Shady Knight News

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

[h3]Style Points[/h3]

• Improved conditions and description for Flying Death bonus style point. This style point was originally related to the old arrow kick mechanic, so it has been repurposed in the latest big patch. Feel free to check out this hint if this is the only one you're missing both you and your target should be in the air
• Fixed Kicked Shield, when used against heavies, kicked shield weren't able to knock a heavy as other weapons.

[h3]Small Bugs
[/h3]

• Fixed persistent Pause Menu bug when pressing Quick Restart and Back at the same time from the options menus
  
• Fixed a small visual bug with the combo meter on high numbers. The maximum visible combo is now X300, One Hundred is probably the only place where you can get such a combo ;)

[h3]In-game Timer[/h3]

• Debug/Speedrun timer now works in the Nexus when entering from hub exit portals
  
• The timer can be activated on Steam Deck / Controller from the Debug Menu (hold LT on the main screen)
  

Hi everyone!
I've been working on the new practice mode and I still need more time to finish it.

In the meantime, I've prepared a ton of neat weapon improvements, style point fixes, bug fixes and more.

[h2]Weapon Improvements[/h2]
[h3]Strike Cancel[/h3]
If you've ever had that moment when you're charging up a strike and suddenly there's no one to hit, or you've changed your mind on the fly, you've had no choice but to release your strike. That was before...

Now you can cancel the current attack (while charging/holding it) by pressing an opposite key (throw/strike). Each weapon has a special spin animation to indicate the cancellation and add a new verb to your creative expression : )



[h3]Dagger[/h3]

• Slightly reduced cooldown after grappling an enemy (when grounded and mid-air),
  
• Holding jump while finishing the chained dropkick allows you to get a vertical boost (instead of a knockback)! It's a small special variation to the move to make even crazier combos possible.
  

[h3]Bow Improvements[/h3]

• Now you can fire the basic bow shot MUCH faster, this quick shot does less damage (like with a quick sword slash), but allows you to juggle enemies and react quickly to jumping enemies, or you can wait a bit and charge it for full damage,
  
• A jump instantly charges your first basic bow shot to the full damage,
  
• Added new sound for the Rapid Three strike.
  

[h3]Fixed Spear[/h3]

• Your first move on a jump should always be Stingray (the piercing move). There was an inconsistency where you would charge Sweep instead. Fixed now.
  
• Fixed. Spear clipping trough walls when thrown too close to a surface,
  
• Fixed small visual bug when spear appears more thick.
  

[h3]Shield Improvements[/h3]

• Stamp is triggered not only by knocked enemies, but also by jumping enemies,
  
• Stamp Slam is more consistent,
  
• Air Parry now works with the shield(there was no knockback in the air).
  

[h3]Style Points[/h3]
There are special achievements for unlocking ALL style points in each category (Actions, Parkour, Chaos, Bonus). These achievements are really hard, but having 0.0% completion in 3 out of 4 of them seemed very suspicious. If you are just one or two style points short in some categories, you should be able to unlock them now! Hints below:

• Fixed Object Slam style point,
  
• Fixed two missed chaos points: Flaming Domino, Friendly Fire,
• Fixed Crashed. Now called Surface Bounce (it's a non-lethal crashing kick).

Other SP changes:

• Fixed the description for Crashing Kick (it only triggers when lethal),
  
• Kicked Arrow is now Kick Parry (a well-timed kick to send back an arrow or blessed heavy projectile),
  
• Added New Air Parry style point. This move deserves its own

[h3]Flow improvements[/h3]

• You can slide immediately after an edge climb (just hold the key in advance, like with slide on land),
  
• You can slide immediately after dashing to a grounded weapon,
  

[h3]Other Things[/h3]

• Improved Headless. They can now turn 180 and slash when you approach (you don't have to collide with them, they'll hear you). Now they are more comfy, to practice parry for example,
  
• It takes a bit less time for Deadmen to turn around after their pierce strike.
  
• You can't slam a barrel if there's no ground underneath it, you'll just pull it towards you instead (just like with enemies),
  
• Debug/Speedrunning. Hold TAB to activate in-game timer with a kill counter.
  

[h3]Steam Deck / Controller
[/h3]

• Jumping off Ropes & Chains is now triggered on button press (not on release) to avoid accidental jumping off.
  
• The Ropes & Chains option is hidden from the options as it only works for keyboard & mouse controls.
  

Whew... that was a big one.

Let me know how the new Strike Cancel feels. At first I only made one animation (for the sword) as a test and was wondering if it was worth including in this patch, but when I turned it off I immediately missed this feature, sounds like a good sign!

Yours.
cptnsigh

• New AIR PARRY improvement. Parrying spikes gives you the same vertical boost as parrying a jumping enemy.
  
• The chained dropkick softlock (when you stuck with swaying camera) when an enemy warps while you dropkick. Hopefully fixed for good!
  
• Improved stagger wave on slams. Slamming an enemy will stagger nearby enemies in an area around the slam's hit position.
  
• A successful dropkick will also stagger nearby enemies (within a smaller range than a slam, but still) to avoid unfair damage if you dropkick an enemy surrounded by other baddies.
  
  
• Some bugs are just so rare and crazy. Check out this one. Fixed. A quick restart during the process of slamming an enemy (the slamming process usually takes less than 0.2s) would prevent you from harming this particular instance on an enemy on your next run, but only when it's being knocked, i.e. it's still killable, but not when it's falling. Only in Shady :D
  
  
• Fixed Style Point. Thrown Weapon sometimes counts as Kicked Weapon style point.
  
• Fixed. Wrong number of filled orbs on the exit Nexus-portal on WRATH.
  
• Knocked heavies can be killed with a falling crate.
  
• Fixed. Enemy introduction arenas (first arenas on hubs) would sometimes end before the last enemy was killed.
  
• Fixed. inconsistency of the new Damage On Focus = OFF option.
  

Yours,
cptnsigh