Game Update: July 2017

A new build of Fantasy Strike is available to our patrons, here, on Patreon.
v10045.

We FINALLY have online play available to you all. That’s probably all you really need to hear about these patch notes, but we also have a bunch of new visual effects, some optimizations that make the game run a little better, and a new “event mode” that we use at trade shows (and you can use too!).

ONLINE PLAY

--Holy cow, there is online play! Right now, it’s just quick match (fight an opponent that our matchmaking system gives you).
--The matchmaking system does take your skill into account, but does not take your connection quality to potential opponents into account yet.
--Online play does use GGPO networking technology, but is unoptimized and might have some disconnects that are our fault. We’re working on it.
--The display of your username online uses a temporary method and will be changed once the game is on Steam. For now, you get a randomly generated username, but you can supply your own username by editing your displayname.txt file.
--While searching for a match a purple box shows the search status. You can go anywhere the menus or other game modes and the search status stays there.
--To cancel your search, you can mouse click on the search box, or hold the PS4 square button in menus. During gameplay such as practice mode, you can also cancel your search from the pause menu.
--You can rematch after an online game if you want, up to a maximum of best 2 out of 3.
--After a match, there is a new score screen where you get XP for your account and for the character you played. This XP currently does nothing and will do nothing for a long time, but it will someday be tied to cosmetic rewards. It also does not even correctly add up the XP, so ignore the XP values for now.
--The score screen has fun new animations for all characters, showing the character “practicing for the next match.”
--The score screen has new music.
--The “vs screen” before each match has been updated to show usernames and XP for your upcoming opponent. (Not actually fully hooked up yet though.)

EVENT MODE

--New feature: event mode. Accessed (for now) in debug options. When event mode is on, online play is removed from the main menu. Instead, the first item in the main menu becomes “play” which leads the local versus mode character select screen. Also, the main menu gets an entry for “demo” which has CPU characters play each other. Any input you do during demo mode asks if you want to go to local versus mode. The point of event mode is if you’re running a local event, you don’t care about online play so we replace that with more prominent local play, and you might want CPU characters fighting each other while no one is at a station so that it shows off the game.

CHARACTERS

JAINA
--Added visual effects to her win animation.

ROOK
--Rook’s B lands 1f later (still hits on same frame as before) so that it now beats Midori’s empowered throw and also hits an enemy Rook trying to C throw. (C throw then will land, but at least Rook’s B did a damage.)

SETSUKI
--New visual effects for hold-B teleport throw.
--Ground super has speed lines behind it now.
--Air C Flying Fox has speed lines behind it now.
--When her kunai hits something, fixed a bug where it used to become flat shape with no detail as it bounced off.
--After her air super successfully parries then ends, the camera cut back to gameplay is cleaner and no longer has a jittery pop.
--The air super’s log and smoke have updated graphics.

GEIGER
--New visual effects for B and hold-B time spiral projectiles. This includes new effects during their startup, as they travel, and when they impact the opponent.
--New visual effects for ground C flash gear.
--New visual effects for air C.
--New visual effects for phase out (air B).
--New visual effects for air super, including new effects when it shatters at the end.

DEGREY
--New visual effects for pilebunker (B -> B).
--New visual effects for counter-point kick (B -> C)
--New visual effects for back+A ground punch.
--New visual effects for air B, B kicks.

MIDORI
--Leaving dragon form no longer momentarily shows a full, green meter.
--Leaving dragon from no longer eats the opponents inputs in the same way a that super flash does.
--New visual effects for entering and leaving dragon from.
--New visual effects for dragon form’s f+A,A toxic breath.

MISC

--Fixed a bug where triggering a win animation, then later doing any move that caused the camera to move (such as Rook’s air super) made the lighting much too dark.
--Updated in-game move list to be accurate for Valerie, Rook, and DeGrey.
--Fixed several bugs with the environmental sound effect slider in the options. It was really broken before and would not respect the values you set, and separately from that, it didn’t scale the volume of the effects in a sane way when set between 0 and 50.
--Fixed a bug where the camera would pop at the end of all win animations if player 2 won.
--Performance optimizations. Several tweaks that reduce our CPU usage by about 12% in total.
--Fixed several throw animations for the thrower (and DeGrey's yomi counter) to all be fully invulnerable until the end of the throw, so that if a projectile happened to be on top you as your throw ends, you can still block.
 

