Platform(s): PC via Steam
Genre: Crafting, Simulation Management, Base Building

The role of a blacksmith in the 18th century was undeniably pivotal. Their absence would render daily life for the everyday person almost unmanageable, stripping communities of essential tools, cooking implements, surgical devices, and weapons needed for military defence. This underscores the critical nature of blacksmithing, an occupation that marries industrial utility with creative craftsmanship by transforming metal into diverse tools. This deep appreciation for the blacksmith’s craft fueled my excitement for Untitled Studio’s Blacksmith Master, though, regrettably, the demo shows the game is not ready to forge ahead.

In Blacksmith Master, players step into the shoes of a blacksmith, establishing their shop in a medieval setting. The game’s premise revolves around fulfilling orders for weapons and tools, earning coins, and expanding the business from a humble smithy to an extensive smithy. Its growth mechanics allow players to eventually oversee the operations, delegating manual labour to hired workers while focusing on shop expansion.

You start with blacksmithing and carpentry, where each process has a mini-game for you to complete. Getting a perfect score on those mini-games will earn you bonus coins until the process is done. You then will have to put the crafts in a carriage that is ready for delivery. This process gets repeated on every craft created in the smithy, which results in a stale gameplay loop. Even though each craft has its distinct design, such as bludgeon, iron goblet, and tomahawk, the process of it is exactly the same, which baffles me in where the development team could add in some surprises or differentiate the crafting of it. Once you’re done with the previous contract, you’ll get rewards in the form of new blueprints, and coins, and even unlock new labour types. However, requests from the royal castle will mainly require you to complete certain tasks to unlock it. As long as you keep on completing requests from various parts of the kingdom, you will confirm to expand your smithy in the game.

Visually, the game adopts a charming low-poly aesthetic that is notably less blocky than Minecraft, yet its final look remains uncertain. The diverse appearance of hirelings introduces some visual variety, though the player’s avatar remains unchanged — not even an option to choose your preferred gender or character customization. The user interface is generally clean but features some disproportionately large indicators. Apart from this, the game’s visual and interactive elements are relatively basic, with minimal appeal outside the shop, map, and pause screens.

Audio-wise, the game presents a pleasing blend of medieval Celtic tunes and appropriate sound effects like clanging hammers and jingling coins. However, the absence of voice acting for characters and the lack of emotional sound cues leave something to be desired.

The biggest flaw is evidently the gameplay. The unnecessary repeating actions and even with the added workers to your business, the production process moves just a little bit faster than when you are running the shop alone, and that is recruiting two workers with the addition of an assistant to carry the ready crafts to the carriage. What bugs me the most is that you can’t manually assign certain tasks to any of your workers; they are automated to do any craft assigned to the specific order request. For instance, if you were almost done with the carpentry crafts, one of the hirelings would be doing the same task, resulting in extra crafts being made and having to put in the storage box. It’s not as efficient as a sim management game should be, especially in the year 2024.

Adding to the fuel is your hired assistant; even if the game gives you the option to choose your type of assistant to help move the craft to the carriage, they can only carry one item at a time. There are no options to increase the carrying volume, and you can not even assign any other tasks to them. Basically, you are hiring someone to carry an item, no matter the size, with both hands, and where there is nothing left for them to do, they’ll just sit at the work bench and wait—such a waste of efficiency, especially when the night and day overlap fast. Once the day is done, you can’t squeeze in any more work unless you press the next day, finishing a 5-craft order in a single day.

I am aware that the demo is not the final stage of the game’s development, where players can still provide feedback to the development team on what’s lacking. Although a demo is supposed to entice players to purchase when it launches or at least wishlist it, I can’t seem to find any reasons for sim management enthusiasts and new players to dive into Blacksmith Master.

The Blacksmith Master demo is now available to download and play for free on Steam. The demo will let you set up a basic shop and hire staff, craft wooden and metal items, research blueprints, and complete requests on the main map.