Review code provided with many thanks to HeroCraft.
Throw a Hammer into Early Access
Anvil Saga allows you to live out your dreams of becoming a blacksmith and managing your own workshop. This is not your typical simulator experience with a familiar pixel graphical style though. Anvil Saga adds significant depth to its design and even narrative to make it shine as one of the more prominent blacksmith games in the land.
The game has recently launched to Early Access and like a young apprentice, the game still has some growth and tidying to do. But if you want to support the developer in their journey to its final release and get some insight into the game improving and changing over time then be sure to wishlist this one on Steam.
Make a Choice
You play as Arthur the blacksmith who has taken over his father’s shop and aims to make his mark on the community by providing good quality handmade products. The trouble is there also happens to be a 100-year war happening in the background of this tale, so things are not going to go as smoothly for Arthur as one might expect. A big stand-out feature of the game is its narrative. You are able to make regular dialogue choices which have quite a significant impact on how the story progresses. A common example of this is you can take a quest on for a client that won’t net you any profits but will significantly improve your reputation, or decline it and focus on the profits.
You’ll also develop influence with specific customers and even army factions between the English and French which will have a significant impact on the story over time. The pixel art style is familiar but works well with the game’s quirky sense of humour including some more unusual customers like Vampires and Medieval Batman. The audio is excellent for the Medieval setting with nice attention to sound effects, like a door opening noises and hitting the hammer on the anvil. The story is currently incomplete but it certainly shows a lot of promise in this early build.
Craft and Manage
It’s not all about the plot. You also have plenty of blacksmithing to get stuck into. To begin you are a solo worker taking on orders, smelting your own ore and hammering away on your anvil. You have your own pit in your house and mine for your own ore. Although, you do need to manage where your focus is carefully. Customers will come thick and fast and you will soon learn you can not please everyone adding further to the decision-making at your disposal. Depending on the type of gamer you are, this will be a welcome challenge or possibly a very stressful one as you may be forced to close the shop early or simply decline customer orders. Before long you will be able to take on an apprentice to spread the workload out.
There is a sufficient amount of management options. Workers need to be paid, given a bed to rest in and fed (this also applies to Arthur himself). Letting characters become overtired will lead to mistakes at work and the possibility of creating poor quality products. As the game progresses you can expand your operation by learning more recipes and expanding your house and workforce. I liked how the game teaches its various mechanics by gradually drip-feeding them over the early stages of the game. Controls are quite comfortable with most actions simply requiring a click of the mouse while panning the game camera around with the WASD on the keyboard.
Hammering Out the Kinks
Currently, in the Early Access version, you can play through the first part of the story or take on sandbox mode which lets you play the game to your heart’s content without the story narrative. With it being in Early Access expect the game to be a bit rough around the edges. The game launched with an issue with its save system, but the developer was pretty quick on the mark to rectify this. To further add confidence in the project the developer has posted a road map clearly detailing how they aim to add to the game moving forward.
Anvil Saga shows a lot of promise in this early build. If you love your management games with a story where decisions really matter then I recommend giving it a look.