Blacksmith Master starts off with you, a lone smith, working to complete orders in your small shop. However, as you complete orders, you unlock skills, and the ability to hire staff, and the game quickly turns into a management sim.

It’s not long before your workshop has added an actual shop to the side of it, and you’re able to not just work on the work orders from the various towns, but to stock the shop. You’ll also have to start hauling and working with raw ore, hiring more staff to do that to have the bars to work into finished pieces. Distance travelled and worker speed and skill will matter, there is a lot of room for optimization for those that enjoy that sorta thing.

Where it’s on the simple side of things compared to say…Factorio, I quite enjoyed it overall. I spent a few hours into this, playing well past where the demo said it was done.

Sadly, the game itself isn’t planned for release till 2025. Though you can still play the demo.

By Coan