Hi Blacksmiths! I want to share an important update with you regarding Blacksmith Masters launch. After carefully hammering out our plans, and in collaboration with Hooded Horse, weve decided to delay the release until early 2025. This wasnt an easy choice; but just like forging the perfect blade, some things need a bit more time in the fire to ensure theyre strong enough for the journey ahead. First, I'd like to share that I'm adding features originally slated for post-launch directly into the Early Access release. This means youll have access to even more content right from the start, including additional crafting systems and in-game challenges that I think youll love. Secondly, during recent testing, we found a few bugs and performance issues that need to be fixed. Tackling these issues now will make sure your experience is as smooth as a freshly tempered sword. Finally, this decision was made in close partnership with Hooded Horse. Together, were committed to delivering the best possible version of Blacksmith Master. We truly appreciate your patience and understanding during this time. I cant wait to share more updates and, ultimately, the game itself with you very soon. Stay sharp! Thank you, Luka

Hello everyone! :)

Blacksmith Master - Release Date Trailer

Here's a quick summary of what'll be included at launch. Everything from the demo and...

• Craft and Sell: Forge nearly 100 different items, from simple iron ladles to beautifully adorned shields.
• Expand Your Smithy: Build your workshop over multiple floors, managing Blacksmiths, Sellers, and other staff.
• Specialize and Manage: Guide your teams development as they level up and specialize in their crafts.
• Dynamic Trading and Selling: Run your shop or take on large-scale orders via the world map.
• Unlock and Upgrade: Access and improve mines for various metals to enhance your crafting capabilities.
• Exclusive Trades: Barter goods for unique materials that let you refine and specialize your creations even more.

To the Community

Manage your own medieval smithy in Blacksmith Master and supervise the entire process from mining ores and gems to designing and selling finished products. Forge everything from weapons and armor to tools and cooking utensils to fund your craft and become the Blacksmith Master. [previewyoutube=TtnaPezEklE;full][/previewyoutube] https://store.steampowered.com/app/2292800/Blacksmith_Master/

Manage your own medieval smithy in Blacksmith Master and supervise the entire process from mining ores and gems to designing and selling finished products. Forge everything from weapons and armor to tools and cooking utensils to fund your craft and become the Blacksmith Master. [previewyoutube=TtnaPezEklE;full][/previewyoutube] https://store.steampowered.com/app/2292800/Blacksmith_Master/

Forge Your Destiny: Blacksmith Master Demo Now Live!

Master the Art of the Forge

Craft, Trade, and Expand

Shape Your Blacksmith's Legacy

Become the Ultimate Blacksmith Master

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Hi everyone! Blacksmith Master and other games published by Hooded Horse are all featured at the Hooded Horse Publisher Sale. Come check it out! Hooded Horse Strategy Publisher Sale [previewyoutube=bwcg7R7QfIE;full][/previewyoutube]

Hello everyone! I've been meaning to write this dev diary for quite some time and finally I feel like there is enough news to write a blog post :) To give a quick summary at the beginning, the development of the game is going really great, but unfortunately I had to delay the demo for Steam Next Fest to February 2024. I've underestimated the amount of work needed to finish the core loop and the only reason for the delay is that I didn't have enough time to develop all the supporting features needed for the demo like the tutorial, audio, ui changes etc. On the good side, I did manage to finish the core loop which feels really fun so far (you'll be the judge of that of course)
So let's get into some details :) I've spent most time trying to rework the research tree. It's a big part of 2 problems Tavern Master had: 1) Every playthrough feels the same because research tree is the same 2) There is no bigger goal in the game except going day by day earning as much money as possible In order to improve that, I've replaced the research tree with a map of the kingdom where you're located. Since you're managing a blacksmith shop, you can influence events happening in the kingdom by providing weapons, tools, armor or something else. You can also help you kingdom expand either by force or diplomacy and in return receive certain benefits, bonuses, or materials. For example, a nearby mine could ask you for new pickaxes, and in return allow you to excavate ores there which unlocks copper ore for you. You will be progressing through the game by helping your kingdom basically :)

