very next thing to arrive), the game is now relatively newbie-friendly. You start with an economic grace period, so you have hours to decide what to do first. Take your time and check out the short guides here on Steam, on Youtube, or just join our Discord to read the FAQ or ask for general advice.

Reading the tooltips can also help a lot. Low-level settlements (like the one you'll start with) are now largely self-sufficient, so you're safe even if you run out of economic grace period. There is also trading, both with players and with the "world", and automatic trade orders are set up by default, so as long as you have coins, your realm will automatically try to keep a small stockpile of everything. Use trading to get what you need!

Feudums, unlike most strategy games, doesn't reward you for simply building everything to the maximum level - in fact growing too fast is a way to fall. Just build what you need and grow your land along with your population and economy. Again, we are happy to help on discord!

• Diplomacy Basics: You asked for this to be the next milestone, so here it is! You can now make various diplomatic deals with other rulers and trade resources, either one-off or longer-term. In some cases, you can issue unilateral statements, but in most times, agreements are bilateral, and in many cases changes will have a grace period.
  Important: Diplomacy is non-binding in the sense that the game doesn't force you to abide by your agreements, instead, violations will be paid from your virtue and will be reported to the other party so respond at their own discretion. Later, such violations will also result in various diplomatic actions.
  
• Balance Changes: I've continued to balance the labourers and also the starting situation. Most importantly, low level settlements will now have specific worker opportunities for resource production, so your starting position will have less impact on your first period than before. As cities grow, however, these specialized jobs will disappear, so larger cities will continue to rely on other tile improvements.
  
• Terrain Builder Configurations: not a real game-changer, but now I can set any of the values through world templates, and those are available through our web backend', so we can generate specialized / custom rule maps on the fly!

• There is a new diplomacy badge on the top left part of the UI to handle agreements and proposals. You can also find some of the important rulebook values in it's tooltip.
  
• You can send a new proposal/statement to other rulers by clicking on their Coat of Arms on a Tile, Feudum or Company card.
  
• Diplomatic violations are reported in the Dominion Reports.
  
• Raiding and Blocking reductions are no longer reported if the reduction is less than 1%.
  
• Added some (WIP) support to ultra-wide aspect ratios.
  
• Game state & free slots are now displayed a bit more prominently on World Cards.

• Fixed: Steam API could fail on Steamdeck in some cases.
  
• Fixed: Company AP during auto-encamp: tooltip sum didn't include MAN changes
  
• Fixed: A couple cases for the pathfinder. Maybe it will be less dumb now (in some cases)
  
• Fixed: Rosters with 9+ units overflow on the Manage Units and Company Card layouts
  
• Fixed: Housing opportunities were checked against the rulebook and not the actual game data when opened a Tile Card on someone else's feudum.
  
• Fixed: game crashes in edge cases after new user registration
  
• Fixed Merge Tiles: cant merge to feudum above wasteground max size (should be independent)
  
• Fixed: Several serialization issues

---

Unlike traditional demos, ours is a continuously updated, interactive developer diary that comes with a different purpose. Instead of for purely marketing, it is provided for full transparency and early cooperation with our player base, so Feudums can become the game you want. We invite you to play the early versions, join our discord, and help us refine the game as we progress.

If pre-beta games are not your cup of tea, that is completely fine. Please follow and bear with us until we ship a more or less feature-complete public beta.

Join our community on Discord!
https://discord.gg/QgERDnU

Support the development of Feudums!
https://www.patreon.com/feudums

Key changes in this update:

• 2 new purchasable items in Survival mode - Gas Mask and Injection
  
• fixed some AI navigation issues
  
• corrected robot enemies behavior
  
• other minor fixes

Join the Discord! https://discord.gg/gEpTQ6Vw

Vez’nan, the powerful almighty wizard has returned. His army is thirsty for vengeance and a new general.

Seize the opportunity to lead his ranks - with an amazing discount!

Face empires of mighty enemies. Clash against supreme bosses, unlocking and switching to new towers. Train legendary heroes and get achievements in battle.

Use your strategy in this amazing action-packed Tower Defense game.
Lead your powerful dark army and make the Kingdom tremble with each step.

