Shady Knight News

Hi everyone,

I haven't heard of any critical bugs since the last upd, so I took this chance to make this one full of neat improvements. Welcome to the first Quality-of-Life (QoL) update!

[h2]Blessed Improvements[/h2]

• Blessed have an aura effect that should help you identify and prioritize them in the middle of a fight!
  
• Blessed Lancers, Heavies have a different Death Mark for their Skyfall Strike,
• Blessed Lancers, Heavies, and The Armless also have a visual marker at the exact landing position,
• Blessed Spiders show the approximate range of their explosion upon death.
  

[h2]Flawless Run X Falling Enemies[/h2]
Any enemies that are airborne and have no ground far below them will die instantly the moment you destroy the orb! There is no need to wait for them to fall and die. If they don't have a chance to recover, your flawlessness will be unquestionable.

[h2]Wall-kick Range Mark
[/h2]Charging your kick in mid-air now activates a shadow indicator at the range of the wall kick. No more guessing if you have the right distance for a perfect wall kick. You see the blob - you kick a wall!



[h2]Damage X Focus[/h2]
I noticed that Focus was almost never used, and there's a simple reason for that. When the game is hard and you're swarmed by enemies, you don't have time to think of another key. Getting hit only made things worse, slowing you down in a two-hit health system!

What if your reflexes went into overdrive for a split second when you took damage? Now, instead of the basic slow-mo when you get hit, Focus activates with a brief boost to your grounded speed, and enemies fly further away from your strikes, giving you the chance for stylish revenge, not inevitable doom.



[h2]Fixed Achievements: Swift Switcher & Slam Lord[/h2]
Swift Switcher and Slam Lord are now achievable! Sorry for the wait, also check out the description of the second one, the rule has changed slightly to make it more fun.



[h2]Mouse Sensitivity Range[/h2]
The lowest mouse sensitivity is 0.1 (before 0.5).
If you need more precise value (two digits after dot) you can override your mouse sens. from the console:

1. In the main menu press '~'
   
2. type 'mousesens/1.55' to set mouse sensitivity to 1.55

* Reset the overridden value at any time by tweaking the mouse sens. from the gameplay options.

[h2]Other smaller but neat QoL features![/h2]

• Quick Restart can be set to 'On Tap', or '0.2s', '0.4s' if you'd like to keep the restart key close at hand, but avoid accidentally restarting a level during intensive replay. The new option can be found at the bottom of the gameplay options.
  
• Press Attack key after breaking the Orb to skip the delay before fading to the Results Screen.
  
• Flawless and Skull icons will appear in the hubs at the boat portals.
  
• The style system is harder to cheese by repeating bonus and parkour style points without engaging in a combat.
  

[h2]Level Improvements[/h2]

• Improved enemy positioning on The Crown.
  
• Improved King Ballista. Fixed the issue with the enemies' pathfinding, more manageable and noticeable ballista blast! To those who SSS-ed the old version, I salute you, we are the knights forged in the fire of the unpatched King Ballista Blast!
• New hint for Slide Bash on Strong Stance,
  
• Rephrased hint for Tangent Wallkick on Blessed Heavies,
  

Hopefully I can slow down a bit for the updates as I really want to start playing with some new concepts. I think, the first content update will be 99% practice mode related. I am thinking of a special interactive arena where you can experiment and learn all your skills in a safe environment.

Yours,
cptnsigh

[h2]Keeps Spawning In The Void / Progress Loss
[/h2]If you have this problem 'Keeps spawning me in the void. Restarting doesn't fix it.'
and you can't play the game, it is more likely that you savefile was corrupted during the saving process.

Most cases have involved users of Steam's Big Picture mode and Steam Deck for the same reason. Quitting the game from the Steam overlay could interrupt the save process. And you need to reset your savefile.
[h3]for PC[/h3]

1. In the main menu, open a console by pressing '~'
   
2. type 'backup' first and hit enter
3. this is an experimental option, but it can't hurt to give it a try if you can't play because of the infinite spawn problem.
   
4. If nothing, type 'reset' and you'll be able to keep playing.
   

[h3]For Steam Deck / with a Controller[/h3]

1. In the main menu, hold LT until you see a debug menu,
   
2. Same actions, try 'Backup
3. Experimental' first,
   
4. if nothing, 'Reset All Progress'.
   

[h2]Save Improvements
[/h2]From the latest build the game saves more often after completing or quitting any level.
Just in case I'll keep working on the backup function.
[h2]Consistency Improvements[/h2]

• Improved grappling consistency, especially with the Hanging Lanterns.
  
  Firstly, a small tip - tapping the dagger will always be more consistent as there is no window for the connection to break, you will be launched as soon as the dagger hits the grapple point.
  
  If you hold the dagger button you can lose your connection to the point if the angle is too steep, so I increased the angle and added a non-breakable delay to make quick hold + release as consistent as tapping.
  
  
• The lanterns are less swingy and have a bigger collider to make sure there's nothing obscure your connection.
  
• Increased distance for the advanced wall-kicking. The most difficult part of wall kicking is judging the distance. With a greater range, it should be easier to perform advanced wall kicks on sloping walls and tangent wall kicks. In the next update, I'll try to add a visualisation to make it clear when a wall is within reach.
  
