Shady Knight News

Hi everyone,
The final update for 2024 is here!
This is a special level for you to set up a fight with a number of enemies and a weapon of your choice to test your skills in different combat scenarios.
[h2]Usecases[/h2]

• You can spawn a bunch of Headless Knights and practice each weapon on them,
  
• Make a 1v1 duel with a Blessed Lancer to learn his behavior,
  
• Find all the ways to deal with shields and blessed enemies,
  
• Practice your parrying skills with a God Mode ON,
  
• or Air Parrying on our jumpy spider friends,
  
• at last, simply set all to random and just jam on this improvised endless arena!
  

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h3]Combat Hints[/h3]
In the arena, you can find combat hints and try them out on enemies right away.
Shady Knight is a game of many hidden contextual moves so there are always different missing bits that may be useful for different players.

[h2]Available Options:[/h2]
[h3]Enemies[/h3]

• Type (an enemy type to spawn): Headless, Spider, Deadman, Archer, Lancer, Heavy or RANDOM
  
• Count (max number of active infinite spawners): up to 5 enemies
  
• Blessed: No, Yes, RANDOM (spawn a regular or a blessed version of the type)
  
• Shielded: No Shield, Fire, Stun, RANDOM
  

[h3]Player
[/h3]

• Start With (weapon): No Weapon, Sword, Bow, Spear and the last bonus weapon
  
• God Mode: Off, On (you still can take damage but you can't die, you will see if the damage was lethal)
  
• UPD Music Theme

Learning new skills and contextual moves by experimenting with your controls under pressure has always been part of the Shady Knight experience. This also means that some moves that can make your path much more controlled can be overlooked until very late in even harder levels.

To open the door a bit to how even the simplest action like jumping can change your approach to combat, there are four new special practice maps that cover the main style points for two base actions and two weapons:

• Jump Style explains Object/Head Boosting, Jump Slam, etc.
  
• Slide Style features Slide Bash, Slide Slam, etc.
  
• Sword Style to learn Ground Pound and one of my absolute favorite fated strikes, the Areal Slash
  
• Bow Style players of the old demo may remember a move called Rapid Fire, its variation is still in the game ;)

Let me know if you like them and if these maps teach you something new!
[h3]UPD: NEW STYLE MAPS[/h3]
New Style Maps and the latest improvements (Feb 2025)

For many years, my New Year's resolution has been to finally release the game,
so I guess I'll have to get creative this time.

As always, thank you so much for playing If you enjoy my game, please don't forget to leave a review, this helps a lot to keep supporting it!

I'll be back next year with more shady updates, Happy Holidays!

Yours,
cptnsigh

Hi everyone, just a quick update to the backup feature with a few fixes.
[h3]Debug Console[/h3]

• Improved "backup" command. Here's an updated guide in case your save file is corrupted and you can't spawn properly on a level.
  
• A small change to the "reset" command. It will only reset your save file, leaving your options, bindings and backup data intact.
  
• To completely reset the game there's a new "resetall" command.

[h3]Bugs fixed
[/h3]

• Fire jars would ignite enemies on your next run if broken a moment before quick restart.
  
• Weapons stuck in fragile floors would float in the air when the floor was destroyed.
  
• Air Kick during a high momentum fall would not give you a proper knockback.
  
• Blue Fist Glyph (Charged Strike) would stay on screen when using Spear or Shield after performing some moves (e.g. after a Strike Cancel or Parry).
  

[h3]Demo Update
[/h3]
The demo build is now up to date with all the latest fixes and new moves : )

Yours,
cptnsigh

Let's start with the craziest addition that I can't get enough of.
[h2]GRAVITY PARRY
[/h2]
Some may already knew that it is possible to parry fall damage, as any physical strike How to... Consistent Sword Parry

And while it was a fun option to save your flawless run after a high fall, the flow was broken as you had to climb ALL the way back, meaning the risky parry move wasn't really rewarding. Until today.

• Gravity Parry lets you bounce right back into the fight to the height you fell from, if you're willing to take the risk!
  
  
• It is also possible to trigger the ground parry from a smaller fall (Gravity Denial), if you have your parkour charged. Great way to add even more style to your fights!
  
  

[h2]DIRECTIONAL PULL & SLAM
[/h2]
Another dimension for your chained dagger action! You can pull and even slam your enemies sideways!

• Aim left or right while chaining an enemy and enjoy his gracious directional fall (or slam, if your positioning is perfect ;)
  
  
• The chain visuals have been updated to ensure your view is never blocked when looking left or right while chaining an enemy.
  
• A special red blink has been added to indicate the threshold at which you can slam and dropkick.
  
  

[h2]Improvements[/h2]
[h3]Gameplay[/h3]

• Improved grounded Weapon Dash consistency. You can't dash while grounded to a weapon that's airborne, so to avoid accidental fling offs, the grounded weapon dash was always meant to be your safe option to switch weapons as opposed to the risky but omnidirectional airborne dash.
  
• Object boost is more stable (no more weak boosts when jumping off a barrel while falling).
  
