''Hammerfight'', previously known as ''Hammerfall'', is a

2-dimensional In mathematics, a plane is a Euclidean (flat), two- dimensional surface that extends indefinitely. A plane is the two-dimensional analogue of a point (zero dimensions), a line (one dimension) and three-dimensional space. Planes can arise as ...

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device to gener ...

published by Kranx Productions and 1C for

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

in 2009. It was re-released as a

cross-platform In computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several computing platforms. Some cross-platform software ...

game in the third Humble Indie Bundle in 2011, at which time the underlying engine known as "Haaf's Game Engine" was made cross-platform and open-sourced.HGE-comes-to-Mac-and-Linux-guest-post-from-Ryan-Gordon
on wolfire.com (August 2011) Another version of the game was released in 2010 for

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and iOS under the title ''Age of Hammer Wars.''

Plot

The player is a member of a tribe called the Gaiars, a strong race who have battled with large bugs to survive. When the player's tribe is destroyed, he is taken prisoner and turned into a slave. As the player is discovered to be the last living human Gaiar, he is forced to battle in the arena. In battle, a man recognizes the player as the son of a friend, and together they plot the downfall of the Emperor who ordered the destruction of the Gaiars.

Gameplay

In the physics-based gameplay, the player swings large melee weapons and relies on

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to give the object enough

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to destroy enemies. The demo release had six main types of weapons - four

melee A melee ( or , French: mêlée ) or pell-mell is disorganized hand-to-hand combat in battles fought at abnormally close range with little central control once it starts. In military aviation, a melee has been defined as " air battle in which ...

and two ranged. The different weapon types offer a certain variety. To be a slow, but well-armored powerhouse using hammers or maces to deliver slow, but crushing blows, or a nimble, but poorly protected sword-wielder, delivering quick, but weak attacks, is entirely up to the player. The game also contains a few different play modes, such as a hunt on worms or a Hammerball game. The equipped weapon is connected to the player's hovering vehicle, and has physically realistic

inertia Inertia is the idea that an object will continue its current motion until some force causes its speed or direction to change. The term is properly understood as shorthand for "the principle of inertia" as described by Newton in his first law o ...

. By moving the vehicle in circles, it is possible to swing the weapon in circles. Keeping the weapon spinning, getting it to solidly connect with foes, and avoiding their own weapons and other threats is one of the main challenges of the game. Weapon type must also be taken into consideration, with blades more effective against unarmored crafts, and heavier blunt weapons causing more damage to armor. Two weapons can be used simultaneously, and a player can experiment with different weights and types to find a pair of weapons that complement each other, or the player's play style.

Development

The game was developed by Konstantin Koshutin in 2009. The game was initially released by Kranx Productions and 1C for

only.

Humble Indie bundle re-release

In 2011 the game became part of the successful third Humble Indie Bundle.

Haaf's Game Engine: open-sourced

For the bundle,

Ryan C. Gordon Ryan C. Gordon (also known as icculus) is a computer programmer and former Loki Software employee responsible for ''icculus.org'', which hosts many Loki Software projects as well as others. Gordon's site hosts projects with the code from such ...

ported the game and the underlying

game engine A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games and generally includes relevant libraries and support programs. The "engine" terminology is similar to the term " software engine" used in the softwar ...

, Haaf's Game Engine (HGE), to Linux and Mac OS X. Following that,

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and Ryan Gordon released the

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of their versions of the engine under the zlib

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in August/September 2011.hge - DX8.1 and 9.0
on

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Reception

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.koshutin.com/
''Hammerfight'' on Steam
Video games developed in Russia Windows games Action games 2009 video games Linux games MacOS games PlayStation Portable games Indie games Commercial video games with freely available source code