Lorekeeper Update - Hero's Hour v 1.5+v 1.6

It's been three weeks since I last did a devlog. It's been three very busy weeks.

Well, sort of. I actually took almost a full week away from working on the project after releasing v1.5 a couple days after v1.4. And then, while I was out sailing in a kayak, the game blew up. It has now been the best-selling game on itch.io for more than two weeks straight. Wow. Amazing.

So this development log will cover quite a few different bases. Two full updates, some ThingOnItsOwn story-telling and some announcements as to the future of the Hero's Hour game.

First, though: Hero's Hour now has a trailer!

We actually commissioned this trailer from an artist named Catkorp a couple of days before the game blew up. It took quite a while to get everything settled, and then, suddenly, like a spring being released, Catkorp went into a frenzy and produced this amazing thing. Lau started off by creating a custom audio track for the trailer, so thanks be to him, too. We also had Mesmer manning the cannons in capturing raw footage - try to see if you can spot the two times in the trailer that he magically teleports with debug functions.

All I did was the thumbnail, relatively speaking.

Second, though: Splattercat did an amazing video about the game!

I mean, part of why I'm holding this one out it's the most popular video on Hero's Hour, having 350.000 views atm, and seeming to continue to grow. There's also a lot of Splatterfans that have been hounding me in the discord since then - hounding the way puppies do, with a lot of love and suggestions for you to take them on this and that walk etc. etc.

The other part is the pride I felt when I watched this video. Around 10:00, he's taking a look at the newly added skill tree and he reads the tooltips for a couple of the newly added skills. And they sound, to be honest, absolutely amazing. As he says, "it's very very rare that an RPG has it where I like everything on a certain level and I can't choose between them." And that was the point of pride. The 17 newly added skills in v 1.4 are all a bit strange and gimmicky; but they're fun and stand up to the scrutiny even as the weeks pass.

So anyway, with this single video, a whole flood of video content about the game has followed; the game project's financial state is feeling a bit swole and the daily steam wishlists are off the charts.

My plan to quietly release the game on steam with little fanfare have fallen short.

But we iterate, we try things, see what works, and then we adapt.

Lorekeeper updates

• v 1.5

  
  

  • Hero skill trees
    • Instead of skills being offered randomly, each hero has their own unique skill tree (3 per class)
    • Higher rank skills require higher levels
    • Skills deeper within the tree require a skill above of high enough rank
  • Faction poster updated to look nicer and have lore for all factions
  • World map in-game with lore descriptions for all cities, giving background on the different races in the world
  • 2 new rare units
  • 5 new buildings

These buildings are actually quite central to the Lorekeeper theme. They're all startlingly impactful and terrifyingly magical. And any of them spawning on your map will offer quite a different gameplay experience.

After Splattercat's video rolled around, suddenly there were a lot of people playing and experiencing all the wonderful bugs Hero's Hour has to offer. I've managed to squash a lot of them, introduce a few new ones, and kill those, too. It's honestly a wonder that I managed to add any new features at all.

• v 1.6
  • Hero skill trees updated
    • Graphical and UX improvements
    • +3 skills per tree
  • 20 new artifacts
  • 2 new artifact sets
    • Echoes set is a quirky might-focused set that makes any of your dying units create a horrifying wraith that fights for 10 extra seconds
    • Widle's set is a quirky magic-focused set that makes your Earth spells turn enemies into golden statues, and that regenerates mana whenever you pick up gold (such as the gold gained from golden statues)
  • Reworked reserve system
    • Now works off "unit power", rebalancing how strong different sizes of units are in reserves
  • Wild faction skills rework
    • Vengeance > Wild Communion
    • Gives the hero a special Wild Call spell costing 0 mana with a three day cooldown. The spell summons animals onto the battlefield. If they survive after combat, you keep them as Anima. Strength increases with skill level
    • Retribution > Lifespark
    • Whenever the hero casts a spell, the hero additionally heals nearby units and summons animals onto the battlefield. If the animals survive after combat, you keep them as Anima. Strength increases with skill level

Nerfs:

• Scouting nerf (diminishing effects when used a lot)
• Conflux nerf (temporary elementals more temporary, permanent elementals fewer)
• Rune of Death nerf
• Lich nerf (each skeleton summoned decreases chance of future skeletons by a small amount)
• Rune of Air nerf (chance now depends on unit power)

With these nerfs, the goal has been to keep the skills strong, just less absurdly so. The Wild faction skill rework has actually been planned for many months, but I did it just now because I was being told that Retribution would give too many animas, macro-wise. Its power has now been shifted to be larger within the single battle instead of between battles.

More v 1.6 features:

• v 1.6
  • Taverns now offer two heroes, one of its own faction, one foreign faction hero
  • Revamped tutorial map
    • Still the same "mission"
  • German translation
  • New system for saves, now ordered into folders and with better 
  • 3 new rare units
    • two of which were drawn by KraftKraken - more to come??
      
    • and a cat, because we can't have dogs in the game but no cats
  • Hero-specific starting units
  • More units on your starting hero, fewer on tavern-purchased heroes
  • Hard and Hardcore game difficulties are now much harder
  • New difficulty: Hardcore+

And I think that about wraps it up when it comes to features. BUT! I promise you there's at least as many new bug fixes as there are features. It's been much easier to fix bugs recently with all the new players who experience and report them. It's a lot easier to fix a bug that you understand than one you don't.

We're down to very few bugs at this point, most of which are the messageless crash type. If someone ever gets a reproducible messageless crash, please let me know, because it's super important for the continued development of the game.

Another announcement!

A couple weeks ago, I announced that Lau the Sound Goblin (aka Lautaro Ariño) was redoing the music and sounds in the game. Well, he's now also come on to work full time on the game. Supposedly, he's as skilled with code as he is with music, which sounds absolutely amazing. It'll take some time until he's up to date with the Hero's Hour codebase, but once we're there, development will really take off.

Everyone, say welcome Lau!

Hero's Hour is really going places now, and I hope I'll be able to bring all of you with me those places - wherever they end up being.

It's been a couple of weeks of focusing on improving the base game, with more gameplay features, better balancing and higher stability. And now, we return to focus on the LAST GOAL ON THE ROADMAP:

• SINGLE PLAYER CAMPAIGN

And then, once that's done, with more sound effects, better polish and higher stability, Hero's Hour will release on steam, and then the next chapter in the Hero's Hour development will start.

I really want an 11th faction to join the HH roster - and for this faction to not be designed by me, but rather by ALL of the community. But that's a post launch thing, and I'll update you on that once we get closer.

Anyway. It's been a mad couple of weeks; I'm a bit tired, but also super excited for the future. In Danish we say, "blod på tanden".

See you all around the Hero's Hour community!

- Benjamin "ThingOnItsOwn" Hauer