Mega Knockdown News

Replay Update (Version 0.94)

This may be one of our biggest updates yet! See below for a full list of changes.

New Replay System!

The game will now save logs of your multiplayer matches to your machine.
The logs themselves are human-readable summaries of your matches, including the inputs chosen by each player on each of their turns.
Replays for each saved log may be played back within the game's Replay Browser, now accessible within the main menu.
Replay browsing and playback are likely to expand with new features depending on community feedback.

Mouse Controls

You may now play the game entirely with the mouse!
To bring up the clickable mouse controls, click anywhere on screen in-game. If you like using this control method, you can press the "pin" button to pin the mouse tray to the screen. You can also disable it entirely in the options.
The game will let you freely switch back and forth between using gamepad, keyboad and mouse inputs. Mix and match, do whatever you feel is most comfortable.
Although we don't recommend playing local versus with only the mouse, we're not going to stop you. The game will hide your clicked inputs if you're using the mouse controls in this mode.

Input System Improvements

While waiting for the next turn, you can press and hold down the buttons corresponding to your next input or movement choices. These choices will trigger immediately at the start of the next turn.
Reduced the cooldown between successive input choices from 6 to 3 frames.

Performance Improvements

Packed character sprites into Atlases. This has dramatically reduced the filesize of the game by about %35 overall and significantly improved load times.
The AI now selects its actions once per turn, not once per frame.
In-game music is now "Streamed" instead of preloaded. This should also help to cut down on load times.

New Music

There is a new music track by community member and one-time tournament winner Nabooli. The new track plays in the options and replay menus.
This track can now be enjoyed as part of the Official Soundtrack.

New Save System and Steam Cloud Compatibility

The game will now save data into AppData\LocalLow\Counter Hit Studios\Mega Knockdown instead of your device's registry. This is also where your replays are located.
This change should make the game compatible with Steam Cloud!
Most of your existing saved information will carry over to the new system.

UI Improvements

Certain two-player menus that required keyboard or gamepad input from player 2 can now be controlled with just the mouse.
You can now rebind the menu navigation horizontal/vertical axis buttons for the new menus.
After rebinding some UI menu controls, the selection cursor will now return to the confirmation buttton, as intended.
Improved the labeling of certain moves in the input display.
Sped up the animations of some of the older menus.
Fixed the wording of one of the Main menu tooltips.
The round clock updates at a slower rate. If it would tick twice in 0.25 seconds, it will appear to decrement by 2 seconds.
Stage timer can no longer show negative numbers.

New Prototype Stage: The Planetarium

Lewis' stage is The Planetarium, which has fallen into disrepair over the years through neglect and mismanagement.
You can preview an early version of Lewis' new stage by pressing the period key. The game will remember your choice, and you can switch between his two stages at any time.

Tutorial Changes

Tutorial prompts now ask you to hold, not press, the guide button to see the controls.
Tutorial mission 5 (throws) now includes an extra reminder to look at the controls.

Demo Changes

You can now play as Paul or Marv in this version of the demo.
Your save files and Steam Cloud from the Demo will carry over to the main game when you buy it.
Training mode is no longer playable in the demo.

Online Improvements

If you're playing online, you won't be able to lock in your inputs until the opponent has loaded the match. This will help prevent an uncommon type of softlock.

Balance changes

Billy's armor damage reduction kicks in at 500 hp instead of 900hp. Below this threshold, armor reduces incoming damage to a flat amount of half instead of increasing from 50% to a maximum of 75%.

Visual Tweaks

After an empty walk (walk + block), the game will wait a few frames before transitioning to idle. The effect of this is to stop a flickering idle sprite from appearing when rapidly chaining walk + block.

Bug Fixes

Fixed a bug where Billy could sometimes freeze in place during the Big Billy Buster animation and appear to slam the other player into the ground using the power of telekinesis.
You can no longer use the mouse click an invisible "next mission" button in the tutorial mode.
Fixed desync issue involving Noel's vine and Bullet mode.
Fixed an issue where navigating the training mode menu would lock in inputs for the following turn.
Fixed Jerma Nick morphing into Illustrated Nick during a throw tech.
Fixed Easy difficulty inputs not displaying correctly sometimes.
Fixed the input display not registering some of Paul's moves correctly on P2 side.
Fixed issues with some toggles not saving correctly in the options menu.
Fixed some minor UI glitches in the Rebinding menu.
Fixed a typo in Nick's story mode.
Fixed bug where vine would not damage Marv at all on a Jayne hit.
Fixed bug where Billy would do less damage than intended on a Jayne hit.
Fixed bug where a player could meaty another player on their own wakeup during a double knockdown situation
Fixed an issue where Jerma would briefly morph into Paul during a throw whiff on Player 1 side.

===

As always, if you have comments or encounter any issues, please press F8 in-game to notify the dev. You can also hop on the discord (https://discord.com/invite/bGVftKK) to find matches and discuss the new update.

Mega Knockdown League (Special 1st Anniversary Edition)

Sign up here: https://challonge.com/tournaments/signup/SrmRd3gKkC#/signup/jpnz7igdn9a
The Mega Knockdown League is a friendly online competition that can be played at your own pace. Free to enter. No region restriction. Players must be on the Mega Knockdown Discord to receive communciations.

Prize: First place gets a minimum of $100 USD via Matcherino. Runner-up gets an extra key to Mega Knockdown to give away to a friend.

Format: Round Robin. Participants may be divided into groups if there are a large number of participants. Once the tournament begins, you will have until the end of the month to play a match with everyone else. Matches will be played either over the in game Lobbies. The player with the most match wins will win the league. If the top players are within 1 win of each other, a FT3 Grand Final may be scheduled by the TO.

