HammerHelm

HammerHelm is a third-person town building game with RPG aspects mixed in.

TL;DR at bottom.

Gameplay:
HammerHelm is a relatively unique take on the city management genre, at least from what I’ve encountered. It has a strong base built up so far, and can definitely be improved. It is in Early Access at the time of writing this review, and is still quite early in development. The developers state on the opening screen that it is still a work in progress with incomplete parts of the game and placeholder assets. This fact certainly does reflect within the gameplay and other aspects, but the game is still playable and, more importantly, enjoyable.
The basic premise of the game is you are a dwarf and you need to build a dwarf village. You gather resources and new villages to help with resource production and other tasks within the village. Their mood must be managed, and there are many factors that affect their happiness. You have access to a build mode with many different options to choose from and a village manager where you can check up on your villagers and assign occupations. You will occasionally get quests, with tasks to help one of your villagers, or to go to a location and destroy it by killing the enemies that occupy it.
The combat in the game is noticeably still in early stages of development. There isn’t much depth to it, which could be discerning to some players since it is an integral part of the game. The only way to really be effective during combat is to attack, block, attack, block, and so on, and occasionally use a power attack if you get the chance. It is pretty difficult to survive since enemies deal a lot of damage. Armor doesn’t decrease the damage you take but instead gives you more hitpoints, which is a strange mechanic and may not make as much of a difference as simple damage reduction. There is certainly room for improvement, but it is still solid and relatively enjoyable in its current state.
Exploration is slightly limited, as there really isn’t much to find around the environment. Things to find and/or do around the world only spawn when a quest is given to you, so there isn’t much to look around for while you don’t have any active quest. The ambience is very soothing, however, and it can still be nice to walk around regardless. It does get repetitive though, especially with the repeated sound effects. Some objects around the world have no hit-box, and can be walked right through, especially decorations in your village. Another big difference from some games with exploration is the lack of a randomly generated world. Of course, you have to keep it mind that the game is still in very Early Access, and hopefully the developers are working on randomly generated worlds in order to make the game more exciting for every player.

7/10

Graphics:
The graphics in the game currently are very nice to look at. The grass is rendered nicely and adds to the environment and atmosphere well. Of course, as stated before, some assets are only placeholders currently and are completely subject to change. However, I do like the look of the game right now, and I expect the developers to keep the art style. There are some glitches here and there, and many textures can be phased through with the camera or even the player. One of the strangest quirks I discovered while playing was the death animation continuing to play after I had died and respawned. If I died and then respawned quickly, the player character would still be playing the animation for dying, and they would collapse on to the ground. However, you would still be able to move around, so you would be sliding around on your face until the character pops back into the normal position again. I am interested in what the developers will do with the graphics in the final product of the game, but it is pretty good so far.

8/10

Music/Audio:
The sound design within HammerHelm is not quite as developed. Of course, making a functional and enjoyable game should take priority over sound design and music. The ambience is well placed, and makes the game more immersive. There isn’t much music currently, besides calm background music for normal gameplay and the epic music for combat. Sound effects are also nothing to get excited about, as they are relatively generic and not complex. However, the game is still enjoyable and can be immersive with the sound effects the game currently.

6/10

Conclusion:
HammerHelm shows great promise for development in the future. It has a solid foundation for interesting and fun gameplay. The developers of the game are very nice and active, which is very important for a gaming community as well as for a game that is in active development, like in Early Access. The graphical style is very pleasing and the ambience helps immerse you into them game. The game has great potential for the future and it seems that it will eventually reach a full release with a well developed product.

Overall: 7/10 – Recommended

TL;DR
Pros:
+Cool gameplay mechanics
+Good graphics
+Very active developers

Cons:
-Early Access
-Repetitive combat
-Limited exploration

Check out my gameplay of HammerHelm below to get a better idea of the game.