It's also fun if you throw the sword and it lands on the ground, then you hold the throw button for a half second, and the sword does a little flip and bounces towards you xD
Did a quick run through things and... feels like it keeps getting better! O_o Some weirdness with holding the attack button to spawn enemies after summoning the level 3 fire god ability, but it's cool enough that I'd argue it's an accidental feature and not a bug.
After reinstalling (which I did to see if it would fix some of the audio troubles), the level 2 attack still fires off with a quick tap of shift+enter, but only if I have at least 2 fireflies. Still working correctly in survival.
Did a quick test and found a solution. Apparently, the install had bugged on my end. Re-downloading the file and reinstalling the game fixed the issues with the clash sounds playing every time. Only partly fixed the problem I reported with the phoenix fire attack being unavailable in training area though. (posting more info on that on the update page)
Regardless if I have 1, 2, or 3 fireflies, if I fire off the level 1 shift+enter, it consumes 1 firefly, but fires the level 1 attack. As mentioned, works correctly in the survival mode, this is only a bug in training.
-Heartburn hit sound doesn't play consistently, and when it does, it sounds like a hit with a sword, not like a heart ripping punch (I think it's the same audio from the focus thrust).
-The beheading strike, the split attack, and spin attack, all have clash sounds which play no matter what. Hit the enemy guard? Sounds normal. Hit their flesh? Sounds like they blocked, even as their death animation plays. Miss completely? Still sounds like someone blocked it.
-The sound effect for a kill with a basic attack (combo or aerial) sounds more like paper being torn than flesh being cut. This is oddly, slightly less noticeable in the survival mode than in the training area (because of how the sound interacts with the music).
-Obviously, some things are still missing sfx. Kicks, level 2 flame,
-The hit sounds for the focus thrust, running slash, and anything but the first hit of the spinning slash, are really good. So are the blade clash sfx, when they play at appropriate times.
That said, I feel like "attack = interact" will cause problems. Like, for example, when you've spawned an enemy in the training area, and want to attack them, but are still standing on the "press space to spawn enemies" area... Oops, more enemies!
Couple of things: 1. "Demo is now live" - no it's not. No option to pick it up here. 2. Please *DON'T* make the game Steam exclusive. You've done that before and it's unfortunate. I have good reasons to avoid anything that's locked behind Steam, and there are others who avoid it where possible for less extreme reasons than mine.
Update feedback: I like the music! Indoor music sounds chill and thematic. The survival music is a bit rough around the edges. It feels like you could do with volume control though (more important once there's sfx to go with the music, so you can balance them against one another).
Also, there's still a bug where you use 1 to pause then hit escape and it unpauses.
The best place to contact me in private would probably be my Discord account (it's the same name I use here). When it comes to keys, Steam has been a non-option for me for a long time now, for reasons it's probably sensible not to go into detail about on here. Long story.
2nd attack bug: Fixed! lvl 3 interrupt bug: Fixed! lvl 3 infinite duration bug: I had it happen once randomly (the first time I launched after installing the new version). Isn't reproducible like it had been with the interrupt bug though. So fixed-ish?
And the ghost hit bug is also less consistent now, but still sometimes happens.
From my testing so far in the new build, the bug never triggers when the combo includes: -a missed attack. -a hit which breaks an enemy's guard. -a hit which kills an enemy. It also only triggers on an enemy who got a knockback effect from the attack that hit them, which usually comes from the final hit of the combo. It won't trigger every time those conditions are met, and I don't know what, if any, other conditions might be relevant. When I knock an enemy back and they end up next to a second enemy, sometimes the ghost hit will stagger both of them, but that's not consistent either.
So... more desktop version weirdness. Both of these, I've tested on the web version and confirmed they're exclusively happening on desktop.
-The 2nd attack in the combo still passes through 0-block enemies without killing them. This was an old bug, still happening consistently.