Disqualification: If a scheduled match is not played by the end of the month, it is either a draw or a win, according to TO's discretion. It is understood that some player matchups may not be possible due to scheduling and time zones.

Tournament Rules

Best 2 out of 3 games per match.
Winner of prior game must keep same character
Loser of prior game may switch character
"Standard" time setting (15 second timer)
Strife mode off
Because this is a "friendly tournament," you may run your set with different rules by mutual prior agreement.

Blitz Update Now Live!

We overhauled Mega Knockdown's optional turn-timer, so now you can play the high-speed "BLITZ" and "BULLET" variants online! We've also added some improved animations for Paul, and reworked Billy's balance.

Improvements to Timed Variants

In online play, lobby hosts can now set a turn time limit.
Like in local play, the options are Unlimited, Standard (15 seconds), BLITZ (3 seconds) and BULLET (1 second). Once a player receives their opponent's inputs, the timer starts ticking down. As in local play, when time expires, the timed out player stands there and loses their turn.
The turn timer is now a progress bar integrated with the input display.
The turn timer now pauses when you're contemplating a punish.
Several under-the-hood changes were made to the "timed out" state for improved stability and online compatibility.

New art!

Improved art and animations for most of Paul's moveset, including his air throw, sweep, jumping A, jumping C, backflip, Paulcano, Firepaul, knockdown, blocks, throws, back walks and throw techs.

Balance Changes

Billy's A attack: Startup decreased from 30f->20f. First hit damage decreased 250->150
Billy's B attack: Startup decreased from 40f->30f. First hit damage decreased 250->150. No longer safe on block.
Billy air throw: Damage increased 400->500
Billy stomp: Chip damage increased 150->200
Billy HP: Decreased 1700->1600
Billy's extremely slow normals made him a very one dimensional character in neutral. He relied a lot on knockdowns and +20 situations to do much of anything. However at a high level, if the opponent wasn't making mistakes and handing him free punishes and frame advantage, he had to make very hard reads to not lose neutral. Now he should have more options in neutral, but his damage/HP advantages are being pulled back to compensate.

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue where round win counts would be incorrect for a late joining spectator.

UI Improvements

The in-game input display now shows the full names of special moves, instead of their internal placeholder names.
You can now see players' ping in the online lobby.
Spectators in online games can now see which player(s) have locked in their moves, and an estimate of how much time is left on their turn timer.

Miscellaneous

Your saved key bindings have been given another one-time reset to defaults to fix a bug with the input system. Sorry!
All in-game sprites have been compressed (losslessly). This is intended to decrease load times.
You can no longer press Block to cancel a punish. This option didn't serve a gameplay purpose, and caused some unintended issues.
Some changes were made to the "training dummy" for improved stability.
Unless you're playing a Jerma mirror match, the overhead side switch icons will no longer display--they are no longer needed if you're using the new sprites.
Removed the ability to lock a keyboard in Versus mode. This was useful as an anti-cheat feature for Steam Remote Play, but these have been replaced by the newer Online Lobbies. On that note, the achievement for locking a keyboard has been removed.
The achievement that triggers when you use Steam Remote Play has been removed. You can still play online with Steam Remote Play, but the Online Lobbies are a much better option.

Version 0.931 Update

Balance Changes

Firepaul damage reduced from 300->250.
This change is intended to bring the damage done by Firepaul more in line with other zoning moves.
Billy Stomp damage increased from 300->350 at range 2. It still does 400 damage at range 1.
Generally, Stomp is used at range 2. This change is intended to increase the reward for using Stomp at its most effective range.

Netcode Fixes

Created a new internal variable to help keep track of when players will need to start listening for remote inputs. This will hopefully reduce the occurrence of desyncs.
Improved the internal logging of Commands/RCP's sent back and forth between players. These logs are automatically attached to bug reports sent to the developer by pressing F8, when problems are found.
Fixed a common 'null reference exception' in the matchmaker code.

Other Updates

Fixed some issues related to mouse clicking in the rebinding menu
Updated the Demo

May Update (Version 0.93)

This update contains some updated in-game art for Paul and Billy, and balance tweaks for competitive play.

New art!

Updated animations for the Big Billy Buster, Paul A & B attacks and combos, Paul's Air Throw, and Paul's walk.

Balance Changes

Firepaul Chip reduced from 200->150.
Previously, this move did so much chip that opponents were forced to take overly big risks against Paul to avoid getting whittled down. Now players can afford to block a couple more fireballs during a match.
Noel Fightning Feet Chip reduced from 100->75 at max range, otherwise it still does 100.
In situations where noel can safely use raw legs, the reward is a little less. Closer up, when she has a knockdown or plant set up, she keeps the full benefit of her chip damage. This might prevent some checkmate situations.
Noel Fightning Feet base damage increased from 200->250, but it still does 200 at max range.
This slightly improves the move's damage when used as a punish, or during okizeme.
Noel setting a plant no longer makes you -10 if the opponent blocked
Setting a plant vs block is a good read, and now you're not penalized for it.
Nick jC chip reduced 150->100
This is in line with making chip a little weaker across the board.
If Billy's HP is below 900, he receives half damage from hits he armors through. If his HP is below 500, he receives 25% damage while his armor is active.
If Billy is at low health, he couldn't really benefit from armor, and he could get stuck in certain checkmate scenarios. Now he can survive an armor trade or two when at low when he still has ~1HP.

Bug Fixes

Put in a potential fix to an issue where some players sometimes had difficulty selecting Rematch in the online mode.
Players should no longer lose the round when at a very small, but nonzero, amount of HP.

Miscellaneous

Your saved key bindings have been given a one-time reset to defaults to account for some input system changes.
Sending the developer a bug report with F8 now sends me a log with more information about the game state, to help me isolate and fix issues.