The big black unknown is coming into focus as we complete v1 of Sim Hero. 

Today is monumental for our little game as we've graduated beyond 640x480 resolution! (ya know, resolution from 1990)

The resolution fix was a big deal as it opens up some core game features we really wanted to get in there and fixes some of the "wonk" we all experienced with mouse controls.

What's next on the horizon for Sim Hero? 

We continue to prep the remaining planned & contributor content (classes, skills, events & more), so expect that stuff to pour into the game in the coming weeks. Continued tweaking, balance, bug fixes are also planned. 

The next 'literal' big thing should be the castles. Get ready to proudly decide the path of your settlement (and see that visual representation on the map) to truly take things to the next level!

What's beyond that horizon?

It's always tough to talk about "the beyond" as plans & circumstances always change. But, many of the "back-end" improvements y'all see in Sim Hero are actually coming from another -yet to be revealed- PC Sim project we have going on... So, while it takes away a little time from Sim Hero, the benefits have been quite major.

Once Sim Hero is at v1.0, we'll have some announcements on that front, as well as more info on where Sim Hero will go from here. The world is actually 8x the size of the current Sim Hero world (after you open up all adjacent zones), so it's quite large (and I have sneaky plans for a "plot" that could take you back to your homeland to conquer it...). We hope we can get the chance to bring the rest of the Sim Hero experience to you!

Here it is!

Sim Hero has undergone an overhaul. A good overhaul. A needed overhaul.

Download now!

Right now, the game is light on content while we balance/redesign. So, download and play if you want, but just understand that we are focusing testing the new gameplay. Most of the content is built, it's just waiting to be slotted-in. The gameworld is 32x the size of the little starting area, so there's plenty to explore!

Check out the new Getting Started guide here.

We believe this is the right direction and it's where we always wanted it to be. 

More updates and information to come!

Sim Hero enters Closed Beta Testing!

Emails are on their way out to all Kickstarter & Website contributors with the Beta download link & Beta info.

The full list of recent changes appear below:

Completed:

- MOVE INTO CLOSED BETA


Changes:

- All crafted gear boosted slightly
- Loot scripts tweaked to sometimes hand out less loot
- The Event System got an overhaul:
RESULT: Events 2 places in the future are determined at time of previous event resolution, negating the 
ability to save/load until a "favorable" event is rolled.
RESULT: The war events got some variety and the math was overhauled to actually work now. No more easy 
fights!
RESULT: Fiddled with the frequency of certain events.
RESULT: Added a new event type to potentially "give back" Happiness, Safety or Resources. Will expand 
upon this down the road.
RESULT: Slightly increased the amount of troops gained when recruiting troops.


Fixes:

- Fixed an instance where a War Hero would join the Court instead of the Reserves.
- Fixed court XP gain from some monsters (raised to normal levels - it was far too low)
- Fixed Event Battle Resolution Event text to include current *Safety* level on battle win/loss message.
- Fixed (hopefully all) instances where the wrong cutscene would play, or multiple cutscenes would 
play. This may cause some "cutscene weirdness" if you don't start over, but the worst that happens is 
you watch a duplicate cutscene once. Certainly no reason to start the game over if you don't want to.


Enjoy!
- The Sim Hero Team

March has been a busy & productive alpha testing month. In fact, it's been so smooth - we plan to open things up to the closed Beta testers much sooner than anticipated!

The biggest change on the horizon is the Event system. It needs a code overhaul and some new features (like, an event which allows the recovery of Happiness, Safety & Resources). Stay tuned for that.

Patch notes appear below, for all the major releases over the past 2 weeks (newest first). Enjoy!

- The SimHero team


Patch 0.0.4

> Completed:
- STRETCH GOAL: Recruitable Fairy & Centaur heroes.
- CLASS: Knight Errant
- CLASS: Dragon Knight (contributor content)
- DUNGEON: Ancient Wyrm Cave (contributor content)
- UNIQUE HERO (recruitable): Artur Erebus (contributor content)

> Changes:
- Minor review of the Marksman class. TP costs & Damage adjusted favorably, slightly.
- Dwarves are more resistant to poison & disease
- Migrated the remaining Court battles to the new scaling system
- Begun to add in some of the new, commissioned Orc portraits
- Changed all goblin sprites to the new, commissioned Goblin sprites
- Review of loot rolls & higher level difficulties balancing:
Result: Purple & better gear is more rare. (you can sometimes "sneak" a purple out under the old chances tho)
Result: Higher difficulty remained okay, so no changes made
Result: will continue to test higher difficulty dungeons for tweaks


