Development Newsletter: April Development Updates

This month major changes to combat gameplay continued development, with a particular focus on spellcrafting. This includes the addition of a new cooldown system for spell abilities and a major change to how consumable spells work.

April Updates: Permanent Spellcrafting & More!

Permanent Spellcrafting and Spell Ability Cooldowns

This month a major change to spellcrafting is underway: most of the short-term spells are now permanent crafts (craft once, use forever) with cooldowns rather than single-use consumables. This marks a major shift in the way that spellcrafting works, but overall I think that it will make for a much more enjoyable gameplay experience (players will now be able to spend much more time using magic and less time in the inventory and crafting windows).

Some new spells are also being introduced this month, including the Hand of Fate (which can be used to grab an enemy from afar).

A new spell requiring an equipped melee weapon is also in development and should be ready to be released with the next patch.

The following changes are now live on the default branch for all players:

• Spells that are not consumed when used will now show an infinity symbol in the radial menu

• Most short-term spells now have cooldown timers instead of single-use functionality, including all of the wind and fire spell potions (windward step, windward scream, windward trap, ashen burst, etc.)

• This means that most spell potions need to be created only once, with the exception of those that have longer-term effects on weather or statuses / spell potions and scrolls that can only be obtained from Urns

• Finished work creating / finalizing the cooldown system (finished all programming and UI elements for the HUD)

• Finished work on the remaining fire potion 2D UI elements and effects

Hermit's Satchel

• A new, larger satchel has been added to the Hermit Demo

• The new satchel is craftable, but requires Troll Leather

Prickly Pods & Other Plant Changes

Added a permanent source of plants for crafting stamina potions: the Prickly Pod.

• Prickly pod spawners have been added to the map

• Revamped the naming, look, and feel of other plants as well to make them more distinct and easily recognizable (e.g., Poppies have been replaced with Mendiflor, which is larger and much more easily spotted/visually distinct)

Other Recent Changes

• The steam page for the Demo and Main Game have been revamped with a new look and feel (now that Steam officially supports MP4 video for steam pages)

• Hotkeys for Mouse + Keyboard are back, and can now be enabled through the Gameplay Settings menu

• Added a groveling shaman staff as a drop from groveling shamans, which can be used as a one-handed magic weapon that fires a wind projectile

• There is now a small chance for dangerous corrupted memories to spawn ghosts instead of ancient skeletons

• The Skarpmesser can now be dropped from Ghosts

• Recipes are now discovered from crafted items automatically, without having to mouse over the resulting craft to learn crafts it can be used for; this should resolve some confusion during the first crafting tutorial

• Harvestable fish are now slightly larger to distinguish them from small fish schools, which are not harvestable

• Random encounters will no longer open dialogue windows if the player runs into them while already engaged in combat, preventing a bug where players could become locked in a conversation while taking damage

• Fly Agaric (red mushrooms) can now be obtained from spawners in some of the homes throughout Gravenstaad

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. 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!