Blacksmith Legends
Last sellout begun
with Steam offering to retire the product, now is your last chance to get a copy of retiring product Blacksmith Legends for 30% discount sale, starting today until 14 Jan!
After that, Steam team agreed that the product will be removed from Store page and will be kept in your Library. There are no further plans to continue on it.
If there ever will be some handover in the future you may see the game under some different company. If not then it wasn't given to anybody else.
Thank you supporters for giving me the opportunity to try reaching my goals. It was great learning experience and I know now better, what to do in my next project.
Discord of BSL will be active as I will change it to the new project in the upcoming months.
Until or if we meet next time,
wish you all Happy New Year and best of luck! Never give up on your dreams!
VM Machal <3
Development is on hold.
as I've stated before on my Discord, the project got into a difficult situation and it is with a heavy heart that I can't progress anymore with it.
1st big mistake was to choose a visual scripting tool to develop it in. As back in the days I didn't have strong programming skills, it seemed like a no brainer but what happened is that after 3 years of development I have zero control over UI or some gameplay bugs.
I can't fix some pop-ups, there are sometimes variables wrongly set for no reason and as the game gets bigger, there are no code optimization possibilities, especially for the automation processes.
It is probably designed for some little games and maybe for people who want to learn coding and understand how it works.
2nd big mistake was listening to a lot of feedback and do a complete rework with new assets and waste a whole 1 year and starting over with a lot of features. It went on too big and hit a brick wall. Should have just did it my way as in the first version and finish it.
It started as my hobby project and gave me a lot of experience. It kinda remained like that as it pretty much earned almost nothing. Always streamed the content and showed only gameplay stuff. Somehow people still got their hopes too high and even felt like I'm being disrespectful. Sorry if you feel this way, that was never my intention. Best I can do is to learn from it and move on.
So there was the price drop before and I needed more time to learn what to do with it. As the visual scripting tool is done through 'Node system', 95% of the game is bound to it.
Aaaand that's basically a start from scratch with C# code again. Well, after 3 years, I don't have any desire for that anymore.
The current game offers about 4 hours of gameplay.
If you wish to play the old version of the game that offers around 8 hours of gameplay, right-click the game in your Library -> Properties -> Beta and in the 'Beta Participation' choose Legacy.
I can't make it free to play out of respect for people who payed for it. This is one of the cases where it should be stashed in Steam library without a pruchase option, but I haven't seen Steam offering this. I will contact the support and let's see what they can do about this.
If however there is someone who wishes to take over the project, I'd be happy to hand it over and will explain how the tools work.
Cheers,
VM Machal solo dev of BSL
Hotfix 0.9.1e
- optimized material calculator into C# code from visual scripting as it took a chunk of performance
- increased a gap between tooltip and mouse cursor so users with 2160 vertical screen resolution won't have blinking HUD
Bug fixes:
- tax collector pop up should no longer be stuck in some special scenarios
Not fixed:
- there may be situation where smelting furnace can disappear, or chest (during building placement), however, unable to find the source issue as it's extremely sporadical
0.9.1d hotfix
- smelting furnaces now have a button to set steel ingot to maximum amount for smelting
- smoothed out the bottom menu buttons during click and hover
- opening menus should no longer cause a minor initializing lag
- crafting menu will show a hover tooltip on the item being crafted with stats that it will get once the crafting is finished
- material consumption UI is being added in top menu for each currency that is being consumed during crafting. This feature is to help every player to calculate how much materials they should prepared
- material consumption feature can be turned on/off in the options
- blueprint designer dropdowns for materials will not reset to default material when new part is clicked
Bug fixes:
- fixed a bug where turning off or switching parts in blueprint designer caused to remove it from already saved blueprint without apply button
- any item for sale will be able to be sold even if the icon doesn't match the item type (mainly for players who doesn't want to start over)
- fixed worker 2 that was inheriting values from worker 1 (requires restart)
- fog will no longer be spawned on a new day when weather is disabled in options
- all workers will now be able to have crafted anvils from player
- pressing ESC during Save/Load menu will be blocked so it doesn't trigger additional main menu
- Hammer blueprint parts from Wendigo battle will be now visible in Blueprint designer
- Taxes UI will close all quest pop-ups
- crafting queue icons will automatically adjust when the slot gets empty
- blueprints will be searched for restrictions and allowances in the whole crafting queue instead of just the first slot
0.9.1c hotfix and Prologue retires
0.9.1c patch notes
Changes:
- Heroes menu will now display a built in currency HUD
- autosave every 5 minutes is now implemented, when player is not in main menu or blueprint designer, message will be also displayed when it auto saves successfully
Bug fixes:
- fixed a crash when player applies shield blueprint
- starting anvil can now be sold but unequipping it will be restricted until player learns blueprint of new anvil so he doesn't lock himself out
- blueprint designer will show unified icon for defects reduction stat
0.9.1b hotfix
- equipment menu equip slots will now be opening individual inventories with the respective item types
Bug fixes:
- Spanish language was added in the dropdown in options
- repairing any item with materials will not include previous material costs
- fixed anvil and potion icon assignment
- fixed morale and defect reduction tooltips in inventory
- focused hammer will show tooltip for worker 1 and 2
- potion inventory will be available in heroes menu
0.9.1a hotfix
- removed 1 iron and 1 wooden part restriction from hammer blueprint during tutorial phase
Bug fixes:
- camera zoom will be restricted when placing objects during build mode
- employee levels will be updated in build mode
- fixed shield icon from blueprint designer
- items in inventory will contain more tooltips
0.9.1 released
I'm glad to announce that version 0.9.1 is now live. BSL has gone through a complete overhaul and from now on, all versions prior to this one will be considered as legacy.