> Fixes:
- Human Artifacts should now be properly found in the correct dungeons
- Tweaked the drop rates for "special" dungeon find items to be a tad more favorable in certain cases
- Fixed a few cutscenes
- Fixed a few bugs with the Training info messages
- Fixed a few more remaining cases where summoned allies would be DOA
- Fixed a few dialog errors
- NOW, When a hero returns from training, the training hall will properly show nobody "currently training"


Patch 0.0.3

> Changes:
- Re-tooled Court battles to add more variety and have it scale better as the game progresses 
- Re-tooled how "special" items get handed out. (they are now a special roll in a dungeon's loot roll) 
- Added a one-time quest to the abandoned mine on the island 

> Fixes: 
- ITEM drop rates were too high (compared to Weapons/Armor). Code was changed a while ago to lower them, but it wasn't changed in all required places. Fixed now. Armor/Weapons should drop more frequently than Items (as intended)
- Fixed instances where a hero would summon an ally, and that ally would not arrive


Patch 0.0.2

> Completed: 
- CLASS: Yellow Mage 
- CLASS: Lord 

> Changes: 
- Added more Contributor Content 
- Added a few unique Warlord skills 
- Changed undead hero graphics to commissioned art 
- Added an option to force wandering NPCs to "Make Way" and get out of your way - to prevent NPC traffic jams.

> Fixes: 
- Fixes a game crashing bug when producing armor/weapons from a Worksite. 
- Various typo fixes 
- Various Class Fixes 
- Fixed a bug where a cutscene wouldn't allow the switching of parties afterwards. 
- Fixed the Tent icon (General Item) 
- When a hero returns from training, the training hall will now properly show nobody "currently training"

This is it! LAST update before alpha. We just have a few things to tweak before Alpha invites go out!

Sim Hero Bug Fixes / Additions

Completed:

- ZONE: Southern Wilds
- ZONE: Southeast
- ZONE: Northern Steppes
- ZONE: Blasted Crossroads
- DUNGEON: Pirate Camp
- DUNGEON: Sunken Temple
- DUNGEON: Volcano
- DUNGEON: Frozen Mine
- DUNGEON: Chimera's Lair
- STORY: The barebones of the cutscenes & "story" are all in place... will flesh it out and make it "whole" by the end of Beta testing.
- CRAFTING: Tier2 Crafting loot tables complete.
- CLASS: Necromancer (yes, you can summon skeletons -more to come- into battle)
- CLASS: Red Mage
- CLASS: Blue Mage
- CLASS: Green Mage


Changes:

- Magic damage was lacking compared to weapon damage... boosted it slightly thru loot & skill tweaks.

- Added Holy-type DOT state: PENANCE

- Added a few buffs tied with various new skills

- All "top" skills either Cooldown or Warmup to prevent "1 trick pony" builds. Now, perhaps, the worst will be "2 trick ponies". 


Fixes:

- Some of the very first monsters still had way too high evade & crit values... brought them back down to the "new" levels.

- Somehow, Dwarves lost their slight resistance to Disease. Added back in.

- Various skill & class bugfixes

We are really on the home stretch now for Alpha. Since I streamlined the code & processes, adding dungeons doesn't take nearly as long as it once did... and the last few dungeons are all that's left (for Alpha, anyway)! 

We hope to release an alpha build within 1 month, if all remains smooth. 

Anyway, check out the new updates for late February:

Completed:

- ZONE: Western Wilds (added & completed)
- DUNGEON: Barbarian Camp (lvl 4)
- DUNGEON: Twisted Forest (lvl 6)
- DUNGEON: Western Tomb (lvl 10)
- DUNGEON: Ogre Cave (lvl 9) << some dungeons will have optimal strategies to them... this is the 1st. You will face fewer enemies with more Health. So, all those AoE attacks might not be as effective. All T2 dungeons will have a "theme" like this moving forward (hordes of enemies, resist a certain element, lots of a certain element damage, high DEF enemies, high health enemies, etc etc).
- LOOT: First pass completed on T2 Weapons, Armor & Items (this basically doubles the amount of loot in the game... much more to come!)
- BUILDING: Gear Shop upgrades done
- BUILDING: Mage Tower upgrades done
- BUILDING: Trading Post upgrades done
- CLASS: Dark Mage added
- CLASS: Merchant added


Changes:

- adjusted loot tables. you will now have a chance to see better loot at lower levels.
- added a few more merchants to the overlands maps
- added the "Decompose" state which triggers off some Dark Damage skills. DoT which damages HP, TP and MP.


Fixes:

- Fixed an issue where a hero coming back from training would be added to the court.
- Fixed an issue where the boat would not "reset" to an accessible location in some instances.
- Fixed the "XP Gain" basic skill

Ahhh... here we are. After rigorous testing, the remainder of Alpha content can be added. Hopefully, we're on the fast track now to the Alpha release so y'all can get yer hands on our little game here!


