Hello everyone,

This patch contains a few mechanical and AI tweaks. Blocking from behind has been buffed, and enemies now have slightly better tracking. This should barely affect lower-difficulty enemies, but higher-difficulty enemies (mostly bosses) won't be as easy to cheese by just walking backwards. Skilled AI can still be baited into missing, but it will require more careful use of footwork and distancing. The dodge has also been nerfed very very slightly, which should make mixups more effective on dodge-heavy enemies.

I have also added a small popup icon for the native achievements system, in preparation for launcing on GOG.

There are a few other changes I've been experimenting with, but I didn't want to further delay this patch, especially since I noticed the bug with the blood canvas on Mountain.

Thanks for reading.

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Version 1.29

Fixed the blood stain canvas stopping too short in Mountain.

A charged attack now adds some extra hit-stop to the receiving player when blocking or being parried.

Adjusted the enemy AI:
- Enemy tracking has been improved. Enemies will have a more realistic impression of how close an attack will land, and will be less likely to attack/parry/dodge when out of range.
- Enemies are now better at landing their charge attacks. They can still be whiff-punished, but high level enemies will require more careful footwork and timing to bait them into whiffing.
- Repeatedly attacking from the same height will make enemies more defensive and increase the chances of the enemy performing a counter. Mixing up your attack direction will reset this counter back to normal.

Swords will now briefly flash when the wielder has reached full-charge.

Counter-attacks when blocking from behind now come out faster.

Attacks can now be parried from behind using the attack windup frames, skipping the block for a quicker normal attack.

Holding a counter-attack instead of performing the counter will now rapidly increase the charge of the held attack.

The iframes for the dodge now start very slightly later.

Native achievements now have their own pop-up.

Hello everyone, just a small patch for now. I'm currently testing some AI improvements but they will need lots of testing and I didn't want to further delay this update.

This update adds a native achievements screen. In future this screen will allow for the achievement system to work on platforms other than Steam.


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Version 1.28

Fixed the smoke visibility from the laser sword marker.

The frozen pause screen image now reflects the brightness/contrast settings.

Attempted to further optimize the Sunset stage (let me know if there is any difference).

Blindness-resistant enemies (who turn their heads to avoid being blinded with blood) will now briefly stop moving when blood is thrown in their face.

Fixed swords producing steam when dipped in water when Laser Swords aren't enabled.

It is now easier to buffer strikes while turning around mid-combo.

Addressed an issue with the pause function accepting default controls from other non-enemy characters - ie: accepting 'space' as the pause key, when the player has rebound it to something else.

Added an 'Achievements' screen to the Stats menu, as a means of natively supporting achievements on platforms other than Steam.

Performing a counter now cancels the stance speed boost the enemy gets from being blocked.

Standard enemies are now less likely to use the 'dodge behind' move.

Fixed Scenario Mode enemy weapons behaving like bokkens when Laser Swords is enabled.

Hello everyone, time for another update.

The most extensive change in this update is improvements to the Laser Swords Extra. It's a very popular feature so I decided it'd be fun to give it some extra flair: they now cast a faint light onto the environment, create coloured sparks when clashing, burn grass, create glowing wounds on enemies, and players can select their own colours from the Extras menu.

By request I've added Brightness and Contrast to the Options menu, this will hopefully help people calibrate some of the darker stages on their displays.

I've also addressed a bunch of bugs and other oversights (thanks PersonGuy, and others who have documented this stuff).

It has been pointed out to me (thanks Cheshire) that there was a bug with the anti-cheat function, so some of the leaderboard scores are probably unreliable. This was pretty demoralizing, and I'll probably have to reset the leaderboards at some point to make things fair again. I've decided not to rush this though, since it gives me an opportunity to adjust the scoring system and some of the stage layouts.

I've also added two new Arcade stages: Ninja House and Falls. Ninja House uses the assets from the Tunnel Scenario, and Falls features a new water distortion effect.

Finally, I've disabled the unpopular 'emote guard' AI function on difficulties below Hard. This is the function later-stage enemies can use to guard themselves while emoting.

Thanks for playing, I hope you enjoy the new stuff.


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Version 1.27


Gameplay Tweaks:

The unpopular 'emote guard' AI function to prevent later-level from enemies from being cheesed while drawing/emoting is now disabled on modes below Hard.



