Game: Hammerting
Genre: Adventure, Indie, RPG, Simulation
System: Steam (Windows)
Developers | Publishers: Warpzone Studios | Team17 Digital
Controller Support: No
Price: US $24.99 | UK £19.99 | EU € 24,99
Release Date: November 16th, 2021
Review code used, with many thanks to Press Engine & Team17
Hammerting has been in Early Access since October 2020. Now it’s time for its full release. The game is developed by Warpzone and published by Team17.
Mountains of Mara
Nestled away in the Mountains of Mara, Hammerting follows a community of dwarves as they explore, build, craft, and mine to develop their stronghold.
You manage a clan of Dwarves in this colony sim. You’ll dig down deep and establish a mining operation. You can build, and craft, and of course, you can trade with your neighbours. There are also monsters in the cave who attack in waves.
Build Structures Using Resources
You can recruit dwarves and build structures using resources, such as stone and ore. Then, once your new recruits arrive, you put them to use in various ways. For example, you can have them mine the mountain’s depths for ore or fight their way through ancient tunnels.
Work your way along the tech tree, with tech to add a kitchen, homes or constructions that change how you keep our dwarfs happy and working. You can also increase your dwarf’s carpentry techniques or chiselling technologies and add new tools for your clan to use.
Allies and Fractions
There are allies, on the surface, who will have all manner of requests. Dwarves may find themselves asked to craft silver swords against an oncoming army. Trading with a fraction on the surface comes into play too.
Mix of Genres
Hammerting is a mix of genres, of combat, crafting, and resource manager. Unfortunately, it is also a game that throws a lot of info at you in little info boxes when you first start playing. This, to me, only confuses the player and doesn’t help set them up for a good game. A proper in-depth tutorial is needed to start the player off on the right track. While there is a Book of Tings to read on the menu, how many players will bother to read it?
Wonky AI
Once you get underway in the mine and get your dwarfs working, building and fighting slimes that invade the mountain, things don’t run that much more smoothly. At the start of the game, there is a lack of dwarfs to complete the jobs. If say you lose a dwarf through combat, then you have even less of a workforce. The balance in the game feels off to me as you struggle to get your mountain home up and running.
The biggest hindrance to a smooth gameplay experience for the player is the pathing issues with the dwarfs. They get stuck in the background or take the longest route possible to achieve their objective with strange movement loops that render the game unplayable. However, the devs have been continually updating the game when I played it for this review, which is great to see.
Visuals and Sound
Visually Hammerting does look great on my laptop. The sprites for the dwarfs are drawn well, with some personality in them. Appropriate sound effects throughout the game, such as the sound of an axe hitting a stone.
The game was pretty dark when I first started playing it and I had to turn up the brightness to be able to see anything. Though the darkness does give off a great impression of being deep in the mines. The game ran pretty well on my laptop, it crashed once in the 15+ hours or so I played the game.
Conclusion
Hammerting is a little rough around the edges in some aspects of the gameplay. The annoying AI of the dwarfs can be off-putting when you are playing the game. The devs seem very active on the discussion thread on Steam so I would imagine they have taken note of players concerns on some aspects of the gameplay. It isn’t a terrible game, it just needs a little more work to make it a thoroughly enjoyable playing experience for the player.
Final Verdict: I Like It 