A new build of Fantasy Strike is available to our patrons on Patreon.
v8212.
This month we've addressed a major bug, we have the beginnings of a new stage, and have a whole new set of training mode options and UI. We also have more visual effects, sound effects, and some minor gameplay tuning.
"THE SOUND BUG"
Fixed a horrible issue on Windows that triggered at seemingly random times, causing music to sound distorted (as if you had too weak of a CPU to play it) and that caused sound effects to sound like they were playing multiple times on top of each other. This is not a bug in our game specifically, but rather a bug in the Unity engine that is used by many games. Although Unity has not yet fixed this bug, we have a workaround we’re using for now. For Windows users, this is probably the most important thing in our entire update.
ASYNCHRONOUS LOADING
Our characters are now loaded when they are needed, rather than ALL at the same time on game launch. It’s possible you will see faster loading times between launching the game and seeing the main menu, though it might have been so fast before that you don’t notice the speed increase. Much more noticeable is the way characters load on the character select screen. Now, you can move the selection box around instantly. Before, when you tried to move it, it would not actually move until the game was able to draw the next 3D character on the screen. Now that the characters load “asynchronously”, the selection box moves right away and the 3D character will appear as soon as it can without interrupting your inputs of moving the character select box. It feels more responsive now.
STAGES
New Stage: Clock Tower. The stage is now blocked out in an early form. Many textures and effects missing, but it shows which objects go where.
The Tavern stage received a shipment of new curtains with better modeling than the old curtains.
TRAINING MODE PAUSE MENU
When you pause the game in training mode, you now get a completely new menu. This menu has 3 tabs: basics, dummy settings, and character-specific settings. This new pause menu really helps UI-wise in that it pulls in some settings that we previously hid away in the debug menu. You can now turn yomi counters on/off and counter-hits from normal to always-on-first-hit right in the pause menu. We have also implemented several new training mode functions in the new menu. For example, you can now make the dummy jump. You can make it always block, or only block after getting hit once (to show if you were too slow to combo your second hit).
The training menu also now has options for making the dummy do either a reversal move or a throw right after it leaves blockstun, and also right after it gets up from a knockdown. This is helpful in testing lots of things to see if they are safe or not. Note that some characters such as Setsuki and Midori do not have true (invulnerable) reversals, so they do the fastest move they can.
REMATCH MENU
At the end of a local versus game, the rematch menu has updated graphics. It now matches the UI style of the rest of the game and has proper button highlights that work with mouseovers and with controller input. The functionality is the same great functionality as before, where either player can choose to change character or quit the match, or both players can choose "rematch" in order to play again instantly, with no loading.
CHARACTERS
GRAVE
--Sword attack now has a new huge visual effect
--Sword attack has a new big hispark instead of old, incorrect hitspark.
--New visual effects for all Grave’s many projectiles (normal, big, and electric-during-wind versions). The new look better fits our overall art style.
--New impact effects for when Grave’s projectiles hit an opponent.
--Fixed a bug that made it possible for Grave’s wind sound effects to play if he got hit out of the move and no wind occurred.
JAINA
--White clothes a bit less shadowy
--New sound effects for hitting with C attack Dragonheart, yomi counter, and ground super.
--Removed the illuminating effect Jaina’s flame arrows had on characters. They do not work with our cel-shaded style.
ROOK
--Air super replaced with a new move. Rook now does a headbutt in the air, then falls straight down. If the headbutt hits in the first 2 frames, it dizzies the opponent (in a cutscene) and Rook throws them for 1 extra damage.
--Updated hit effect on back+A (thunderclap) and B (armor punch).
--Fixed a bug on B (armor punch) where if he was hit out of it, he wouldn’t leap into the air but the dust effects for him leaping would still happen.
--Updated rook yomi counter effects and hitsparks
--New hit effect for Rook air C when it’s a direct opponent hit, hitspark directed down
--New visual effects for trails behind C throw
VALERIE
--Inside of dress is now darker / more shadowy.
--New main menu animation.
--Valerie now blinks during her main menu and character select animations. Also, the resting state of her eyes is no longer maximum-wide-open.
--Valerie’s eyes are now closed during knockdowns.
--Valerie now blinks occasionally during her standing idle animation.
SETSUKI
--The teleport throw (hold B) no longer has old, incorrect hitsparks.
--Setsuki has numerous new sound effects for almost all her moves.
--Setsuki now blinks during her main menu and character select animations. Also, the resting state of her eyes is no longer maximum-wide-open.
--Setsuki’s eyes are now closed during knockdowns.
--Setsuki now blinks occasionally during her standing idle animation.
GEIGER
--Air B now has a fixed duration instead of variable duration that depended on how long you held down the button.
--Adjusted colors of costume 6.
--Yomi counter animation is now about 20% shorter, and the kick at the end is a bit more powerful looking.
DEGREY
--Air super’s minimum height is slightly higher now. (Still pretty low though, and similar to other characters.)
--Fixed ghost grabbing an airborne victim not resetting the air juggle count when the victim goes back to neutral, so their next launcher would launch them lower from the juggle count persisting.
--The ghost’s animation now pauses during Geiger’s Time Stop super.
--The ghost now has a new animation when DeGrey loses.
--During DeGrey’s yomi counter, the ghost’s animation has been adjusted. No longer disappears instantly near the beginning; no longer wrongly shows the ghost at top right of the screen at the end.
--The bottom part of the ghost now appears faded away, for more ghostlieness
MIDORI
--New move: flurry punches. When you press A (chop) or forward+A (two-hit strike) you can press A again to cancel to a flurry of punches that do a total of 1 extra damage. During the flurry of punches, you can press A again to do another flurry, but there is a delay between flurries so that they do not combo into each other.
--New animations for standing idle, walk back/forward, jump back/up/forward, A, forward+A, and back+A.
--New main menu animation.
--New character select animations.
--When you enter Dragon Form, your super meter now becomes green and counts down--rather than up--to show how much time you have left in this form.
--Fixed a bug where if Midori has his empowered throw buff, then gets dragon form, then returns to human form, he will still be empowered but the visual for his buff doesn’t display.
GENERAL
--Fixed a bug that sometimes caused the keyboard escape key to do nothing sometimes rather than bring up the pause menu as it should. This happened more often when running at high framerates with vsync off.
--Fixed a bug that sometimes caused pressing “start” (aka “options”) on controllers such as PS4 to bring up the pause menu during gameplay, then instantly dismiss it.
--Fixed a bug where hitting a falling victim on the one frame they touch the ground could re-stand them, allowing you to continue the combo when you shouldn’t be able to.
--Fixed a bug where some moves showed incorrect frame data in training mode if you get a counter-hit, such as DeGrey’s B->A punch.
--The mouse cursor now disappears during gameplay if it hasn’t been used recently.
New mouse cursor behavior:
• On initial launch and on pause, cursor is visible in mouse mode, hidden in gamepad mode.
• In mouse mode, cursor is always visible in menus. Toggling mouse mode on immediately makes cursor visible.
• In gamepad mode, cursor disappears after a couple seconds of inactivity.
• On gameplay start and unpause, cursor is hidden (in both input modes).
• During gameplay, cursor disappears after a couple seconds of inactivity (in both input modes).