• Enemy (head/body) boost is slightly stronger when you have some horizontal momentum (to match the feel of the object boost and make it more comfortable).
  
• Wallkicking and Boosting now restore your mid-air Weapon Dash. If Dash Recovery can do that, why can't these? ;)
  
• Nerfed consecutive Head Boost (it's a parkour move after all!) + Lancers and Heavies have unique reactions to it.
  
• You can find experimental Stun Jars on Strong Stance.
  

[h3]UI / Menus
[/h3]

• SSS ranks highlighted with a color in the Hubs Selection Menu for a quicker progress check.
  
• Also added a new special glow effect for the SSS rank on the results screen to make it stand out from other ranks.
  
• Your entry in the leaderboards is highlighted with a color.
• Added new option "Strike Cancel" to Gameplay Options, you can set it to On Tap, 0.2s (hold) or Off completely if you never use it other than accidentally.
  
• Changed debug menu open method for Steam Deck / Controllers: hold both left and right triggers for a second.
  

[h3]Enemies[/h3]

• Blessed Spider's explosion can be blocked by enemies and breakables, so there's a small chance that a knocked deadman could become your bodyguard.
  
• When you're in the air, enemies won't jump to reposition themselves if they're too close below you, preventing unfair damage in some tight spaces.
  
• Nerfed consecutive Head Boost, it was too overpowered for a parkour move and too safe of an option on later enemies + Lancers and Heavies also have unique reactions to your next attempt at consecutive boosts.
  
• The armless knight skips the 'wait' phase, which I don't think anyone would miss, since it was misinterpreted as a bug rather than a threatening state as I originally intended :)

[h3]New Style Points
[/h3]

• Chain Sweeper (directional pull), pull an enemy sideways with the chained dagger.
  
• Wall Slam (directional enemy slam).
  
• Gravity Parry a fall damage parry (high fall).
  
• Gravity Denial a parkour-charged gravity parry from a smaller fall.
  
• and Underslide for a slide between Heavy's legs ;)

[h3]Spinning camera / uncontrolled menu selection issue.
[/h3]If you are paying with mouse & keyboard and have another input device connected that is causing these issues, but would prefer to keep it connected, you can disable "Mixed Inputs" by holding F2 at any time. This will prevent the game from reading ANY inputs from other devices that may be causing the incorrect inputs.

[h2]Fixed Bugs[/h2]

• 1/2 A thrown sword is less likely to get stuck in edges, and even if it does...
  
• 2/2 the dash is also improved to prevent clipping the floor/walls.
  
• No more accidental tangent wallkicks on sloping walls when aiming down.
  
• PARRYCORE Achievement fixed. If you don't have the achievement, but are sure you've parried all five enemy types, try deflecting/parrying another arrow and the achievement should be yours.
• Fixed another bug where arenas would end before the last enemy was dead (some specific enemy deaths counted as double deaths).
  
• Fixed a bow parry bug where your stored/fallback weapon wouldn't equip after a parry bow drop.
  
• Fixed a rare bug when you move to a wrong position due to a climb while dashing or dash while climbing.
  
• Fixed a rare Weapon Dash double boost bug.
  
• Fixed a rare frame-perfect quick-restart-during-level-fading bug when the results screen wouldn't show your time.
  
• Fixed a small debug/speedrun timer bug where it would stop counting deaths for a moment after destroying an orb.
  

That's it for now! I've been working on the practice areas and once again the amount of fixes based on your feedback has reached a critical point + I just couldn't wait to share the Gravity Parry! As always, feel free to share your thoughts and thank you so much for playing!

See you in the next update!

Yours
cptnsigh

Let's celebrate
[h2]Five Hundred Reviews[/h2]
Thank you all for your awesome support!
And thank you for nominating Shady Knight for this year's Steam Awards!

Such a perfect time for this artful community update from Katezillla,
the 2D artist behind all the epic shady arts:
[h2]Trading Cards are live![/h2]

And if you want to decorate your shady profile, there are: backgrounds, animated avatars, and my personal favorite, the chained frame!

[h3]Now you can collect Steam Community Items while playing Shady Knight![/h3]
Collect cards, Craft badges, Get rewards. You can learn more about trading cards here: http://steamcommunity.com/tradingcards/

[h2]Let's slide jump right into the 2024 Steam Awards! [/h2]

There's no true triumph in Shady Knight without a path of countless falls, and there's a fun category specifically for that kind of games!

When you reach the flawless state, it's a very special feeling. Quickly dealing with things that seemed untouchable at first. Parrying even the craziest blows. Falling hundreds of times before pulling sick mid-air combos.

You can become a truly unstoppable force of style, and if you know the feeling, please consider nominating Shady Knight for the upcoming Steam Awards!

I've put too much of myself into making this mad mix of physicality, first-person trickery and melee mechanics work as ONE and I'm so happy to see players resonating with the gameplay I've always dreamt of making. Thank you all so much!

I'll be back soon with new updates
Yours
cptnsigh