A new build of Fantasy Strike is available to our patrons on Patreon.
v8735.
This month we added a new character, Lum the Gambling Panda. We fleshed out Midori's animations (in his human form at least!), added more visual effects to Rook and Valerie, and sound effects for lots of characters. Geiger's clocktower stage looks cooler. There's an all-new options menu and the character select screen now organizes the characters by archetype and also is generally more robust in handling controller/keyboard/mouse commands and states. Plus, you can now access button config and the move list directly from character select.
Patreon Levels
- Geiger is now available to bronze and above patrons, rather than silver and above.
- DeGrey is now available to silver and above patrons, rather than gold and above.
- Lum is new and now available to gold and above patrons.
CHARACTERS
LUM
--New character! Lum has all placeholder animations and placeholder visual effects / sound effects. His gameplay is in place though so we wanted to give him to you even though he is in a rough state.
--His ground C move is item toss, and throws one of several random items. The fireworks are the best item, and a good reason to throw as many as you can in hopes of getting them.
--Air B causes lum to jump downward onto a trampoline, then launch up into a cartwheel. Overall, this move has long startup but it is safe on block and covers a lot of the screen.
--Air C is a downward projectile, and it’s especially useful to extend Lum’s hang time, especially if there is a bomb below him.
--Ground super throws several items at once.
--Air super summons 3 huge dice that he can knock around the screen in various ways by hitting them.
WALK SPEEDS
--Adjusted walk speeds for all characters except for rook. The overall point is to increase forward walk speed and decrease backward walk speed.
Grave: walk forward is faster
Jaina: walk forward is barely faster; walk back is slower
Setsuki: walk backward is slower
DeGrey: walk forward is faster; walk back is slower
Valerie: walk forward is barely faster; walk back is slower
Geiger: walk forward is barely slower; walk back is slower
Midori: walk forward is faster
GRAVE
--Removed blood on sword slash
ROOK
--A game-wide change to hitboxes results in the C throw having less range than before, but still huge range.
--Rook’s normal throws also have slightly less range than before, but still a lot.
--Thunderclap (back+A) has 8 frames more recovery. It also causes less pushback, which is a buff in that back+A -> C is now easier to hit with. After a counterhit splash (jump A), it is no longer possible to back+A, f+A for a total of 4 damage because of the extra recovery on back+A, but it is now easier to back+A, C for a total of 3 damage and the opponent left knocked down right next to you. That said, all things considered, the changes to Thunderclap are overall a slight nerf.
--Kick (f+A) has 5 less active frames.
Based on feedback from players, and especially based on seeing the game in action all day every day at 3 different trade shows, we believe Rook was just too powerful at low levels of play. His power level amongst experts remains to be seen, but for now these nerfs will help the game for beginners. They are all slight and he is likely still very strong at low skill levels.
--Thunderclap (back+A) effects updated
--Ground super now has new visual effects.
--Air super now has birds around the victim’s head when they are dizzy.
--Yomi counter visual effects updated.
--All of Rook’s moves now have new sound effects.
VALERIE
--New visual effects for ground C rainbow.
--New visual effects for Three Colors (B,B,B) with cyan, magenta, yellow trails.
--New visual effects for air super disc.
--Most of Valerie’s moves now have new sound effects.
SETSUKI
--During her air super, Setsuki now flails around trying to parry, rather than sitting frozen in the air while trying to parry.
--During her air super, the log that appears now falls all the way to the ground before disappearing, rather than disappearing when it hits, because it often hits instantly so you couldn’t see what happened.
GEIGER
--Can no longer cancel normals to Time Stop super. Too much of his gameplay was centering around this. He could reliably poke for 3 damage with a fast, long range move and that’s not what he’s supposed to be about.
--Several of Geiger’s moves have new sound effects.
DEGREY
--Air C ghost is just slightly faster and travels at a slightly different angle that results in a bit more range.
