Hellish Quart News

New collisions and Isabella's new attack animations:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Red Dragon HEMA gear:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Spes HEMA gear and new win / lose sparring animations:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


Hellish Quart pre-alpha v. 2022.02.26.0


NEW:
- Isabella: New attack animations (replacing some older attacks)
- Isabella: all new "tap-tap" defeat animations for training mode for every body part
- Isabella: training mode "win" animations
- Customization: Red Dragon HEMA training gear
- Customization: Spes HEMA training gear
- Modern School Gym Arena
- Training mode with steel blunt weapons (before it was wooden wasters only)
- New weapon impact sounds for longswords and rapiers
- Different method of triggering blade clash sounds (one independent clash sound, instead of every blade making its own)
- Separate volume slider for blade clash sounds

TWEAK:
- Different physics collision detection system (more precise blade on blade contact detection)
- Increased physics simulation iterations (more precise simulation, takes a bit more processing power, but it's worth it)
- Isabella: faster attack linking
- Isabella: tweaked longsword inertia to behave more realistic (so it feels heavier)

FIX:
- Jacek: fixed blood not showing on his blade
- Fixed bug where "tap-tap" losing animation in training mode was played with 0.7 speed, because the defeated character had 0 stamina
- Isabella: Fixed left hand IK issues
- Isabella: Fixed too much stamina consumption by some of the combos
- Zera: Fixed left hand IK issues
- Fixed bug where some of the characters couldn't grab an attacking opponent during his whole attack animation, and not only during the active frames of the attack animation
- Fixed bug where there was no sound in "win camera", when winning or losing in no blood mode

Known issues:
- Isabella's attacks are Work In Progress - more to come.
- Isabella's move list is not fully correct yet, because new attacks are a work in progress
- Level select panel: School Gym level shows Watchtower preview instead of School Gym preview
- Some characters don't have blunt steel training weapon models yet, which results in blood showing on blades, if you select to fight with blunt steel training weapons

Check out the upcoming new character customizations:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

New skins for characters are coming and amongst them is some of the best and most popular modern HEMA gear provided by Red Dragon Armoury! You can train fencing just like in your local HEMA club :)

Those will be optional, cosmetic customizations in the base game.

In today's update, we make sure Hellish Quart runs great on the upcoming Steam Deck.

Steam Deck is the newest powerful handheld console that can run games from your Steam library. We are very happy to say that playing Hellish Quart on it is pure joy :)

This update makes sure the text is readable on the console's 7-inch screen, the gameplay holds stable 60 fps and videos play well.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


Release notes:

Hellish Quart pre-alpha v. 2022.01.22.0

TWEAK:
- Blade Bind should cause a bit less "circle spinning" when the characters are close to each other
- Different codec in video tutorials and video cinematics to ensure compatibility with Steam Deck
- UI text size adjustments for better fit with Steam Deck
- In the character selection screen, you can now press any keyboard key to use keyboard, not only Esc

NEW:
- Xbox 360/One controller button glyphs are now the default in whole game if you are using a gamepad instead of a keyboard. You can force the game to always use platform-agnostic button glyphs (like before) in the Gameplay menu. This change is to comply with the demands of the "Steam Deck Verified" program.

FIX:
- In the two players character selection screen, the first player can now press a joystick button to go back to the menu, if there are no other controllers and no keyboard connected.

As for plans for migrating to the newest engine version - sorry everyone, after almost two weeks of testing, it turns out this is not yet viable. The game is using the most stable, versatile, and performant version of the engine and rendering at the moment. We'll try again later, back to creating content :)

Hellish Quart pre-alpha v. 2022.01.03.0

FIX:
- Marie: Fixed minor bugs in AI
- Gedeon: Fixed minor bugs in AI
- Kalksten: fixed bug where you could push away the opponent's weapon with a thrust
- Manor arena: minor memory optimization

TWEAK:
- Minimal amount of damage for every weapon is now 11, even if you set the damage multiplier in Options to minimal values. This will cause a successful hit to always cause some damage.
- Survival and History Buff Mode: arenas will no longer repeat two times in a row
- changed music tracks in Watchtower arena

Known bugs: Jacek's AI can freeze after defending a grab (this bug will disappear after AI refactoring, which will be soon)

Next update plans: Migration to the newest engine version and switching to modern rendering pipeline (the game should look better and will allow adding graphical options like RTX, DLSS, FidelityFX, etc.).

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Hellish Quart pre-alpha v. 2021.12.18.0

NEW:
- All characters can now Bind Blades (keep contact with opponent's blade using Long Guard, if the opponent is also in Long Guard or makes a thrust attack, or has a thrust-oriented weapon). Precision of the Bind varies (best for nimble weapons, worse for tip-heavy weapons, worst for fencers under influence ;)). From now on Long Guard (aka Blade Bind) is the best stance for blocking thrusts, while the normal stance is mainly for blocking cuts (but it can still block thrusts, just not as well as Long Guard)

- All characters can now push away the opponent's blade, by making a cut attack into the opponent's blade, when he is in Long Guard
- Marie: many new attacks (mostly form Long Guard)
- New music track in Abandoned Church

TWEAK:
- Gedeon can now bash through the weak part (the top section) of all one-handed blades
- All characters: Long Guard idle animations now blend near-far depending on distance
- All characters: slight changes to AI to accommodate Blade Bind mechanics (temporary, AI will get a full refactor soon)
- Father Zera: a bit slower attacks

FIX:
- Fixed bug, where there was a delay in triggering Long Guard stance, if you pressed Long Guard while walking backward
- Fixed bug where not all music tracks were selected to play when randomized