Development plan for Blacksmith: Ignite the Forge

Hello, Blacksmiths!

It’s been some time since we released the demo version of Blacksmith: Ignite the Forge, and we wanted to share some of our thoughts with you.

Let us start with a HUGE THANK YOU! Your engagement, tons of feedback provided, and kind words about the game have all been truly appreciated and helpful. We’re especially happy that you find the game's theme appealing, and see a lot of potential for the future. That motivates us to deliver the best (and most fun) smithing experience on Steam! ⚒️

Now for the highlight of this post

we’d like to share our plans for the development process of Blacksmith: Ignite the Forge!

Without further introductions, take a look

Updated demo coming later this year

Many of you enjoyed the first glimpse of Blacksmith: Ignite the Forge, and we’ll be releasing an updated version of the demo later this year. You can expect various new features (mostly quality-of-life-related), including the save system many of you mentioned.

First major update: combat overhaul

We agree with your opinions: combat needs a revamp to be more interactive and fun. We’re working on making fights more dynamic, rewarding, and lively, to improve the general experience. Overhauling this system is our main focus now, and we hope you’ll like the changes.

Additionally, reworked combat means new enemies, and that includes bosses! We’re preparing grand challenges for you, and this guy will be one of them:

Other than combat, there’s tons of stuff coming, but again: one Steam post wouldn’t be enough to keep that covered, so stay tuned and expect more info about that in the next updates.

Monthly devlogs incoming

We have a plan to release a devlog every month to keep you in the loop on our development process and showcase some highlights of the current works. Gamedev is tricky and sometimes hard to predict, so please forgive us in case we’re late with those 🙏.

Improvements based on your feedback

For us this is a no-brainer: all of the feedback you provided was, and will always be, taken into account. We can’t implement each and every change or tweak you propose, obviously, but rest assured that your voices are heard. Make sure to join our Discord and keep the feedback going!

Sneak peek for the more engaged ones: the bug with the crate weapon will actually become a full-fledged feature, following your requests! Enjoy the extra 3 seconds saved 😎.

Playtests incoming

We’re preparing to run playtests for some of the bigger features we have planned. If you’re interested in trying them out early and providing feedback, sign up using the form below. There are a total of 3 playtests planned, each covering a different major area of the game. Registration form: LINK

Behind-the-scenes concept art

Throughout this whole post, we’ve shown you some sneak peeks of the upcoming content additions and changes, and here are more. New weapons, enemies, attack animations, runes, the revamped alloy machine–and that’s just to name a few of them. Eventually, our goal is for the final version to be as polished as possible, so we want to smoothen things up and make them more appealing in terms of visuals. Many of those were also inspired by your feedback!

*Disclaimer: those are subject to change, but give a good feeling of the planned art direction.

That’s a wrap for now!

Once again, thank you for all the