Things to know before the buy or download
1. This version contains 3-4 hours of content and features that include management of workshop and hero adventures. Expect some bugs but overall I think it's better than the previous version. I will still keep the legacy version for people who might enjoy it more, however there will be no updates on it anymore.
(For legacy version, right click on the game in your library -> properties -> betas -> select 'legacy')
2. Legacy version took me ~2 years to create. This one took me 7 months, so some features are not there yet and some are changed (for detailed overview check roadmap which is also on steam page - about us section).
3. This version is in it's final shape in terms of graphics and UI and finishing it will take me roughly 1-2 years (depending on the support). The reason why I've released it now is that I don't have analytics team behind my ass and rely solely on the feedback from players.
4. Blacksmith legends is my hobby project, I'm working on it in my own free time alone and it's a marathon, not a sprint. There is no magical fairy or some rich daddy that magically pops out to throw in some extra $$$. Support of every player is extremely appreciated and valued. The best thing you can do for this project is help me test it and report the bugs or balance issues.
5. Steam achievements will be removed. Since they are quite time consuming and just cosmetics, I've decided to deactivate this feature. The game displays it's own 'achievement' sort of system that gives player rewards. I may add this later in the future but it is not planned at the moment.
6. Steam cloud saves will refer to the new build, so if there is some collision with legacy saves, you should be careful and back the legacy saves into the new app data path:
"C:\Users\$yourName\AppData\LocalLow\VM gaming ltd\BlacksmithLegends'
Game was tested for a couple of months and I'm very thankful for the help of my publisher testers and 'Ashmode' + 'Coolighost'. Without them, it would be in a way way worse shape.
You can always report your feedback on forums or on my discord server here,
Thank you for your support and best of luck to all of you. Enjoy!
VM Machal <3
0.9.1 Announcement
I'm happy to announce that new version of Early Access BSL will be released on 16th, March! It will contain around 4 hours of gameplay and reworked features as they were introduced in previous updates.
For those who missed them, feel free to browse back in the news.
After 7 months of hard work I've started almost from scratch and can now bring you this:
- 10 different blueprints of items that have lots of modular parts. Parts can have visual purpose or bring different bonuses to the item
- blacksmith techniques affecting item price, quality and durability that is customizable
- completely reworked UI, thus bringing better mining order system with helpful tooltips
- reworked inventory with new tooltips for each item
- festival activity where you can fast sell items
- rival blacksmith that will be seeking to take over your business (early feature)
- customers will actively come to your workshop and buyout items that you set for sale
- negotiable selling with each customer (early feature)
- more complex orders (materials and quality may be recommended)
- 2 hero adventures with separate world models and explorable dungeons and creatures (early feature)
- tailor and smelter are removed from the game and are being outsourced by marketplace
- all hero battles are now based on arena fighting system (little bit enhanced) so arena feature is removed from the game
Roadmap will be also updated accordingly, since many features were changed or removed, so stay tuned!
This foundation is very solid and I'll be working on from here. Game is planned to be finished end of this year as I have now a vision on what should be there and how to continue (unlike last year).
December update
this month I have more news to show you and things that will be coming live in few months. I expect the beta testing of this remake to start somewhere around end of January. It's going a bit slower than I've planned but I'm happy with the results so far.
Here is what has been added/changed since the last time I've posted:
1. Adventures (replacing World Map)
Players will be able to see the hero travelling in the 'world' when out of town, sort of automatic with some interactions.
You will be able to view what he has in his inventory, change his gear and so on. Every piece of gear you craft will be able to be visible on him. Anything can be visible pretty much.
At the end he will return to his inn and will await further instructions. Map will reset again. There will be couple of maps for the randomization. I'd love to add some seasonal stuff too, just for fun.
During an adventure, hero will collect resources and discover dungeons just like in the previous patches! This time I will also add the epic creatures too!
New hero stats:
- Carry capacity - counts for each item/material quantity
- Energy that will be reduced as hero explores, when it reaches 0, hero will rest by campfire until next day
2. Combat (Arena will be removed but that combat style will be implemented for all battles)
Terrick is basically now the gladiator from the arena while the abilities are combined and all is put into 3D enviroment.
Units will now contain 'Armor' and 'Slashing/Piercing/Curshing' types of damage (depending on their weapons). You can modify what weapon damage you get based on the weapon you craft.
A 'broadsword' like sword gives more piercing damage
'Saber' like sword will give you more slashing damage
And yes, all the changes in every part will be visible even for sale and even in the combat or adventures!
3. Armor and resources
Armor in this game is a little bit enhanced I'd say. While at the moment I've only added 'Light armor' so far, it contains 4 modular pieces:
1. Tunic
2. Shoulders
3. Hip guard
4. Belt
Depending on the materials, you will change the armor outcome and get some bonus stats.
During the sales, armor will only be placeable on armor stand, while weapons in the weapon stands, general items on showcase tables. This will give player better overview in the workshop.
This is probably the most time consuming part, because I want the armor changes to be visible on the hero and with as less glitches and mesh protrusions as possible! (Love when his belt is going through his belly :))
Setting everything up was for me the toughest part to achieve, but I'm happy that the base code is set up and now I'll keep adding content and polish the gameplay.
I'll soon require a big help from the community with the polishing part, so stay tuned and thanks for supporting my project. It's overwhelming amount of work but you guys keep me away from burning out!
See you in January and wish you all merry christmas and happy new year!
Cheers,
VM Machal <3