Samurai Gunn 2 is a 2d platform fighter, and while it's in early access there's some things it doesn't tell you. I hope to alleviate some of the confusion.

• Users Manual | https://store.steampowered.com/manual/1397790

The Manual describes basics of play and each character's abilities. I'll post the important pages here.

• Countdown

You can make the countdown timer speed up by holding Jump, Slash, and Gun at the same time.

• Alternate Colors

Each Character has at least 4 different palettes. Changing your palette is as simple as pressing up and down on the character select screen.

• Stance Change

Holding the sword button will cause your sword to do a Stance Change, which changes the direction your normal sword swings work (swinging from above or below), and also can be used as a kill move.

• Super Bullets

Super bullets can be shot by dashing and shooting, move twice as fast as a regular bullet, and can even be shot Diagonally. When 2 super bullets collide, they explode, which can kill anyone in its radius, and even destroy some terrain.

• Respawning

After you are killed, you can press back to respawn your character. Quick Spawning can help give you the element of surprise against your enemy.

• Stage Hazards

Within the game there are various interactable stage elements, such as Bamboo, Spikes, Goo Blocks, Water, Arrow Traps, Crabs, and Sabotage's. I'll briefly describe each one of these here.

• Bamboo: Destructible terrain, regrows on some levels. Super bullets pierce through bamboo.
  
• Spikes: Kills you when you fall into them, but can be passed through if you're moving horizontally.
  
• Goo Blocks: Goo Blocks are very sticky, letting you stick to its walls, and even ceilings.
  
• Water: When you touch water, you "jam your gun", setting your ammo to 0. Note you can still gain ammo afterwards.

Friends Stages:

• Minit Crab: Can be killed to gain a point in Kills mode. Doesn't effect Lives mode.
  
• Arrow Traps: Similar to Spelunky, Arrow Traps shoot arrows when anything passes in front of it. This includes players, sword slashes, bullets/projectiles, and bombs/decapitated heads. can be reloaded with projectiles, and will shoot them back out, a little faster.
  
• "Lights" Sabotage: Turns the lights out for 10 seconds (works differently online)
  
• "Weapons" Sabotage: Randomly picks an enemy player and targets them with 3 rockets, which explode shortly after the 3 markers have been placed

Here we'll describe some of the aspects of Adventure. Note there are adventure spoilers in this guide. If you would like to remain spoiler free, only reveal the spoiler text for what you would like to learn.

• Stages

In the Adventure overworld, there are statues and enemies (like the one at the start) that act as entrances to individual levels. Each level has a clear condition, either kill every enemy, or survive the timer. On normal stages, you have 3 lives represented as leaves on the bottom, which are shared between all players. After completing a stage, you either break the statue and it reveals the connecting levels, or you kill the enemy, which causes them to drop a can of Gunnpowder.

• Retrying Levels

If you hold Jump, Gun, or Slash after being defeated on a level, you will respawn in that level instead of the overworld.

• Power-ups

There are 3 "Power-ups" in Adventure, which can be obtained through unique methods.

Gunnpowder:makes your sword able to be slashed with no delay between slashes. It can be obtained by defeating enemies in the overworld, and completing their stage.

Shuriken:makes your gun shoot shuriken's instead of bullets, which you can pick up to recollect your ammo. You can find the Shuriken by hunting a bunny in the overworld. Be quick, they scare easily!

Fruit:grants you an extra life, and is consumed when you use up the final life. You can find fruit hanging from tree's, which you can collect by hitting the base of the tree to make them fall.

Power-ups expire after you complete a level, but Fruit expires after it is used on your final life. Fruit and Shuriken are renewable power-ups, while Gunnpowder is 1 time use, and limited in supply.

• Weapons

In Adventure, there are Fox statues that grant you the choice to collect 1 weapon you don't already have. These 3 weapons are the Spear, Cleaver, and Dagger, and they change how your slash works. You can swap between them any time while outside of combat by pressing the Change Weapon button, and (while buggy to select) can be used in versus.
Note: these weapons only affect samurai, and do not grant changes for friends characters.

• Curses

Curses are a sort of challenge mode, that affect how you play levels. There are (currently) 2 curses in adventure, hidden within the far reaches of the overworld. Completing a level with a curse will light the statue and the surrounding path with a cursed fire, and show an indicator above the level preview.
The Eye: Found in the forest, this curse changes all enemies into a faster and smarter version of themselves. Enemies will change colors to reflect this, and require quick thinking to defeat.
The Ring: Found within the cemetery, this curse causes a ring to appear in the corner that follows the player around, and kills you on contact, turning you into an enemy. The Ring is briefly slowed when killing an enemy, and in multiplayer, there is a ring for each player, and the rings only follow the corresponding player.
Removing a Curse: After losing 5 times, your curses will be lifted. You can also do this by visiting the Hot Spring to the left of the start of the Cemetery.

• Full Adventure Map

I've made a map of the current adventure map through world 2, be warned if you would not like to see spoilers.
You can view the map by hovering your mouse below.
Here you can see the level layout, Fox Statues, Bone Key's (currently unusable), and the other secrets the game has to offer.

This game supports native multiplayer, and uses delay-based netcode with direct-connection between users. As a result, if one users machine runs the game slow, everyone will experience that slowness to compensate. Additionally, the more users connected in a lobby, the more likely you are to have a choppier connection.

• Random Queue

To join matchmaking and play with random players, simply select Versus and choose a character. (here you can play target practice too!)

• Private Parties

To create a private party, press Tab (or "Back" for controller) on the main menu screen. You can invite through steam, or you can grab a clickable link that automatically joins the party.

In private parties, it mimic's a local game across each players screen, which means you can play Versus, Adventure, and even read the Comic while online!

As an early access title, not all of the games content is available yet. Adventure is only up to world 2, we only have 19 maps, and our roster is 10 characters. As updates come out, we'll receive more characters, maps, and adventure content for you and others to enjoy.

• Official Discord of Samurai Gunn 2

The link to join can be found here[discord.gg], or you can navigate the in-game settings to get to the link as well. Come in and say hi!

Within the Discord we have channels to offer Help, report bugs, and suggest Friends characters or game ideas. Sometimes we hold Tournaments as well, which let you test your skills against some of the top players in our community.

As the game expands, we hope to grow the server into a cozy place for players that want to engage in the early access experience, and allow players to share their experiences and findings as more of the game is unveiled.

• Hungry for more

As of now, there's another steam guide that has a lot of knowledge about the game and it's nuances, Cursed Knowledge & Forbidden Techniques has a great library showcasing hidden and deep knowledge of the game. Along with this, i'm making a guide that dives deeper into each characters mechanics. Stay tuned!

____________

And with that, this concludes How 2 Gunn. All updates and changes will be listed here, feel free to question and discuss below.

• Feb. 10, 2022: Added Removing a Curse, Rearranged Stage Hazard gif's
  
• Mar. 29, 2022: Added Full Adventure Map