Game Update: June 2017

A new build of Fantasy Strike is available to our patrons on Patreon.
v9698.

This month there are several balance changes and more and more polish. Each character now does a fun animation when they win a game. Setsuki has several new visual effects, and Midori and Lum and many new sound effects. The dojo stage has some great new plants and foliage, and the tavern stage's lighting has been changed substantially, as well as several elements of it remodeled. We've also fixed several bugs.

WIN ANIMATIONS

--When you win a game, each character now does a fancy animation (except Lum, we didn’t get to him yet).

CHARACTERS

GRAVE
--His wind meter no longer fills to max at the start of every round (but still starts full at the beginning of round 1).
--Fixed a bug where f+A double palm, when done as a combo after jump A, had a hitspark in the wrong place.
 
JAINA
--Fixed a bug that caused Jaina’s block damage to be cleared any time she did C (dragonheart) while at 1 life.
--Air C and ground B (level 1 shot) have slightly less pushback now.
--Ground super is no longer always safe on block against Rook. Instead, it’s now very unsafe on block against Rook.
 
ROOK
--Super throw is now throw invulnerable enough to beat another Rook’s C throw.
--Air B has bigger defensive hitboxes, so it’s easier to hit. It’s still good priority though. This change isn’t so much a “nerf” as a bug fix. We’ve had a long-standing problem for months that made it impossible to implement correct hitboxes for this move, but now we can.
--B armor punch is now armored from frame 1, rather than from frame 12. Note that it always showed a blue highlight starting from frame 1, which was a lie until now.
--B armor punch animation changed to be lower so that it goes under Jaina’s air B, even when she does it low to the ground on the way down.
--The version of Rook’s C throw that happens after you cancel back+A (thunderclap) -> C now has 15 active frames instead of 2, so that it matches his main C throw. It also makes this move a lot more useable because you can threaten it even when the opponent blocks thunderclap.
 
Developer’s note: Rook vs Jaina has always been a hard match, but we’ve recently realized it’s absurdly too hard when Jaina is very skilled. Jaina’s head-height air B (combined with backup air C arrow shot) is generally very difficult for him to deal with, and even if he does his air B through her projectiles, she can usually punish him for that with knee -> B. Furthermore, her ground super was always safe vs Rook, but not vs any other character. To help this matchup, her super is now very unsafe on block vs Rook, she doesn’t push back quite as much with her most commonly used arrow shots, and Rook can now at least attempt to avoid some of her shots with his lower-to-the-ground armored punch.
 
SETSUKI
--Starlight Tumbler throw (C, then C again) now has 7 more frames of recovery for Setsuki to prevent her from doing too good of a setup afterwards with jump B kunai, then C throw again. There’s now more gap for the opponent to get out of that.
--Fixed a bug where Setsuki dealing what should be the killing blow with block damage by her super caused the victim to be healed to 1 life with no flashing block damage.
--Slide (back+A) no longer goes under fireballs. It was never really supposed to, so this is basically a bug fix.
--New visual effects. Updated effects for to B (teleport kick), new effects for air B (kunai throw), new effects for ground super, adjusted effects for air super, including effects if she whiffs the parry attempt. The new kunai throw animation is especially an improvement because we now see the kunai in her hand before throwing it, we see it release from her hand rather than suddenly appearing somewhat near her, we see the swipe trail behind her hand’s movement, and the kunai itself has been remodelled.
--Facial animation. This took us many weeks to implement. Her main menu animation as well as character select screen animations now have her face animated as well. The specific facial movements she now has were not the hard part (and we can easily adjust her expressions if needed). The difficulty was in setting up the tech to allow her face to move at all. We have to do this process separately for each character, but the good news is that it will be substantially easier for all other characters because they will share at least some tech with Setsuki’s face.
 
GEIGER
--Air super deals its damage on the last hit rather than the first hit. (This might have been accidentally changed to first hit when Valerie’s air super behavior changed.)
--Air super duration down from 8 seconds -> 5 seconds (still long).
 
