Hellish Quart News

Thank you for your patience!

This update brings you Father Żera - a mad monk. His surprising longsword combinations and special stances will keep your opponents on their toes!

The Stamina also had a refactor. In short, attacking out of measure and recovering from whiffs will make you tired quickly. At the same time, attacking in a proper measure takes very little stamina. Also, if you spend too much time "running on fumes", your Stamina will get permanently damaged over time.

Damage is now dependent on your sword's velocity as well as on your Stamina - tired fencers will not hit as hard.

Another interesting dueling mode is the introduction of OPTIONAL Right of Way rules. It is a method of scoring double kills, that teaches proper defense instincts - watch the video for details!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


Release notes:


Hellish Quart pre-alpha v. 2021.10.28.0

TWEAK:
- Physics now has 12 passes per frame instead of 8 (better precision)
- Marie: disabled aiming system in the sword hand wrist
- Kalkstein: disabled aiming system in the sword hand wrist
- Marie: rapier has now more inertia
- Marie: attacks homing (centering entire body towards opponent) is now a bit stronger
- Gedeon: Adjusted damage counting to better reflect momentum and swing vector (downward cuts deal more damage)
- Laszlo: Bind Attack Right Sidestep 3 deals more appropriate damage
- Kalkstein: Some attacks play 5% slower to better represent his heavy weapon
- Kalkstein: Guards animations are 30% slower to better represent his heavy weapon
- Kalkstein: Sword has now more inertia
- Kalkstein: Upwards cuts and short cuts deal less damage; downwards cuts and big swings deal more damage
- Gedeon: some special moves are 25% faster
Gedeon: Forward attacks now blend near-far to avoid situations where the saber overshoots over the opponent's shoulder without harming him
Laszlo: Forward attacks now blend near-far to avoid situations where the saber overshoots over the opponent's shoulder without harming him
- The force needed to cut off hands is now reduced (easier) across the board
- Linking attacks rate (some characters can link certain single attacks in a chain combo - for example Gedeon, Laszlo, Isabella) now depends on animations (before it was a fixed rate) - the new attack can be launched only after the active phase of the previous attack has ended
- All characters: attack animations recovery phase after getting blocked is now longer across the board
- Sidestep Attacks can't be canceled (it was like that before on some characters, but now it's across the board)
- Recovery phase timings of all attacks of all characters had an adjustment pass

- Stamina now affects damage - tired fencers will deal less damage gradually, full damage only with full stamina
- Stamina now slightly affects attacking and movement speed (the more tired you are, the slower the animations)
- Recovery after a whiff (attack in air, that didn't hit or wasn't blocked) takes additional Stamina - usually around 20% of potential Damage (depends on the weapon)
- Successful block takes Stamina - 7%-10% of potential Power of the blocked attack (depending on sword mass)
- Stamina spending had been tweaked: in general, it is cheap to start an attack or block an incoming attack, but it is expensive to recover from a whiff

- Cutting Damage is now counted in hybrid method - arbitrary amount per attack times weapon tip acceleration times stamina percentage

- When you press another attack to make a cutting combo before the first attack hits, then potential damage from the first attack is reduced by 50% (because it becomes a not fully committed cut). If you press to make a combo after the first attack hits, there is no damage reduction - but the next attack will be delayed by 0.2s (because your hand was stopped before you made a decision to redirect the attack to a combo). This doesn't apply to linking single attacks (single attacks pressed one after another), just combos that are listed in Move Lists.