--Fixed ghost's animation stopping completely for half a second at the end of her C attacks, she should now smoothly animate in place during that delay before she returns to DeGrey.
--Fixed several problems where the ghost could get stuck facing backwards, or in a wrong animation as she follows DeGrey.
--Fixed a bug where the ghost would flicker briefly between active and cooldown states when she should just be in the cooldown state.
--Ghost now has a turn around animation (left to right and right to left) rather than instantly popping left/right.
--Ghost now has cel-shading that matches the art style of the rest of the game.
MIDORI
--Updated walk animations with a bit more polish
--New animations for B flying kick on the ground and in the air.
--New throw animations for normal throw.
--New animations for parry attempt and successful parry strike (C button).
--New animation for “empowered throw” (the throw he can do after a successful parry).
--New animation for yomi counter.
--New animation for jump neutral A. The animation has a higher hitting zone than the old one, and stays out longer. Just like before, this move can be steered forward or back after you jump straight up, making it good to maneuver over enemy projectiles.
--New animation for jump forward/back A.
--New animation for jump C.
--Fixed issues where his skin was poking through his clothes during some moves.
--New animations for transforming into a Dragon (super), both ground and air versions.
--Using super to turn into Dragon Form makes the meter turn directly from purple to green, rather than emptying then quickly filling to green. No gameplay change, but it looks much better.
--While in Dragon Form, the green super meter is now sparkly rather than solid green.
STAGES
--Clock tower stage has many more background objects that have been modeled and textured for real.
--Clock tower now has animated gears and weights in the background, showing the clock’s machinery in action!
MENUS
--Character select. The character select screen used in training mode and local versus mode has been overhauled to a completely new version.
--It now labels characters as zoner / rushdown / grappler / wildcard.
--It has much more sophisticated handling of mouseover states. Mousing over a character flashes the background of that selection box with red or blue depending on which player will get that character if you mouse click.
--The visual display of the red and blue character select boxes is much more sophisticated. A flashing box means you are still able to move the box around and a solid one means it’s locked in. When both boxes are on the same character, it creates a 4-split where the red part is flashing or solid based on if the red player has locked in the character or not, and same for the blue player.
--The screen now has shortcuts to move list and button config.
--The character names and “vs” that appear after locking in characters are now all using flat colors rather than the fancier text effects from before, so that it all matches the rest of the UI better.
--The options screen has been totally redesigned. It’s much more professional looking now and has better organization of the various kinds of options.
--The training mode options now have a new character-specific entry for Lum’s items. You can set it to make him throw a particular item always (in training mode) to test things.
MISC
--Try not losing a round in arcade mode.
--Fixed a bug that made the training mode dummy perform reversal actions 1 frame too late after getup / blockstun.
--Fixed a bug that caused CPU opponents to never block attacks as they got up from knockdowns. Bonus: they can block meaty projectiles extra-hard. Also a bit of character-specific reversal logic.
--Fixed timer-related bugs that caused the game timer to start counting down before the round even started, and keep counting down after the end of the round.
--Fixed the blue round win icons accidentally being too low resolution before.
--Added Global Jump Dust puffs (like Grave’s) to all character’s jumps
--Added Rook’s B dust puff to Setsuki Ground C, Valerie Ground C and Midori Ground B
--Added Jaina’s bA dust puff to Midori’s fA and Lum Ground B (in reverse)
--The rematch menu at the end of a local versus game no longer shows help text for “back”.
UPDATE
This build is now updated to v8735 (from 8724).
--Player 2's button config using keyboard was accidentally broken in v8724, now fixed.
--Fixed a bug where the keyboard left arrow would activate "apply" on the video settings screen for no reason.
--Fixed the main menu character getting stuck in a loaded state, when we start a character load in 1P char-select then go to gameplay before that character's assets finish loading.
--Geiger's Time Spiral (B) fast and slow versions both have new sound effects.
--Geiger and Rook have different sound effects when landing from a jump.