DEGREY
--Ghost (ground and air version) now destroys projectiles and keeps going.
--Air ghost travels much faster (and therefore farther) than before.
--Ground ghost now spawns from wherever she was floating rather than always right behind DeGrey. Also she travels faster now.
--Ground and air ghosts now have the same cooldown as each other. Ground ghost cooldown 4.5 seconds -> 3.5 seconds. Air ghost cooldown “buggy number that was less than 3.5 seconds and different in different situations” -> 3.5 seconds.
--Fixed a bug that caused the ghost to travel back to DeGrey much too slowly after he landed a successful yomi counter or ground super. (This was very annoying!)
 
Developer’s note: DeGrey was a little weak so these changes overall buff him. Before, the air C ghost was mostly for doing tricky stuff as you jump over the opponent. It can still do that, but now it’s also great for using on approach, to help DeGrey get close. The ground ghost spawning wherever the ghost was floating (rather than always behind DeGrey) creates some new setups for him. Sometimes he can summon her pretty close to the opponent as a trick if she happened to be near them while she’s lit up. Also, the ghost used to trade with projectiles, but she has a cooldown so that was kind of sad for DeGrey. Now, the ghost destroys projectiles and keeps going, allowing him to get in more easily.
 
MIDORI
--Lots of new sound effects for his dragon form moves.
--Fixed a bug that made Midori totally invulnerable for several frames whenever his empowered throw attempted to trigger (the auto-throw that he can do after successfully parrying).
--Fixed an oversight that made Midori’s leg totally invulnerable during his neutral A jump kick.
--Neutral A jump kick is now slightly less steerable (but still quite a bit) and has 10 frames of landing lag instead of 1.
--Air B now has less landing lag, 15f -> 10f.

LUM
--Lots of new sound effects.
--New graphics for his trampoline (during air B).
--New item: cloud. It travels diagonally up, then it strikes lighting straight down.
[Reminder: all of Lum’s animations and visual effects are still placeholder.]
--Neutral A punch startup 10f -> 7f.
--Super used to have 5f startup that was fully vulnerable. Now the 5f startup is invulnerable. The first frame the move can hit, it’s no longer invulnerable. This means it’s now a real reversal attack, but it’s similar in nature to Blanka’s balls in SF2 in that it will trade with meaty attacks rather than beat them. In Lum’s case, the items won’t even come out if it trades, but at least it gives him a way to get people off him when he really needs it.

MENUS
--Main menu layout slightly changed for better aesthetics.
--New debug option for setting input mode to Auto / Mouse / Gamepad. The real setting is “auto” (which automatically sets the menus to gamepad mode when you touch anything on your gamepad and sets the menus back to mouse mode when you touch your mouse.) The other two are for testing purposes.
--New graphics for the “how to play” screen for both keyboard and PS4 controllers.
 
MISC
--Fixed a bug that caused block damage not to register in the case where you were in blockstun from a strike, then during that short period of blockstun, you then blocked a special move.
--Fixed a bug that caused environmental sound effects to be turned on when you launch the game even if you turned them off the last time you launched. (Note: even though that bug is fixed, we are aware that the environmental sound effects slider is not working correctly.)
--Changed the rules in practice mode for life regenerating. Before, after 2.4 seconds of not getting hit, all hit points were regenerated. This was confusing in the case where a chunk of life was flashing from potential block damage, because it appeared that after 2.4 seconds, the period of block damage danger ended. But in non-practice modes, block damage danger time lasts 4.0 seconds, not 2.4 seconds. So now, in practice mode if you have flashing life, it will continue to flash for the full 4.0 seconds, then life will refill. This lets you better practice sequences of attacks that deal block damage.
--Fixed a bug in arcade mode that caused the wrong music to play on the versus screen before each CPU opponent after the first one, if you were playing any character other than DeGrey.
--Improved the lighting during all cinematics (meaning anything that changes the camera angle, such as Rook's air super for example) so that the characters are much less shadowy and black.
 
STAGES
--Grass in the dojo stage has been replaced with a variety of plants. A lush visual upgrade!
--Tavern adjusted quite a bit, made deeper and several objects remodelled.
--Lighting on tavern stage changed significantly. Now has many more shadows from various objects where it should, a different style of lighting, and a slightly different color scheme.
 

Game Update: May 2017

A new build of Fantasy Strike is available to our patrons on Patreon.
v9321.