Bugfixes:

Fixed an issue preventing the anti-cheat score function from activating.

Fixed the cloaking effect behaving differently when 'Internal Resolution' is set higher than default.

The on-screen score will now tick up when both players are dead in Ring Out mode. The internal score would increase for the player who died second without updating the score counter on-screen, now it does.

The player can now pause when 'AI only' mode is enabled.

Fixed a sprite error at the base of the bamboo shack.

When a zombie spawns on its knees and its arm comes off, the arm will now spawn at the correct height.

Adjusted zombie spawn states so that they will arrive and ambush properly.

When any zombie Extra mode is enabled, the boss-pause feature is disabled.

Zombies will no longer try to fight in Scenario Mode if scripted to (like in Town).

Fixed an issue causing distant enemies to retreat off-screen when the player cloak is enabled.

FINALLY fixed that weird halo effect that sometimes happens when you cut someone in half.

Any enemies remaining when the timer stops in Scenario Mode will now flee (or die, if a zombie), regardless of whether they were spawned by European Yabai mode or not. This is for situations like Sunset Act 3 where killing the EY-spawned enemies would count towards the boss target and then leave some of the normal enemies remaining.



Other Changes:

Added Brightness and Contrast options to the options menu.

Added Ninja House arcade stage using assets from the Tunnel scenario.

Added 'Falls' arcade stage.

When Laser Swords are enabled the player death marker is now a smoking handle instead of a sword.

Adjusted the lighting system so that foreground objects will mask the lighting layer. Laser swords are now occluded by things in the foreground like pillars.

Adjusted the lighting system to add an extra layer of lighting to the background - the light cast on the shack in Nightfall will now actually fade as the fire goes out instead of being baked in.

Laser swords now cast light on the background and on the wielder.

Adjusted the smoke effect from bodies cut by laser swords.

Wounds from laser swords will now glow briefly. This can be disabled from the Extras menu.

Laser sword collisions will now produce coloured sparks. This can be disabled from the Extras menu.

Lasers swords will now char the grass when it is cut, staining it black and producing smoke.

Players can now choose the colour of their laser swords in the Extras menu by pressing select on the Laser Swords option for a sub-menu.

Version 1.26

Killing an enemy now grants a brief moment of faster stance-changing, in addition to the pre-existing run boost.

Fixed a blending issue with the haori colours and the skin.

Addressed an issue with severed parts from off-screen not updating their animations when they come on-screen again.

Reversed the shove priority between two shoving characters - the shove which was initiated first now has priority. If the shoved target is also in the shove state the effect of the shove will be reduced.

Added additional non-collision frames between player bodies when one has just left the dodge state to allow for better maneuvering.

Adjusted the parry-system to prevent inconsistencies between charge-levels.

Increased the pushback distance of a clash between equally-charged strikes.

Lowered the window in which the AI can react to the shove (the extra windup last patch made them much better at doing so).

Adjusted the character collisions to prevent enemies getting stuck when walking into hiding enemies.

Fixed the Ronin achievement after messing it up in the last patch, sorry.

The boss in the Tunnel now flashes red instead of white when countering to make it easier to spot when only the sword is visible.

Fixed footstep sounds not resetting to default when switching stages.

Adjusted the turning stat again. All enemies now have a fixed minimum amount of frames before they're able to turn around, which scales with their skill level.

Hello everyone,

The goal of this update, besides the usual fixes and QoL tweaks, is to address some of the feedback I've been receiving in regards to certain mechanics.

It has become clear from watching gameplay and listening to players that certain elements could do with some adjustments:
- Shoving is too fast to react to, and too powerful as a gameplay crutch for interrupting opponents
- Trading blows feels like a dead-end, there isn't enough strategy to the back-and-forth of clashing and parrying.
- Counters are underpowered.

This patch addresses those issues with some gameplay changes. With the exception of the shove, which has received an increased wind-up time, all the other mechanics have either been buffed or left as they are. The goal of this patch is not to re-invent the gameplay, but to give players more options and more freedom in how they approach each engagement, and to rely less on the same techniques in order to win.

This patch also attempts to make difficulties on Normal and below a little more friendly to new players by adjusting the stats of the AI enemies. Those who preferred the original tuning of the enemies on Normal should now try playing Tough mode, which has identical AI stats to the original Normal.