Help Vez’nan conquer new lands in the kingdom!

- Fixed the bug where stores do not show any items.
- Fixed the bug where the GhostFace Base could not be left.

- Characters' satiety and vigor consumption rate has been reduced by 25%

Since the last major update released, we’ve had a couple of primary goals for Update 3!

One of the biggest and most requested features for the game is better checkpoints — both for restarting on losing the game and for coming back to in a later session. While we do not plan on full-state saving, as this is a session-based game, for this update we are introducing a basic chapter-based system and splitting the current Area-12 map into two chapters. The map has been growing massively in a short amount of time, and in order to facilitate both narrative requirements moving forward, and a checkpoint system–the ominous task of splitting up Area-12 has finally been set in motion.

When joining a server for the Area-12 Campaign, you will be able to select (or vote for) between Chapter 1 or Chapter 2. You will also be able to select them from the Private Game section in the main menu.



Our inception of SCP-7528 (the “Screen Anomaly”) was received well across the board, but while watching the community and content creators play the section, we noticed players consistently being confused or overwhelmed by the anomaly’s behavior. We’ve taken the time to do some more polish on the anomaly’s behavior and visuals.

Specifically:

• The anomaly now chases players more consistently and less closely, only moving if its sightline is obstructed or if it is too far.
  
• The anomaly is more likely to stick to one player at a time, picking each team member off, rather than getting confused by many pieces of stimuli.
  
• The anomaly can now hear sound, based on the distance to the nearest screen. Sprinting through the area may not be such a good idea.

Additionally, we aim to make the objectives more clear in the Forde Education Center.

What’s Next?

Update 0.13 is all about the horror atmosphere and narrative. Additional game mechanics will also become more and more prominent, such as the aforementioned Chapter System, armories, and respawning. A lot of the atmospheric horror elements will tie directly into the narrative and build on audio and lighting substantially. We’ll begin mapping out our side objectives now that the map is split and restructuring beyond the initial early access iteration. There will now be a lot of lore and collectable items hidden throughout environments in the form of secrets. In terms of narrative this will begin our setup for Act 1 of the Area-12 campaign narrative. We’re working on a prologue that will tie into this later, but for now you’ll still get to experience our new starting area for Chapter 1 of Act 1.

Beyond Update 0.13...

Future updates will continue expanding on narrative more quickly, adding in monsters that we’ve been developing behind the scenes as well as new environments. We will be moving into Act 2 much sooner than you think and beginning to meet not just the new monsters, but also characters and D-Class that will play a significant role in the SCP world we’ve been building at Area-12. Even in Act 1 players will have a chance to see and learn about this universe in a way that has never been done before.

We’ve been beefing up our animation team as we move towards not just improved animations, but also adding things for the tactical experience such as vaulting and prone. All of which have been motion captured, cleaned up, and are currently being tested in-engine.



We also have exciting new developments coming to utilize the journal system more and account for new types of gear that will have an impact on both the respawn system, and how you interact with… weird stuff. Safe to say our mantra is currently “make it scary and make it weird”.


We haven’t forgotten about our other game modes though: we’re utilizing something we have been calling our “intermission maps” to help develop some of those other game modes without losing traction on finishing our narrative campaign, The sooner we finish the main campaign, the sooner we can focus on all the exciting DLC missions in the future. Intermission maps serve as a type of breather or scenery change to separate and transition between Acts of the Campaign. EX: Act 1, Intermission, and then Act 2

More specifically; our first intermission map will take place in an isolated and sterile landscape outside of the United States. Without spoiling too much, it will be very horror and SCP focused utilizing the concept behind the Wave Survival game mode. It’s a very special map to us taking direct inspiration from the works of John Carpenter. It’s also the first time players will get to see and play as a new faction other than the Unusual Incidents Unit (UIU).


That’s all for now, thank you for tuning in! Keep your eyes peeled for future update posts.

Ad astra.

Ending sequence updated.
Performance optimizations.

Good Morning.

This is just a small change in the first eternal temple level. I made it a night time scene as I liked it better that way and I covered up the hole in the floor behind the starting area that leads to the skull key. It was annoying me that I could not jump the gap.