Most Recent Sim Hero Bug Fixes / Additions

Completed:
- BUILDING: Dwarf Embassy. Added "Mountain Lord" class for dwarves.
- BUILDING: Orc embassy. Added "Plains Shaman" class for orcs.
- BUILDING: Mine (work site 1)
- BUILDING: Lumber Camp (work site 1)
- BUILDING: Butchery (work site 1)

Changes:

- Added "terrain types" for dungeons. Some classes (like the Forest Archer) will have skills which can increase their  effectiveness when adventuring in the matching terrain.

- Added much loot to the database.

- XP tweaked UP for above level 1 dungeons. It was far too low.

Fixes:

- slightly lowered difficulty for those first bandits.

- Made boots their own equip category ("Feet"). Didn't make sense to be wearking 2 pairs of boots...

- Various balance fixes thru level 8.

- Western Watchtower made slightly more difficult.

Wow. For the first time, we have some COMPLETED items to add to the development update!

Alpha is still coming... in the next 1-2 months... or so. 

Sim Hero Bug Fixes / Additions:

Completed:
- BUILDING: Guard tower/wall upgrades
- BUILDING: War Hall, including specialization in either: Archers, Infantry or Cavalry.
- BUILDING: Training Hall upgrades
- BUILDING: Bank upgrades
- BUILDING: Chapel upgrades
- BUILDING: Wood Elf embassy upgrades (added "Forest Archer" class)

Changes:
- Bow attack speed increased (faster)
- Added Crossbow as a weapon type. Added Crossbowman class. 
- Added "Mounts" & Lances as a loot type. Added the Horseman class.
- Added the Legionnaire class.
- Added "Disrupt" to some skills. This will dismount mounted foes and has a chance to remove many beneficial effects. Changed the MERC's base skill to do this.
- Added all planned main keep visual upgrades. Have a few diplomacy/marraige items to add yet before I call it "finished".


Fixes:
- Added ATK speed to the Status-Properties screen

Just a little update on the things we've been working on to move towards Alpha. All of the below changes will be live in the Alpha version of the game (once it's ready). For now, the demo version will remain "as is". All Kickstarter and Paypal contributors of $10 or more will get an invite to the Alpha build.

In addition to many "under the hood" type fixes / additions, some specific items of note:


- Garden of Heroes added.

- Necropolis added. (requires a new game start for the undead heroes to be available)

- Bank / Trading Post added.

- added helper text to the throne to tell you if you've succeeded on the current event yet or not.

- Changed the Rogue to be more powerful when Hidden. Many skills now deal more damage when Hidden. Rogue now gets the skill "Hide" at Level 1. And, in most fights, they try to hide right from the start.

- AI for healing has finally been fixed! All skills that heal have been changed to properly be single-target skills (and TP/MP costs lowered and/or effect values increased, cooldowns removed). Some specific skills remained "party" heals. Generally, a hero with a single-target healing ability will target the most damaged ally.

- All healing abilities now are tied with an Element (Holy, Water, Earth, etc), with one exception: "TRUE" healing. If a hero resists Holy, and they are healed by a Holy skill, then they receive less healing. True healing is never reduced by elemental resistances (it is "outside" the normal elemental system). This was always planned, but never implemented because the healing AI has been broken for so long. Plan your parties carefully!

- Cleaned-up many abilities for minor tweaks in most cases, major bugs in other cases. Also cleaned up some items in the same way.

The demo can be downloaded from here, like usual. 

*** this version requires a new game. Saved games will likely crash **

Sim Hero Bug Fixes / Additions

This may very well be the last major update to the Demo Version of the game, as we've pretty much crossed off all "core" items from our list. From here on out, it's mostly content build in prep for the Alpha release. (hopefully January or February)

Changes:

- Training Hall. A new building in the castle was added (look in the southeast corner after you defeat the goblin camp). Talk to the trainer there and you can purchase "Training Orders" to give to your heroes to raise their core statistics and also unlock special, permanent abilities! 

- Mage Tower. A new building in the castle was added. Clear the rat infestation in the basement (new dungeon!) to unlock the tower's potential.

- Added a "State Resist" section to the "Status" menu so a hero's ability to resist States being applied to them can be visible.

- The Game Manual was removed. It was clunky and we're looking into better ways to achieve this.


Fixes:

- Fixed the Phisical Accuracy (HIT) stat when multiclassing.

- Reworked some core properties like HIT and Evade (EVA).

- Reworked a pile of backend math and other stuff.

- Added Leather into the Crisis rotation.


Known Bugs/Issues:

- Disabling / enabling mouse doesn't "survive" past game shutdown.

- In both the Pub tent and Inn, you must use the ENTER key to talk to Sam or Delaney. (the mouse won't work over the counter)

- the logic to handle "game over" isn't in yet.