Supplemental Newsletter: March Updates Part II

Once in a while, we have two updates in a single month. March is one of those months. Today I am announcing a secondary major monthly update for the Hermit Demo with a large number of additional gameplay changes and features

The open-world Demo is now several hours of gameplay and with a total of 12 quests. I am working towards wrapping up the Demo's main quest line within the next month or two, with a final capstone quest that will set the stage for critical lore of the upcoming main game release. The new instanced dungeon area is a part of that roadmap.

This update also focuses on improving the feel of gameplay input, and the new input features are also a step towards future support for gamepads and possibly Steam Decks as well.

The following changes are already live on the Beta Branch and players can access them there immediately, but will not be released to the Default Game Branch for several more days while testing of new features continues.

March Updates Part II

Instanced Dungeon & Seal-breaking Minigame

A new instanced dungeon area has been added. This dungeon will be both an important area for the Demo's final quest (and game lore in general) as well as a minigame encounter area that can be replayed indefinitely. Unlike other game areas, the enemies and loot here respawn each time you enter, and players cannot save the game while inside.

• The new area is accessible by brewing a new type of potion, which is learnable when the player finds red mushrooms for the first time

• The new area contains new loot and sealed casks requiring special equipment to unlock

• A new lockbreaker item has been hidden somewhere in the main dungeon

• A new quest has been added to find the lockbreaking equipment that is required to crack open these new containers

• New enemies guard this area, with unique attack abilities not seen elsewhere in the game

• On the highest difficulty setting, there is a rare chance of spawning a much more difficult encounter with additional enemies

• Several unique weapons are only found here, but there is no guarantee of identical loot / enemies each time you enter

• The new minigame is under development; there is a known issue where some disconnected "islands" of locked nodes are not accessible, but the Core is always guaranteed to be accessible by nodes connected to your starting position and this is functioning properly

• Failing to break open a sealed cask twice in a row will destroy its loot and spawn enemies nearby

The Hermit's Gutter

A new melee weapon type has been added to the game: The Hermit's Gutter. This is an important weapon class with relevance to the game's story/lore/. While the first Gutters are quite basic, later entries to this unique weapon class will have more unique abilities and attributes. The 3D Models and 2D UI elements were created earlier this month, with the intent of having several different varieties of Gutter eventually available. Key features:

• The Gutter is an iconic, oddly-shaped weapon that is the quintessential weapon traditionally wielded by Hermits

• Its iconic shape stems for the history of the Hermits themselves

• It can be rotated in the hand to deal slashing on piercing damage

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Satchels, Radial Menu, & Tutorial Updates

This month a major change has come for quick-using items: the hotkeys are now replaced by a Radial Menu (which is much easier to use and less prone to bugs), and the instructions for using it are much more clear. During playtests, many players experiences issues with Hotkeying items. Numbered hotkeys are also not available on non-keyboard input devices. As a result, a new system was developed so that in the future other types of input devices can be supported. The instructions on the satchel inventory widget are also now much more clear:

• Items must be in the satchel to be accessed via the quick-menu

• Hold 'TAB' to show the quick-use radial menu

• The quick-use radial menu auto-updates to show all of the usable items that you have in your satchel

• Pressing 'R' will use the currently selected item

• These Keybinds may not appear for players with custom keybindings set; pressing'Reset All Keybinds'in the options will repopulate the list with the new keys

The default satchel in the tutorial is now also larger, and the old small satchel has been removed from the game. Players re-loading old save games may notice their old satchel has vanished - unfortunately this is a limitation of the new changes and you will just have to produce a new one. Fortunately, larger upgraded satchels are coming soon so the best satchel will be coming in another update shortly.

Lastly, more information and warnings have been added to the tutorial to clarify that it is intended gameplay for players with low gear/attributes to have to avoid some fights and return later once they are better prepared.

But my Hotkeys!

Hotkeys are not completely disabled. While radial menus will be the new default option going forward, the ultimate plan is to support both. While the numbered hotkey UI is temporarily disabled while the new features are being developed, they do still work and can currently be the same way as before.

Windward Oak Visual Updates, Acorn Drop Locations and Mechanics, and More

Other changes have been made to ensure that the Windward Oak mechanics are clear, and that the area is fun/interesting.

• Windward acorns falling from the Windward Oak tree can now damage and knock over enemies and the player

• There is now clearer visual and audio indicators of when/where the sentient tree will try to drop windward acorns on you

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• More visual elements have been added to make the Windward Oak appear visually distinct from its surroundings

Supporting the Project

If you've been enjoying the Hermit Demo and want to help support the game, some things you can do to help support the project:

• Consider leaving a positive review for the Demo Page! It helps the game a lot, and allows me to focus more of my time on development rather than having to divert that time and energy toward advertising!

• Share the game Demo with friends / Discord servers you know might enjoy it!

• Submit bug reports using the reporting tool: if you find an issue, let me know about it! I can't reply to every report, but I do read them all and I make an effort to fix every issue that I can reproduce on my end.

Thank you all for your continued support of the project!