- Right after your attack gets blocked, there is now a 0.2s cooldown period when you can't launch another attack (but you can move and autoguard works normally). If you press another attack during that period, the attack animation will be delayed until this 0.2s cooldown passes. However, if you press another attack to make a combo *before* first attack of the combo hits the enemy's block, there is no cooldown (but the damage of the first attack is reduced by 70%)

- Cuts with heavy swords that manage to bash through the opponent's guard now deal -70% damage
- Dodging takes Stamina now
- Dodging when limping is not possible now
- All characters: most regular attacks are homing even in active phase, not only on startup
- Marie: Better Guard stances
- Isabella: Better Guard stances
- All weapons have now more fitting physical mass (therefore they behave a bit more realistic when swung or when blocking)
- Active ragdoll settings tweaks (more inertia, more drag, a bit less "springy")


NEW:
- New character: Father Zera - New optional rule: Right of Way (see tutorials)

- New tutorial video about the changes in this update

- New Stamina and Endurance system:
a) Stamina degrades fast and regenerates fast
b) Endurance degrades slowly and regenerates slowly
c) Stamina can't be higher than Endurance
d) Every time Endurance drops too much, its maximum level will be permanently lowered by appropriate %
- When Stamina is low, the character's side of the screen will discreetly pulsate (cosmetic postprocess)
- Marie: two new stances: lowered blade and long guard (no special attacks yet, coming soon)
- Marie: Guards now blend near-far, depending on the distance
- Isabella: Guards now blend near-far, depending on the distance
- Isabella: In-place attacks now don't move the character forward if less than 1.5m from the opponent

- AI vs AI mode (spectator - AI needs a refator to be at least "watchable", but the mode is there)
- All characters can now assume "retract blade" stance (useful if you want your opponent to whiff instead of getting blocked)


- Kalkstein: added Tired Attack animations
- Laszlo: added Tired Attack animations
- Gedeon: added Tired Attack animations


FIX:
- Cutting off hands using a thrust should not happen anymore
- Minor fixes in animation trees and scripts
- Kalkstein: Fixed wrong RP tired walk animations
- Kalkstein: Fixed bug where opponent assumes the wrong guard when Attack Fwd 1 (from Right Leg Fwd)
- Laszlo: corrected the last animation in "Fwd, 4, 1" combo that always missed
- Isabella: Fixed bug with false "Down, Fwd, Attack" special moves firing up in code
- Isabella: Fixed a typo in damage value on leg cut attack
- Disabling Cloth physics in Menu disables cloth in Character Select level too
- Cutting off hands with wooden weapons should not be possible now

Known issues:
- Isabella's AI sometimes doesn't register her Victory and keeps attacking
- Jacek's AI sometimes gets stuck and won't stop dodging (until it gets hit for example)
- Close attacks (punches, kicks) need a refactor
- Grabs (like Head Off) needs a refactor
- Marie's AI gets stuck in a loop sometimes (hotfix soon)


Coming in next days:
- Old Wooden Church arena
- Father Zera intro video
- Marie: new attack animations
- Laszlo: new Character Select and Win animations

Note: Please be aware that Hellish Quart is in Early Access. This update changes some fundamental structures of the game, like Stamina, Damage and Blocking cooldown calculations. There most likely will be bugs and imbalance. Some of the characters may "feel" different, those things will be adjusted as we go. You are the testers :)

Almost there, finishing up!

To sum up the work on the update done so far and get you an overview of what to expect:

-------------

Upcoming update - not yet in the game, it's just for information:

TWEAKS:
- Marie: disabled aiming system in the sword hand wrist
- Marie: rapier has now more inertia
- Gedeon: Adjusted damage counting to better reflect momentum and swing vector (downward cuts deal more damage)
- Laszlo: Bind Attack Right Sidestep 3 deals more apropriate damage
- Kalkstein: Some attacks play 5% slower to better represent his heavy weapon
- Kalkstein: Gaurds animations are 30% slower to better represent his heavy weapon
- Kalkstein: Sword has now more more inertia
- Kalkstein: Upwards cuts and short cuts deal less damage; downwards cuts and big swings deal more damage
- The force needed to cut off hands is now reduced (easier) across the board
- Linking attacks rate (some characters can link certain single attakcs in a chain combo - for example Gedeon, Laszlo, Isabella) now depends on animations (before it was a fixed rate) - new attack can be launched only after active phase of previous attack has ended
- All characters: attack animations recovery phase after getting blocked is now longer across the board
- Stamina now affects damage - tired fencers will deal less damage gradually, full damage only with full stamina
- Stamina now slightly affects attacking and movement speed (the more tired you are, the slower the animations)
- Beginning an attack takes less stamina
- Recovery after a whiff (attack in air, that didn't hit or wasn't blocked) takes additional stamina
- Recovery phase of all attacks of all characters had an adjustment pass
- Successful block takes less stamina
- Cutting Damage is now counted in hybrid method - arbitrary amount per attack times weapon tip acceleration times stamina percentage