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Version 1.25


Gameplay Tweaks:

Adjusted parries:
- Two equally-charged attacks will cause the blades to slide off eachother, and both players will be pushed back.
- An attack with more charge will overpower the other attack, granting the attacker a faster follow-up attack, faster stance-change speed, and a burst of forward speed to close the distance.
- An incoming attack that has more charge can be overpowered by matching its stance - causing a reversal parry. Ie: An enemy charging a mid-attack can be parried using a mid-attack.


Slightly adjusted attack timings, here's a full breakdown of them for reference:

- The high-attack is 2-frames faster than the mid-attack (this is new)
- The low-attack is 2-frames faster than the mid-attack (this is new)

- A dodge attack is 2-frames faster than any normal attack (increased from 1)
- Attacking after a successful parry is 2-frames faster than any normal attack (this is new).
- A perfectly-timed counter is 8-frames faster than any normal attack (increased from 5).
- A combo attack (left-right, right-left, up-down, down-up) is 7 frames faster than any normal attack (this is 1-frame slower than it was before).

(note that 'frames' refers to the FPS of the game, not animation frames).
(note that this does not account for wind-up time when an attack is started from neutral - this is the release time of each attack after it has entered the correct stance height in the 'held' position behind the character)

Buffed counter-attacks: They now have faster release time, faster stance-change speed, and a burst of movement speed.

A player that has been blocked will momentarily have faster stance-change speed to adjust their stance for a followup attack.


Slightly increased the window to start instantly running after a kill.

Players will no longer be able to pass each-other when one or both is attacking - unless performing a dodge.

There is now a slight delay during the shove windup (the pre-shove pose now lasts for 10 frames rather than 4).

The shove now pushes the shoving player away very slightly when it connects from very short range.

The AI will no longer attempt to shove the player in the back.

Slightly lowered the Dojo boss' shove force.

The AI's reactions are now slightly reduced on Normal Mode and below. Tough Mode now has the original settings that were on Normal Mode.

Reverted changes to the boss stare-down. Now if the player is facing the opposite way he will just turn his head.

Enemies spawning off-camera on Nightfall now have an increased distance when the camera edge is too close to the player.


Bugfixes:

Fixed an issue causing some local Last Man Standing scores to be saved incorrectly (thanks namelessdoll).

Addressed an issue causing zombies to get stuck in the 'shoved' state. I couldn't recreate this myself but I'm 90% sure I know why it happened (thanks shentu).

Fixed an issue causing zombies to get permanently stunlocked by fleeing civilians (thanks shentu).

Addressed an issue causing zombie grab targets to be moved off-screen when grabbed from very small distances (thanks puttputt).

Removed the ability to turn around with the shove-input + up (legacy feature, redundant).

Fixed NPCs doing That Thing where they sometimes waggle their sword around after spotting the player.

Fixed an enemy spawning too far behind and getting stuck in Sunset Act 1 hard mode / co-op, and another enemy spawning in the ambush state too far away to trigger (thanks CheshireChester).

Fixed dropped swords from reverting to their default colours when they stop being active.

Fixed non-ai players triggering the master achievement when killed.

Fixed a crash during certain scenes when the fog is set to 0%.

Hidden enemies now hide their laser swords until they stand up.



Other Changes:

Added 'goatee' face option.

Reorganized the credits slightly to put the much shorter 'special thanks' list before the longer one.

Optimized the wind-on-grass effect very very slightly.

The Player Setup screen now clarifies whether it's Singleplayer or Multiplayer to prevent confusion.

The mission difficulty setting now defaults to 'Merciful' for new players.

Version 1.24

Fixed the 'lawnmower man' achievement.

Fixed fire sound still playing after the fire goes out in Nightfall.

Slightly reduced how much the fire fades with each slash in normal and lower difficulties.

Lowered the number of enemies in Nightfall on modes below Tough.

The player now starts facing left on Nightfall, to indicate the direction to go.

Fleeing enemies are no longer affected by the 'turn' stat - this caused unintentional behaviour in the previous patch.

Fleeing civilians will now turn and run in their original direction if flipped by the player.

Fixed zombie player playing the sheath animation when a level is completed.

