New Era Update

Full Color Sprites for Paul

Full overhaul of every single Paul animation. This was a massive undertaking as it required finishing over 100 hand drawn sprites split into lineart and fill layers with palette swap support.
Currently only the default palette is avaialble, or a special alternate palette during mirror matches. We plan to add support for maual color selection in character select later this summer.
In the meantime, we've opened up Paul's character palette to modding. See the Steam Guide for documentation on how to make your own custom character colors.
This is a whole new way of handling sprites in-game, so there might be some issues we haven't caught in testing. We may also continue to fine tune Paul's anims, but likely nothing drastic.
The next character to get final-quality art will be Billy, we're aiming for late summer or so.

Balance Changes

Paul's throw now does push, except in the tutorial. There are now only 2 characters that can do a midscreen throw loop with N+T: Lewis and Nick.
Overall I'm trying to phase out midscreen frame 0 throw loops for most of the cast, and this change is consistent with that.
Firepaul is now -20 at a distance of 2 spaces (was -10) and -10 at round start range (was +10). Beyond this distance it is still +10.
Paul could noncommitally rack up a lot of chip and be at advantage if the opponent blocked his projectile at round start spacing, a really common situation. Now the opponent gets initiative at this range at the cost of some health. Racking up 150 damage in exchange for being -10 at a very safe distance is still a pretty good deal for Paul honestly.
Lewis slide is now safe (-20) at max range, but its chip is reduced.
Stand blocking at max slide distance is not the hard callout it used to be now that 5B is -20 at this range. This change is intended to make Slide more fun and less frustrating to use. Although the opponent doesn't get a free punish at max distance anymore, with 20f of point blank advantage they do get to put Lewis in a tricky spot.
Lewis slide now hits 10f earlier vs other late moving moves (e.g. Lewis specials, Noel flurry).
Lewis' slide startup depends on the spacing between him and the opponent, this is an adjustment of this calculation. Now this move will sometimes trade in situations where it would almost always lose.
Nick now has 50 more HP to reflect how sturdy and strong he is. And to help him make maybe one more mistake or take a little more chip in executing his basic gameplan.
Nick currently needs a little help balance wise as the recent 5B nerf was not great for him. He may see other buffs in the future.
Billy's max Shiko Slam damage is now a flat 350 (was 400 at point blank, which was uncommon). The move's chip was reduced slightly to 175 (from 200).
Shiko Slam is a plus on block low that does a massive amount of damage on hit or block. Billy does need it, but this is in line with recent reductions in chip damage across the board.
Billy loses side switch protection since he has an option to chase down retreating opponents (jump C).
Previously billy could not travel 2 spaces and was vulnerable to timer scams. Now he has a risky option to get back in if the opponent runs away.
Jump C can now hit adjacent air opponents, has 5f faster startup and some character specific properties. Billy, Paul and Nick have vertically traveling jC's that don't reach as far, but do some chip and are -20 on block. Noel and Lewis have more horizontal jCs that do less chip reach a little further on the ground, and can be up to -10 when spaced. Marv still has his unique jC that is plus on block and evades N+B attacks.
Previously jB was the only really consistent jump in and jC was a hard callout to get a knockdown on side switch. Now jC should be more useful in more situations.
Jump B is now -10 when used on wakeup or if your forward movement is totally blocked.
This is meant to reduce the potential reward of jumping while already in someone's face to avoid throws and "beat" blocking. jB is still +10 when used at any other spacing, which is most of the time.
If you are more than 5 spaces away from your opponent (e.g. out of range of all normal attacks) with 10 seconds remaining, the clock will tick at half speed. This is to discourage very passive runaway play with the life lead, which theoretically could be a problem in some matchups.

New Stage

Noel has a new (draft) stage, the Greenhouse. This was a safe haven for many exotic and endangered plants before it was ruined by Montero's thugs. The plants that survived have become twisted and overgrown.
Paul mirrors now take place in the Dojo, because it's a nice looking stage.

Visual System Changes

Adjusted delays and timings of attacks so that many interactions should look more natural. This is an ongoing process and there will be some things that still need to be cleaned up.
The maximum height at which characters can be juggled has been reduced.
Sweeps now have 5 fewer active frames across the board to look better with hitstop
Total duration of some moves such as jA, jC and Firepaul have been reduced slightly by reducing the number of recovery frames. This is a cosmetic change not affecting block advantage, intended to help the flow of the game.
Jerma Paul's throw now hits multiple times. This is a cosmetic change with no effect on gameplay.
Paul's Paulcano dragon punch now does 2 hits. This is a cosmetic change as it does the same amount of total damage even in the rare/unlikely situation that only 1 hit lands.

Improved Localization into Brazillian Portuguese

Under the hood, more menus are now ready to be translated.
Community member and 10+ time tournament winner Stealph is helping translate the game into Portuguese. Paul's story mode and most of the menus are now available in pt-BR. To play in portuguese type -language=pt-BR into the Steam launch options.
We still need to get the in-game text boxes and tutorials ready for translation and that will come in a later update, hopefully this summer. When the game is more or less fully translated, we will make the localization option easier to get to in-game.

Miscellaneous Changes and Fixes

Further optimized the game by packing menu and stage images into atlases to improve filesize and loading times. The filesize went DOWN in this patch to 740MB (from 830MB) despite the many new Paul sprites.
Better console logging during F8 bug reports
jC will no longer play the "switch" animation if the game detects that you will be hit out of it.
The online lobby can detect certain kinds of disconnects better and will respond accordingly, preventing "ghost" players from staying in a match in rare instances.
The Versus screen pops in sooner after character select.
Paulcano is now listed in the training menu as 5f to match its actual startup (it previously said 1f). No gameplay or visual difference here as it is still fully invincible on startup
Revised the wording of the "Different Types of Throws" mission
Fixed bug where you could change characters during the versus screen popup
Fixed a bug where jB was -20 on whiff at some spacings
Fixed a bug where sometimes you get the wrong Tutorial mode opponent
The tutorial mode opponent now lets you hit him in situations where he used to block.