- When you press another attack to make a cutting combo before first attack hits, then potential damage from the first attack is reduced by 70% (because it becomes a not fully commited cut). If you press to make a combo after the first attack hits, there is no damage reduction - but the next attack will be delayed by 0.2s (because your hand was stopped before you made a decision to redirect the attack to a combo)
- Right after your attack gets blocked, there is now a 0.2s cooldown period when you can't launch another attack (but you can move and autoguard works normally). If you press another attack during that period, the attack animation will be delayed until this 0.2s cooldown passes. However, if you press another attack to make a combo *before* first attack of the combo hits enemy's block, there is no cooldown (but damage of the first attack is reduced by 70%)

- Cuts with heavy swords that manage to bash through oppponent's guard now deal -70% damage
- Dodging backwards and sideways takes Stamina now (but forward doesn't)
- Dodging when limping is not possible now
- All characters: most regular attacks (except thrusts) are homing even in active phase, not only on startup
- Marie: Better Guard stances
- Isabella: Better Guard stances

NEW:
- New character: Father Zera
- New intro movie: Father Zera

- New Stamina and Endurance system:
a) Stamina degrades fast and regenerates fast
b) Endurance degrades slowly and regenerates slowly
c) Stamina can't be higher than Endurance
d) Every time Endurance drops too much, its maximum level will be permanently lowered by apropriate %

- New optional mode: Right Of Way (it's basically a method of scoring double kills instead of calling a draw, it heavily discourages "wiggling" your sword out of range - more on that in upcoming tutorials)

- When Stamina is low, character's side of the screen will discretly pulsate (cosmetic posprocess)
- Marie: two new stances with their own special attacks: lowered blade and long guard (stance changing like with Isabella)
- Marie: Guards now blend near-far, depending on distance
- Isabella: Guards now blend near-far, depending on distance
- Isabella: In-place attacks now don't move the character forward if less than 1.5m from opponent
- AI vs AI mode (although AI needs a huge refator, for now those duels are not that spectacular)
- All characters can now assume "retract blade" stance (useful if you want your opponent to whiff instead of get blocked)

More coming - full list will be released on update day, along with new video tutorials about the new mechanics.
------------------


On top of all this, we spend an entire month 3d scanning new 17th century clothes for customization. The new clothes will not be the part of this update though, since we still need time to implement them into the game and fit them to character's bodies, configure cloth physics etc.

Thank you for your patience!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Father Żera, formerly known as Pan Michal Dobrzanski. Years of hiding in the old church and battling his fears using wine took a heavy toll on his sanity.

A new character for Hellish Quart, Father Żera, will be available to play soon. He fights with a longsword, which requires hundreds of animations for two stances (left foot forward and right foot forward) multiplied by 3 sword positions - low, middle and high.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

This is a short update to inform what we are doing right now.

In short:

- Father Zera, the new character is coming soon
- We are making NPC's and more characters for the story mode and experimenting with adventure gameplay mechanics
- First story will be about Jacek
- The short story by Jacek Komuda happening in the universe of Hellish Quart is ready and translated -will be released along the first single player story

Thank you for your patience! :)
Jakub

Great news! Jacek Komuda, our writer for Hellish Quart is making a live action TV series. The show is set in the same fictional universe as the game and novels and Hellish Quart's Jacek Dydyński is the main hero of the show! The characters of the show are of course based on real historical people.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


Currently, in this stage of Early Access, Hellish Quart is focusing on creating new characters and polishing the combat mechanics, but we are also working on motion capture for the first story episode - which is also written Jacek Komuda, so we hope it will fit right in, as a part of this fantastic universe.