Fixed zombie player clipping into the level boundary in Shrine Act 7.

Increased the view-range of the final boss to discourage cheese (I see you, PersonGuy).

Hello everyone, patch time.

Thank you to those who reported the achievement-related crash at the end of the game. I'm 99% sure I've fixed this but please let me know.

This patch also includes optimizations and more graphics scaling options. Please let me know if these have made a difference.

If there are any problems please comment. The previous build can be accessed from the 'betas' tab in Steam's properties menu, under 'previousbuild'.

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Version 1.23

Addressed an out-of-range error when getting the scenario mode completion achievement.

Renamed the Scenario menu to Scenario Campaign, for additional clarity.

Fixed an issue where buffered combos could persist when the attack state is interrupted, this will reduce the effectiveness of button-mashing, as well as some occasionally odd behaviour.

Optimized the grass colour shaders. This should drastically reduce shader calls and will hopefully see a performance increase in areas with lots of grass.

Hiding enemies will no longer react to attacks as they spawn in around the player when the boss-pause feature is enabled.

It is no longer possible for a co-op player to block another's hit from behind.

The 'AI friend' option now clarifies that it's disabled in co-op mode.

Bleedout mode no longer resets in team-fight modes, which resulted in characters absorbing hits unpredictably (thanks for pointing this out, JustSteel).

Removed scabbards when laser swords are enabled (great idea, Si1entProtagonist).

Added weather-scaling options to the Video options menu. Rain, snow, and fog can now be lowered, turned off completely, or pushed to 200% if you'd like.

Fixed an issue with the crouch where releasing dodge while changing stance would sometimes reset the animation.

Inputs while beginning a crouch will now contribute towards the crouching stance - crouching from mid-stance and holding 'down' as the animation plays will now result in a quicker low-block once in the crouching position.

It's now easier to queue a turn while dodging. The dodge-turn animations have been improved. The sword will no longer swap hands when turning in the side-step animation.

Slightly reduced the chances for an AI to shove at lower AI skill-levels.

Very very slightly reduced the shove startup speed.

Added a 'turning' stat for the AI, instead of a uniform auto-turn. This scales with AI skill level and is quite conservative at the moment, but may be increased in future. This is a subtle change but when combined with the existing mechanics it's a way to create opportunities in combat.

(I understand that some people, particularly on steam deck, are having performance issues in certain scenes with lots of atmospheric effects - nightfall and sunset act 3 - I'll be adding scaling options for those effects to the options menu in another patch sometime soon. For now I have adjusted the snow effect to hopefully improve things without affecting the visual impact).

Version 1.22

The laser sword now drops a handle upon death, instead of a normal sword.

Adjusted the dropping sound effect to prevent it from not playing sometimes.

Disabled the 'AI-only' Extra in Scenario Mode for now. It wasn't designed for that mode and its inclusion was an oversight that causes issues.

Zombie players can now bite zombie enemies, and vice versa.

Added an invisible barrier to the far edge of Town Act 2, preventing rare cases of infighting enemies chasing eachother off-stage and preventing progress (sorry Xanafied).

Spaced out the final enemies in Town Act 2 slightly to prevent them bunching up.

Slighty reduced the volume of snow in Sunset Act 3.

Added more aggressive culling to the snow. This should help performance a bit on some systems without affecting the visuals. I'll add more options for scaling this later.

Added some experimental culling to the smoke effects. May or may not improve performance.

Fixed gamepad inputs not registering in 'Manual Round Restart' mode when the player is dead.

Fixed various issues related to 'Manual Round Restart'.

Fixed player zombies not absorbing blows in Scenario Mode.

Fixed AI zombies attacking player zombies from out of range.

Right clicking the mouse in the main menu will unhide the cursor. This is an accessibility feature that was requested.

The boss stare-off cinematic will now only trigger if the player and boss are facing eachother.

Fixed keyboard controls showing the wrong 'exit' key when the tutorial finishes.

Version 1.21
(I realised that in my haste to release a couple of day-one patches, I incremented the version numbers a bit high, so they'll be going up by 0.01 from here)

The 'multiplier' setting in the custom blood screen is now floored at 1, since lower values prevent blood from spawning.

Nightfall's description now mentions the fire as a hint.

Tweaked the pause menu to hopefully prevent control lockouts.