Shady Knight News

Hi everyone. Let's start with the fun things first.

• [h3]NEW Air Parry[/h3] You can parry a jumping enemy in the air by holding a strike. I've been thinking about how to reduce the unfairness of some mid-air collisions with enemies. The main point is to help with unexpected enemy jumps, but nothing stops you from using it as an actual move.
  
  
  
  
• Touching an enemy during a sword air strike will force you to land (if possible) to avoid losing momentum. It's a subtle change, but if you've ever bounced or slipped off an enemy's collider while delivering a powerful overhead chop, you'll notice the difference ;)
  
• Added an option to tweak the duration of Focus On Damage: 3s, 2s, 1s or OFF. The new option can be found in Pause Menu > Options > Gameplay
  
  
  
  
• Burning enemies are counted as DEAD when the orb is destroyed. As with falling enemies, you don't need to wait for burning enemies to die if you want to be fast and flawless!
  
• You can revisit the endings at any time by pressing 'Continue' on the Results Screen after completing the final levels (Broken Knight, One Hundred).

[h3]New Enemy Behavior Improvements
[/h3]

• Heavies can't use their bash (step forward) strike while you are in the air (to prevent unfair bounces)
  
• Lancers can't roll towards the player when too close (to prevent unfair damage)
  
• Fixed inconsistency with grappling knocked down heavies
  
• Enemies can only jump on and off platforms one at a time to prevent unfair jump spamming. Combined with the new Air Parry move, you now have far more chances to recover from an unexpected mid-air collision!
  

[h3]Bug Fixes[/h3]

• Fixed sleepy knights. Some enemies weren't able to stand up if there was a barrel or something nearby.
  
• Fixed bug where a falling enemy would trigger Terminal Velocity multiple times.
  
• Fixed a rare bug where Enemy Introduction Arenas (the first level in Hubs) would end before the last enemy was killed.
  
• Fixed Broken Circle ending below 100
• ]Fixed ONE HUNDRED achievement if you beat the arena but didn't get the achievement. Try replaying the arena. you'll get your achievement if the arena was completed before.
• Fixed FLOWRIDER Achievement. It was working, but required you to do one of the trials again before the achievement would be granted.
• other smaller fixes.
  

Now I really want to get into making a new practice arena and improving the Style Point UI!

I'm not always able to react to all the comments under patch notes but be sure I read every single one.
Once again thank you for all your support!
Yours,
cptnsigh

More improvements, QoL features and bug fixes.
[h2]New SSShady Leaderboards[/h2]

• You can SSS the Broken Knight. On your second playthrough, the armless battle will end with a results screen once the knight is dead. You may need to watch the ending again, this is just to avoid accidentally skipping the end game achievement.
  
• You can SSS One Hundred. The level is now a truly endless arena. Even after completing all the parkour trails, the fight won't stop until you're dead, and only those who manage to survive a hundred knights will see their names on the new rankings. states until you reach 100, and you won't lose them if you get hit or die. The Flawless Leaderboard counts the time it took you to reach 100.

[h2]QoL Changes[/h2]

• Controller Layout UI, available from Pause Menu > Options > Controller
  
• New UI visibility option. You can hide Style Ranking UI but keep your States Icons by selecting the new 'Show UI' option called 'Only States' in the Gameplay Options.
  
• The leaderboard can be viewed for each rankable level from the Pause Menu.
  
• Cravenness levels show the Results Screen on your second play.
  

There's a similar request to add a style points UI to the pause menu. That UI uses stats that are only available after a level has been completed so I can't move it as is, but I'll try to find a solution for this in the next update.

[h2]New Player Experience[/h2]
All the hubs in the Nexus open one at a time upon completion. While I still like the idea of an open-door approach when you can reach some areas with enough skill, in the case of Shady it was a bad design choice. The very possibility of skipping the first hub, Ignorance, leads to nothing but unfair difficulty and lack of basic knowledge. I hope this fix will help more people get into the game!

[h2]Fixed Bugs[/h2]

• Fixed. Crash floor breaks after a Quick Restart (most noticeable on Overwhelmed)
  
• Fixed. Triggered ballista shoots after a Quick Restart
  
• Fixed. Dancing Blades stopped falling after a few resets + a new hint on how to deal with them when they are loose.
  
• Fixed. A softlock after performing Chained Dropkick on Lancers (if they were killed or rolled during the process)
  
• Fixed. Clipping through the ground on The Orb when sliding under the wooden logs.
  
• Fixed. Walled Weapon Runes gave you a weapon at startup if triggered a moment before a Quick Restart.
  
• Shield slide throw now works with the grapple.
• + Some minor issues
  

Almost two weeks after release, but it feels like two months and my to-do list isn't getting any smaller haha. Thank you so much for playing! I'm so happy to see more and more amazing runs and awesome speedruns
Yours,
cptnsigh

[h3]Quick Fixes[/h3]

• Blessed Aura v2. The first iteration was barely noticeable from above, making it hard to spot Blessed during cool mid-air combos. While on the ground, it's also easier to spot the Blessed, as the aura is stronger near the ground, which is much easier to see than the old outline against the bright sky.
  
• Fixed Local & Friends leaderboards. You should be able to see your local position on the global leaderboards as well as your friends' scores.
  
• Fixed 'Back to Hub' for parkour trials,
  
• The Broken Knight is harder to cheese with Flying Kicks and Head Boosts,
  
• New Hint for the tangent wall-kick on Blessed Heavies.
  
• One Hundred has a death counter (shows each 5 kills),
• Fixed invincibility bug after killing over 100 enemies on One Hundred.

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