• Air momentum Loss with a target FPS above 60. If you struggled with levels such as Warp Jumping or some of the Parkour trials that require more horizontal momentum, you can try replaying these levels. The inconsistency has been fixed.
  
• Lancers have bigger colliders when hit. Hitting them in the air required too much precision and didn't feel right compared to the others. It turnes out that their collider was the same size as the Deadman's.
  
• Your rank can only be lowered after a hit or while using Focus.The moments when you have killed all the enemies with STYLE but lost your SSS run before touching the ORB. You should be able to enter the orb if you wish.
  

I haven't been able to prepare a FAQ/Roadmap yet. It took a while to investigate the savefile issue, which has been my top priority for the last three days, and other consistency moments. I hope these fixes help with both!

Yours,
cptnsigh

After watching countless vids, I saw that for many players, the behaviour of the Blessed Deadman was the furthest thing from my desired gameplay experience. Instead of being a perfect enemy for experimentation, they turned out to be a bottleneck for your creativity. And that is NOT what Shady is about!

The following changes don't affect high-level play, as you still need to use as many moves and abilities as you can for a stylish play, and the enemies aren't weaker, but I hope they will make the game more enjoyable for all players, and help new players get to the true shady experience I indented to make since the day one of this project!

[h2]Enemy Improvements[/h2]
Blessed Deadmen

• They won't block EVERY frontal attack! Combo your moves and show them your wrath: Slash then Kick, Throw-a-Sword then Grapple. The old weaknesses are in power i.e. throwing a barrel or striking from behind are always reliable options!
  
• They won't launch a projectile from behind.
  

Blessed Spiders

• Increased delay before explosion,
  
• Slightly better visuals for differentiation. There will be a better readability improvement for all blessed enemies in one of the future updates.
  

Regular Lancers

• Regular Lancers won't use the Skyfall Strike anymore, they're already an intense enemy and you should have a chance to learn their base moves first,
  
• There's a hint on how to deal with the Skyfall Strike on Carcass before you meet the first Blessed Lancer.
  

[h2]Other Improvements[/h2]

• Taking damage won't stop you from finishing a level with S RANK, a good game is a good game! Only SS and SSS RANKS need no damage!
• Thicker collider for ZipChains, as most of the time you land on them with a high fall momentum,
  
• Slightly thicker collider for the Climb Chains,
  
• Kicking a barrel/object now stuns an enemy, to make this move a bit more special compared to the easier-to-perfom object throw!
  
• Fixed consistency of the boat launch. The arc when entering a level for the first time (the boat cutscene) was slightly different from subsequent runs.
  
• Slide Slam has increased distance and angle to make slide slamming more doable/fun mid fight.
  

[h2]Fixed Bugs[/h2]

• infinite Chained Dropkick (when an enemy dies during the dropkicking)
  
• inconsistent boat launch. The arc when you first time enter a level was slightly different from the next ones due to boat arrival cutscene.
  
• Fixed bug when combo x99 and higher would break the Arena

[h3]Improved levels[/h3]

• Added more necessary gameplay hints for the last two hubs.
  
• Slightly improved Nexus layout with a clear indication of which hub portal is the next one.
  
• Once you've completed a hub, you'll see a warp point next to its entrance portal, allowing you to warp to the exit in the blink of an eye!
  
• The last parkour challenge Living Stairs was impossible! SORRY if you tried to complete it, I know you were flawless! The level layout was improved. The shadow has a correct target time.

There are many question regarding adding a complete move-set list to the game, a sandbox arena, etc. so I think my next post will be a roadmap / my plan for the first content update.

I need some time to recharge and play some amazing demos now.
[h3]As always thank you for playing and for all your amazing reviews!
[/h3]

Yours,
cptnsigh

If you have a problem with hubs portal being locked/uncomplete after beating a level, please make sure you have the latest build.

All completed levels should be marked as completed (you will see filled glowing orbs above the boats), and the next level will be unlocked.

[h3]Improvements
[/h3]

• Improved Spider behavior (too aggressive for new players and even for bigger fights),
  
• Slightly slower bite attack,
  
• Slower jumps to make them more avoidable and fun for perfect sword throws,
  
• When many only ONE can jump at a time to avoid unfair jump spamming,
  
• Thicker rope colliders,
  
• Increased impulse for the advanced Dash Recovery move.
  
• The final boss is locked by the hubs. You don’t need high ranks to unlock the fight, but at least beat all the levels.
  

[h3]Fixed bugs
[/h3]

• Fire Jars stop working after a few resets,
  
• Reaching x99 combo on the secret arena is breaking the gameplay (stop being TOO good!),
  
• Spear Parry counted as Sword Parry,
  
• Results screen didn’t show the Green Frame when run is Flawless (after the first time).
  

[h3]Hints and Level improvements
[/h3]

• Improved WRATH hub traversal bits,
  
• Slightly reworked Ballista Glade tower,
  
• New hints on Hunted (Weapon Boost), on Overwhelmed (Dash Recovery), On Blessed Heavies (Tangent Wallkick)
  

My top priority at the moment is the first player experience, as the learning curve in my game is unusual. I see that half of the frustration with the game is a simple miscommunication/lack of direction but at its best and worst, Shady has always been a game full of hard-to-explain contextual tricks and moves. I'll do my best to invite more people into the fun zone.

Thank you for playing!

Yours,
cptnsigh