-If you land all 3 hits of your own combo on an enemy, and it doesn't break their guard, there's a 4th "ghost hit" on them after they get knocked back. Sometimes, it hits multiple enemies if they're close together.
And a fun one which happens in both versions: -Activate level 3 divine flame, while at least one enemy is still in a death animation, and get a firefly. -Get killed while the ability is still active, which makes it vanish. -Resurrect, because you got a firefly. -When the timer should run out on the level 3, you collapse as if it's still going.
I also had it glitch out once after triggering this bug on desktop, where the next time I summoned the level 3, the timer didn't trigger. Doesn't seem consistent on this, though.
That makes sense. If you can only counterattack off the final hit in an enemy's combo, that's already consistent. It's just consistent in a way players will learn over time. A lot of games have mechanics like this, or ones where you can counter some enemies anytime, but others only off certain attacks.
So while experimenting with parries and fighting with the weapon sheathed... I realised a well timed attack as you're parrying will perform its own unique follow-up which has the same diagonal cut kill animation as the (missing on the downloadable version) second combo attack.
So all the combo attacks have a second way to get the same kill animation.
If it helps for investigating the problem, I just turned on a framerate monitor to check. And it was a solid 239 with occasional steps up to 240 (I have a 240Hz monitor so that's normal for me to see in games which don't have an arbitrary lower fps cap).
I've tested it multiple times in the training area and the survival mode. Can't get the second combo hit to land on an opponent who's vulnerable. It doesn't help that the first hit being the one to break an enemy's guard will interrupt your combo to knock them back, but even so, following up by whiffing the first swing means the second attack can pass all the way through the opponent's body without registering as a hit. With the right positioning, a parry into a combo has the same result. Opponent is knocked back by the parry, out of reach for the first swing of the combo, but the second attack passes through them without killing, and it's always the third hit which kills.
And when I say "passing through" it can be anything from the tip slicing through the front of the body where it should be catching the front few pixels of the torso, to the blade being visible sticking out behind the opponent, and nothing works.
Might be a hit detection problem in the current build? It registers for enemies blocking it, though.
The first attack of your basic combo and the jumping slash share a death animation. The third combo attack shares its death animation with the non-focus sword draw attack. The the focus+block attack and the sprinting slash share a death animation. The sheathed and unsheathed focus+slash attacks each have unique death animations. The basic flame attack, and the first and second level focus+flame attacks, all have unique death animations. Focus+up and focus+down both have unique death animations, and focus+down has a second version of the death animation if you follow it up with a kick.
If there are more than those 10, I haven't found them yet.
Other than the focus+down>kick animation, kicks don't have any death animations, which makes sense because they're clearly non-lethal attacks. Weirdly, though, the second combo attack isn't capable of landing a killing blow either (but does damage enemy block). Taunts obviously also don't kill. Especially not the one with your weapon sheathed, but it's nice to do this anyway. You can't attack while ducking, and jumping onto enemies doesn't kill unless you do the jumping slash attack (but jump+kick has surprisingly good knockback).
Not yet! I commented on it in one of the update posts (12/23/24) and the dev confirmed it's coming "soon". EDIT: Not sure why the site didn't show my the devpost until after I replied but... yay! O_o
Also... that was my first time since trying the new build that an enemy *didn't* spawn a firefly... so it's definitely not 100% spawn rate. Might have just had the coinflip go my way about 300 times in a row? xD
Sheathed blocks and parries don't have their own unique animations, but they look smooth coming out - it's just the teleport back into the sheathe that looks wrong. Could be fixed by triggering the weapon drawn state when successfully blocking or parrying an attack.
Also, getting kicked with your weapon sheathed still uses the animation where the weapon is out.
Basically, they have 2 ranges. First is the blast radius, and inside that, is the radius where you trigger the self-destruct timer. If you're inside the blast radius, but outside the self destruct range, killing them deals damage to you, without any prior warning.
I agree that it's harsh, but there is a mechanical reason why they sometimes kill you without lighting up.