This month there are several gameplay changes: Valerie buffs, Setsuki and Rook nerfs, and a change to DeGrey. We also fixed a lot of problems with the frame data display in training mode, and we added the ability for you to step frame-by-frame in training mode when using a controller. We also have a lot of new sounds this month: for characters, for environments, and better handling of sound when you pause gameplay.

Characters

GRAVE
--Air super now causes Grave to glow green, to signify it’s a parry move.

ROOK

--Rook’s C throw now has only 1 hit of super armor, rather than infinite hits.
--Rook’s ground super is no longer totally invulnerable during the active frames, and instead has infinite hits of super armor.
--Fixed a bug that made Rook’s blob shadow (in low graphics settings) use default values rather than the correct size for Rook.

Developer’s note: The change to Rook’s C throw is a targeted change. In the vast majority of cases, it doesn’t matter if he has one hit or infinite hits of super armor. Where it matters the most is against Valerie. This change allows her C attack (rainbow stroke) and back+A (double kick) to actually beat Rook’s special throw. She struggles in this match, so these are important boosts her in that particular matchup.

VALERIE
--Jump A can cancel to another jump A.
--Jump A now causes airborne opponents to be knocked down. This means hitting with jump A gives time for Valerie to put her air super disc over them as they get up. Also note that Jump A, A, land, standing A is now a 3-damage combo. The standing A can cancel to f+B for a crossup attempt too. And in the corner, jump A, A, land, ground super, standing A is a 4 damage combo (that you can also end with f+B for a crossup attempt afterwards).
--Air super’s behavior has changed because of her new ability to get two damage from jump A,A. When the super hits air-to-air, it now gets one hit and then the victim flips out. The air super starts falling downward more quickly, too. If you know what you’re doing, after an air-to-air hit you can still force an additional damage from block damage afterwards. Also, if the air super hits a grounded opponent, they no longer get knocked down. This slightly changes how combos work against grounded victims, but it’s overall a similar level of deadly against grounded opponents.
--Air super now activates its hitboxes 5 frames after the super’s cinematic ends, rather than instantly after.
--Valerie’s forward throw now causes the victim to stay down just as long as the back throw. This was an oversight before, and now either throw (not just the back throw) gives you enough time to jump and put the air super disc over them.
--The third hit of Valerie’s B,B,B sequence (the yellow hit) has been adjusted so that if you hold back during it, it’s now a retreat that cannot hit. This leaves Valerie safe from any throw attept against Rook, for example. This retreat is also available in the A -> B sequence. Now, holding NEUTRAL rather than back during the last B is the “non-crossup” version of the move. Holding forward during this hit gives the same crossup version as before, and has not been changed.
--On the character select screen, her brush has even more visual effects.
--New hitsparks that look like paint effects for her various paint-based attacks.
--Throws now have new visual effects.
--The cyan trail on her B attack doesn’t appear quite as far forward now so it better matches the hitbox.
--Air super and ground super now a white highlight on Valerie during the frames she’s invulnerable at the beginning of these moves. The highlight was missing before.

Developer’s note: The change to allow Valerie’s air A to knock down (which then gives her time to place her air super disc over them as they get up) and the change that allows her to do air A twice are both to increase her general power level. It’s now possible for her to do 4 damage jump in combos, which is probably appropriate given that she’s a rushdown character with only 5 hit points of her own. The change to her air super is just to make it not broken given the new jump A, A sequence.

The change to her B,B,back+B sequence that gives her a new retreat move is mostly to fix the broken guessing game against Rook, where he can always beat every possible action of hers after B,B (including B,B, nothing!). The addition of the retreat restores real mixup status to this situation. That said, it’s also a general pressure tool she can use in any matchup: B,B, retreat, B,B, retreat etc.

SETSUKI
--Improved visuals for her cape during air C.
--Kunai (air B) has shorter hitstun and blockstun. 20f / 18f -> 12f / 10f.
--Kunai has longer startup 18f -> 22f
--Kunai done after air C causes Setsuki to bounce back slightly instead of forward.
--Air B has landing recovery. 0f -> 5f.
--Divekick has more landing recovery. 3f -> 5f.
----Air super now causes Setsuki to glow green, to signify it’s a parry move.

