If I've been a little less active than usual this week, it can more or less entirely be attributed to Heroes of Hammerwatch. It's an addictive little game, and one that I played for quite a bit when it first came out. It recently released an expansion that adds a new desert area to the game, as well as some more content, and it's been quite enjoyable for me.

Heroes of Hammerwatch trailer on YouTube; official source.

The whole system of Heroes of Hammerwatch is interesting because it's a multi-genre blend, but I'm not going to talk too much about it: it's a roguelite (or roguelike, if you're not a purist like me) action RPG with character progression through an in-town hub (kind of like Rogue Legacy), but it often plays kind of like a bullet hell game, with strong rewards for combos and avoiding enemy projectiles.

I'm quite a fan of it, and this is because it really plays up its merits well. It combines three really key elements that help to engage players: distinctive progression, player skill and reflexes, and analytical capacities.
Writer's note: These aren't the terms I often use, but I'm a little tired and they escape me, and I don't have enough time to reference my old writing and see if I describe them better somewhere else.

Progression

The progression throughout the game is primarily handled in two ways: gold and ore. Gold is very much the "expendable" resource, with it going toward upgrades purchased at shops for individual characters (including at item shops during a dungeon run), while ore is more of a long-term investment. All of the characters created on a profile are part of a guild, and getting enough achievements by completing certain tasks and reaching milestones with particular character classes unlocks bonuses.

It's a little hard to describe the number of ways that characters can be upgraded in brief, but there's enough layers to keep things interesting.

Gold-Based Progression

On a very short-term scale, characters get items over the course of a dungeon run (and may buy some before the start of a dungeon run in an in-town shop) using gold.

However, per-character upgrades can also be bought at various vendors in town (e.g. a blacksmith) that permanently increase a single character's abilities, like their primary attack's damage.

Ore-Based Progression

Ore-based progression is the counterpart to gold, and tends to focus on improving the town that a character starts their adventure from. Each ore-based unlock provides little immediately tangible benefit, but opens the path to spending gold on better upgrades. Some of the things bought with ore also recursively interact with the progression system, like improving the rate of return on gold found in the dungeon or making it easier to convert between ore and gold.

Guild Progression

Guild progression is an interesting detail as well. It unlocks skill points, but also takes the form of a couple other benefits; clearing parts of the dungeon with characters of different classes gives a small persistent bonus that applies to all characters, and the combo system has to be unlocked (along with a couple other elements; most of the buildings in town require an initial unlock that is carried across all characters).

Experience

Characters level up by getting experience that is preserved across runs. Skill points are gained this way, which allows the player to customize their character. I'll get into more detail at this in the last section.

There are some but this is generally a relatively small part of their effectiveness, at least once the other progression mechanics are in full effect. The largest impact you'll see from these improvements is in the form of resource pools, especially health. Since Heroes of Hammerwatch is a fan of very quick action, having the ability to shrug off an extra hit is invaluable for most characters.

Player Skill and Reflexes

Player skill is something of an x-factor in games. It's important to balance a game between being too easy and too difficult, and Heroes of Hammerwatch handles this quite well.

Part of this is dependent on a very slick and fluid handling of all the game mechanics. The need for this is simple: if the player's abilities don't contribute to play, it's very quickly going to be at best a moot point (since the skill ceiling is so low that there's no chance for mastery) or at worst a serious aggravation as players can't control the character in the game in a way that reflects their intent.

In this sense, Heroes of Hammerwatch really is quite a good twin-stick shooter, with the player moving their character in such a way to avoid projectiles and aim their own attacks at enemies. There is no delay between input and action, and there are mechanics that expect players to actually master this: dodging bullet-hell style waves of attacks from enemies, maneuvering through traps and puzzles, and the like.

Analytical Gameplay

Analytical gameplay is the way that a game encourages a player to think and plan. It's possible to have games that are very simple and don't require much thought, but in Heroes of Hammerwatch some attention must be paid to a variety of details.

Character Development

Characters get skill points that they can allocate, which increase the power of their abilities (standard attack, three activated abilities, and three passive abilities), and guild progression is one way to get these.

The real importance here is that it gives the player an ability to make long term plans. While buying upgrades is generally a question of just maxing out progression systems (with the exception of the temple, which allows players to choose between one boon from each of four tiers as the building is upgraded), the character development takes place by allocating points.

Points can also be allocated using a couple of other systems, the magic anvil and bestiary, to provide immediate benefits when a character has a particular item or is facing a particular enemy, which is useful in many cases, especially once all the skills that a player cares about have been unlocked.

All the Numbers!

Every run turns out different due to the items that a character finds in the dungeon, and part of figuring out what works for a character is dependent on a rather bulky character sheet, which features everything from primary attack damage and ore find rates to luck and movement speed. Every value here (and some values not featured here) can be modified during play by items, and a player can use these numbers to their advantage. If they have high armor and low resistance, they may want to avoid certain enemies as they are encountered in the dungeon, or burn their mana on skills that allow them to take them down more easily.

Wrapping Up

Heroes of Hammerwatch works really well because it has a bunch of layered systems. It's simple enough to be playable without too much effort, but as an unforgiving and challenging game at higher levels.