I've also streamlined the staff popup where you'll be able to drag&drop staff into certain roles. Each staff type will have different responsibilities, and you're job is to make sure the workshop is balanced. For example, a blacksmith can either craft items for racks, craft items for the kingdom map requests or work on designing new items. If you have too many blacksmiths designing, you'll be spending too much money on their salaries while racks will be empty and you won't be able to help your kingdom enough. On the other hand, if you're focusing just on production, but not on unlocking new items, you won't be able to fulfill certain requests.
There are some other not as important things finished: - I've reworked the whole AI system and with hundred of hours testing, I haven't had a single employee get stuck. I'll work hard on maintaining that quality until the game is released :) - Whole UI is getting reworked, you can already see parts of it in the screenshots - There will be at least 3 times more character animations than in Tavern Master - There are 8 different racks now which allows more customization Next steps are to polish and balance first 2-3 hours of the game and finish all necessary things for the demo that I mentioned. I'm taking a 2 month break from the development of Blacksmith Master so I can work on a really ambitious Tavern Master update which will release before the 2 year anniversary of the game (November 16th). That will also help me to be more critical and objective about the game when I get back to it, because I'll have 2 months to have my thoughts about the game settle :) Don't forget to join the Blacksmith Master Discord and please write feedback and thoughts in the comment! I'll respond to all of them. Sorry for delaying the demo, but I'd rather have something that I'm proud of in February than rush it for October and have lower quality feedback on the gameplay :)

Hello everyone :) To mark the start of TactiCon 2023, I've decided to start writing dev diaries where I'll talk about exciting new features that I am working on. I won't talk too much about specific gameplay elements to begin with, because that changes quite fast, but I hope you'll still find these posts interesting and informative while you wait for the demo :) The biggest thing I am working on right now is finishing the core loop which consists of hiring miners to excavate ores, hiring smiths to turn ores into ingots and ingots into items, displaying items on racks, and finally customers buying items and using that money to scale up your production. I believe this core loop will be closed very soon :) After that my next milestone will be finalizing the demo.
One of my main goals for this game is to improve replayability, more so than in Tavern Master. I have identified many areas that can be improved, like the map being too static, not enough things to do while you wait for money to generate, not enough customization options etc. but I wanted to start small for now. I've always felt that character diversity in Tavern Master wasn't great. There were only female waitresses and bartenders and they all looked pretty much the same. I was very limited with 3D characters that I owned, but I've overcome that and so far I have made a random blacksmith generator so every blacksmith you hire looks different.
I will also make something like this for other staff types like miners and cashiers, and for customers as well. The biggest milestone recently was that I've added wood as a new resource. So far there are 75 items in the game which can be crafted from start to finish, and I'm working on having a wide variety of different crafting processes because I don't want it to feel that every item created in the same way. Besides wood and metal, my plan is to add leather (mainly for armor), gems (jewelry and some more expensive items) and glass (jars, potions, perhaps even alchemy!).
Many of those 75 items are shields which were the most recent items added to the game:
From these 2 gifs you can also notice that animations look much more polished compared to Tavern Master which was also one of the goals for this game :) It's an ongoing process of course, but by the time we get to a proper demo build, you should be able to appreciate the differences more fully. The development of Blacksmith Master started while I was still doing major updates for Tavern Master. Since both games share the same code base, I have also transferred new features from TM to BM like basements and weather. My 3D artist Marcis has started prototyping a coin minting machine which I am very excited about. To start with, the machine will be split in 2 parts - a smelter for creating blank coins and a stamp for finalizing the coins. It will be a slow process but later on you will be able to upgrade it into a more effective machine doing both jobs at the same time:

That is it for this dev diary - I will try to update with new diaries at least monthly :) I am very curious to read your feedback because as a solo dev it always helps me a lot when I know what potential players think about the things I implement :) Don't forget to join the Blacksmith Master Discord and I hope you enjoy the rest of TactiCon! :)