Developer’s note: special thanks to patron Lofobal, who provided us with specific data about Setsuki’s air B kunai in various situations. Much to our surprise, its power level was objectively broken and allowed actually inescapable lockdowns. We somehow overlooked this for months, as we had mostly explored other aspects of her rushdown. The fix involves slowing the startup slightly, adding slight landing recovery, and greatly reducing the hitstun and blockstun of the move. When you do the move immediately after a blocked air C, it now pushes Setsuki back and it also gives the opponent time to jump out before the kunai reaches them. If they block it, setsuki can still continue pressure with f+A when she lands, but overall her pressure sequence now has some gaps and is more fair.

DEGREY
--New sounds for several moves such as ghost, pilebunker, and air super.
--When DeGrey wins a match, he now plays a special win animation.
--Air B hardly ever crosses up now. Also has different movement, and is slower.
--Air B can be cancelled into itself for a 2nd hit. The 2nd hit knocks down and floats slightly upward.
--Ghost now does block damage.
--Air super has less ability to cross up because the feet can no longer hit. Also the front of it (around the fist) has a bigger hitbox now.

Developer’s note: For a long time, DeGrey’s air B kick has been key to his gameplay. Too key. It was great air-to-air, great air to ground, a crossup, great mobility, and an opener that leads to a 3 damage combo. It’s not really a signature move of his, but so much of his gameplay revolved around it. Most importantly, DeGrey had the worst ability to deal block damage in the game, so his B kick’s ability to open up a blocking opponent was necessary for him, whether we liked the dynamics or not.

DeGrey’s new air B actually offers even more mobility. It also can combo to a second hit for 2 damage now, but that’s often (intentionally) worse than the old version that could hit a grounded opponent for 3, because of following up with A,A. It also no longer crosses up. This allows us to put some power in other areas. His ghost now does block damage. This significantly improves his overall ability to pressure with block damage, especially when blocked ghost plus blocked air B,B now does a total of 3 “flashing blocks”, which result in one full real point of damage. We’ll keep an eye on if he needs even more power or not.

MIDORI
--New sounds for many of his human form moves and dragon form moves.
--Ground C now causes Midori to glow green, to signify it’s a parry move.

STAGES

--Snowy mountains, dojo, and clocktower all have environmental sounds now.
--The dojo stage now has several (animated!) animals in the background.

FRAME DATA

--The frame data display in training mode has many various bugs fixed. For example, Grave and Jaina’s projectiles, Setsuki’s telepork kick, and many other moves that showed wrong data have been fixed.
--Super moves now show startup in the very helpful format of X+Y frames, where X is the number of frames before the super’s startup cinematic and Y is the number of frames afterward. The length of the cinematic is not important because it doesn’t affect gameplay, but we previously showed the totally useless stat of “entire number of frames of startup before, after, and DURING the cinematic, all as a single number.” Now, if a super says something like 0+2 startup then you know it’s guaranteed if you have at least 3 frames of advantage time. Before, it would have said something like 97 startup, which told you basically nothing.
--Parry moves now display their parry window as the active frames (the middle of the three stats) and the number is now green if the active frames are for a parry move.

MENUS

--Training mode’s options menu now shows all non-default settings in green so you can easily tell default from non-default at a glance.
--Training mode's options menu has a new layout. This is to accomodate future bits of UI that will be there once the game has online play (not quite yet).
--The background of wooden doors and curtains on the character select screen in local versus and training is now a 3D version rather than a 2D image. When you lock in your characters, the gates open.
--The help text is now all mouse clickable in cases where it makes sense to click it.
--The audio options screen now has the ability to turn music/sfx/environmental on/off in addition to volume sliders.
--The game now detects if you’re using a controller or not in the menus. If you are not, then the menus show the mouse/keyboard help-text and layouts. If you are, then they use the helptext and layout designed for a controller.
--Fixed a bug that caused the music to play louder when you paused the game.
--Implemented a new feature that causes the music to play much quieter when pausing the game, as well as transition sound effects to and from the quieter state.
--Implemented a new frame step feature on gamepads. Pause the game, choose “hide pause menu” and then press R1. This advances the game by 1 frame.

Enjoy!

Game Update: April 2017

A new build of Fantasy Strike is available to our patrons on Patreon.
v9028.

The biggest new thing is that Midori's dragon form now has correctly working animation. This was a very big task for us, see the notes below. Valerie also has new visual effects, the clock tower stage is even more polished, and there are lots of new sound effects in the game. We also polished the menus more, fixing several bugs and implementing new features such as dropdown menus for screen resolution, improved highlight states for tabbed menu headings, and adding the ABCS notation to the move list.

CHARACTERS

MIDORI
--Dragon form (super) is now has fully implemented animations for all moves.
--New transform animations (air and ground) for turning into dragon and for reverting to human.
--Fixed NUMEROUS animation bugs having to do with the dragon reacting to hits, throws, and supers.

Developer’s note: Midori’s dragon form was a major development effort. Even though it’s just his super move, dragon form took longer to implement than TWO entire characters would. The dragon has the moveset of an entire character, but it was much more work than just that. The dragon uses a different type of skeleton than the other characters, and it was a major technical hurdle for us to be able to support this properly. The good news is two-fold: first we did it, and second, the same tech will make it easier to implement Argagarg later on.

Note that while the dragon’s animations are now complete, he still only has placeholder visual effects and sound effects.

ROOK
--Camera tweaked at the start of C throw to be smoother.

VALERIE
--New visual effects for lots of moves:
neutral A, back+A, forward+A, air A, air B, air C, and yomi counter.
--Ground super, new visual effects and animation changed to be shorter.
--On the character select screen, her brush has some new visual effects.

SETSUKI
--New visual effects for B teleport kick.

GEIGER
--Lots more new sound effects.
--There is now a sound for attempting to do ground B or C when you don't have full gear meter.
--Time Stop super now has 4 vulnerable frames at the end, like it used to (was accidentally removed a few builds ago).

DEGREY
--Ghost can no longer hit victims who are ground/wall bouncing. This means after counterhit back+A or counterhit pilebunker, you can just do another pilebunker and be “playing correctly” rather than needing to do the combo: ghost -> air B -> A,A.
--Lots of new sound effects.

STAGES

--Clock tower stage has more modeling and texture work on numerous background objects.
--Thumbnail image of clock tower stage updated to be more representative of what the stage now looks like.

MENUS

--In video options, the settings for resolution and for graphics quality now use dropdown menus. This is helpful in that it lets you see all possible choices at once.
--Move list shows keyboard or gamepad buttons depending on which input device called it
--Move list now shows A B C S buttons in addition to which keyboard or controller button you actually push. This makes it easier to refer to moves regardless of what your personal button setup is (e.g. Valerie’s rainbow stroke is her “C attack”.)
--Button config: keyboard and gamepad input always tries to access their own column
--How to play shows keyboard or gamepad controls depending on which input device called it
--New background on character select screen
--Slightly adjusted character shadows on character select screen. This fixes black splotches on Jaina’s headband and Rook’s overly dark chest.
--The tabs at the top of the training mode pause screen have been updated. They now light up yellow if you move up to them, whereas before they gave no visual indication in this case. Also, in controller-mode of our UI, these tabs now show L1/R1 help text. (It’s possible to change tabs with these triggers OR by moving up to the tab itself and going left/right on d-pad or keyboard.)
--The tabs at the top of the options screen (video / audio / debug) have been updated to match the same style as the training mode pause screen tabs. They too light up yellow when you move up to them, so that you can see the difference between a tab that’s active and a tab heading that you’ve moved the selection cursor to.
--In mouse control mode, if you use the keyboard to arrive at a new screen, the mouse will no longer cause a mouseover state on whatever it happened to be resting on until you actually move the mouse.

MISC

--Fixed a bug that caused characters to clip through each other if they were close together while one was getting up from a throw.
--Fixed a bug introduced in last month’s build where juggle combos involving projectiles would not deal damage from the projectile hits.
--AI characters now sometimes do button-hold moves. Grave can do his big fireball, Jaina can charge to level 2 and 3 with her arrows, and Setsuki can hold-B teleport throw.
--Fixed a bug that made shadows too prominent on characters any time the camera moved away from standard side view. This was especially apparent during Midori’s throw, as we saw his shadows pop from one state to another as the camera moved at the end.
--Fixed a bug that prevented you from yomi countering if you were pressing trigger buttons (L and R) used in menus in cases where those buttons were NOT mapped to any gameplay action.
--Fixed a bug that caused the Ready button to not always appear on the arcade character select screen while in mouse-mode.
--When your lifebar is flashing from potential block damage, the timer until it reverts back to normal now pauses while you’re in blockstun.

Game Update: March 2017

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.