Mega Knockdown News

Our small team (of two) has been working hard on making Mega Knockdown the best it can be. Since July of 2022 we have made staggering improvements to the game, and we hope to make it out of early access next year. If you like the game, why not show us some support with a nomination?

New sprites for Noel (Phase 1)

• Most of Noel's animations have been overhauled with full-color, hand-drawn, finished quality sprites. Some of her animations are not ready yet (mostly her normal attacks) so the rest will come in the next regular content update.
  

New Status Icons

• A new set of icons appear when a player is punished or is at frame disadvantage, replacing the old programmer art.
  
• There are two variants of the frame disadvantage icon. When a player is -20, more minus signs appear compared to -10. The icon also appears more reddish in color. (The old version had two variants too, but they were harder to tell apart.)
  
• The new icons now appear above the characters instead of on top of them, so as to not get in the way of the action.
  
• These icons now appear during replays by default. There may later be an option to toggle them on/off depending on player feedback.
  

Palette enhancements for Noel and Marv

• Noel and Marv now use 10 total colors rather than 8 for their palettes, and there should be better fidelity between the defined palette colors and what is rendered in game.
  
• These additional colors give better flexibility for alternate palettes, including user created custom palettes. For instance, Noel's lips used to be locked to the same color as her shirt. Now they are on different shades.
  
• Most of the default palettes for Noel and Marv have been adjusted slightly to account for their access to more colors. For instance, Marv and Jayne now have green accents in their Color 6.
  
• Noel has a new "armor" palette that appears for a brief instant if her Plant Armor triggers.
  

System changes and fixes

• While a player is hit by Noel's rapid whip attacks, their position will jitter slightly. Additionally, the "knockdown" animation will now only trigger on the last hit.
  
• Fixed an issue with Paul sometimes snapping slightly below the stage if Paul is hit during a specific frame of Paulcano.
  
• Paul's back throw has been adjusted in appearance slightly. It is still somewhat of a placeholder, like other back throw animations.
  
• Hit sparks have been moved forward in the sorting order so that they aren't drawn under the hit player's lineart. This behaviour may need to be revised more in the future.
  
• Fixed some odd knockback effects during Noel's Fightning Flail
  

Full color sprites for Lewis

• This patch marks our 4th character with finished art: M.M. Lewis!
  
• A few of Lewis' moves have new effects, namely his throw and PileDebunker. Also, his slide has a new look, and sports afterimages like all other "late moving" attacks.
  
• Of the starting 6 characters, this just leaves Marv and Noel. Both of these characters will be technically challenging to animate because of their designs, so we plan to work on them in tandem. It may be at least 2 months befoe Noel or Marv is finished.
  

New air throw for Nick

• Nick's visuals were technically unfinished in the last couple patches because his air throw was not complete. Hence overnight we have gone from 2 to 4 visually 'finished' characters.
  
• Functionally the move is the same as before, but it has gained an extra visual flourish: after throwing the enemy down, he will descend into a butt slam on top of them.
  

Gameplay and System Changes

• Lewis' slide attack, Slippery Slope, has been adjusted to be more predictable and consistent. Startup speed is now 35~45f depending on spacing (ranged from 25~55f before). Slide no longer has bonus speed vs other late moving attacks, except Lewis' backward moving specials. Slide's speed used to be adjusted by +10f if the opponent walked backward or reduced by the same amount if they moved forward, now this modified is halved to 5f. This modifier cannot reduce the startup below 35 or above 45.
  
• Nick's A combo now always steps forward if there is room. Previously he would not do the step if he was already in Cheesy Dust Loop range.
  
• The Tutorial UI's alignment has been adjusted slightly.
  
• Hitboxes are now drawn behind the UI once again.
  
• The slurs plugin in the online lobbies chat has been replaced with a new one that is less likely to trigger false positives.
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a literally four year old bug where, in situations where players are three squares away and both jumping toward each other, Player 2 would get priority for the square in the one specific screen position where Player 1 was supposed to, creating a very slight screen position advantage for Player 2.. at least on paper.
  
• Fixed an uncommon softlock that could sometimes occur when whiffing a move in a punish situation.
  
• Fixed a turn order glitch that would occur if the player spammed low attacks vs a neutral jumping training dummy
  
• Fixed a hit detection problem causing asynchronous trades in some anti air situations.
  
• Fixed a problem where characters were reacting to grabs out of sync with the grab in some cases.
  
• Marv jC is now consistently -20 for both Player 1 and Player 2. Previously there were some specific ranges where it was plus, and these were not consistent among both players.
  
• Player 1 can now break Noel's plant armor. Player 2 already could do this, but there was a bug on P1 side.
  
• Fixed Noel's attacks causing no hitstop during a plant assisted combo.
  
• Fixed Noel's opponent taking attack damage plus vine damage if her vine traded hits with a 10f attack, but her actual attack was slower than 10f.
  
• Fixed player 2's animations (only) getting delayed in a vine trade situation.
  
• If Noel whiffs jA but hits with Vine, she can still pick up a high damage OTG combo afterward into knockdown, but this no longer includes the damage of her whiffed jumping attacks. This interaction is a little bit unintended so we may revisit it in the future.
  
• Fixed two Noel players sometimes doing inconsistent amounts of knockback on each other if they hit each other with vines while doing other, slower (interrupted) attacks.
  
• Fixed Lewis taking less chip than intended when blocking a vine together with a normal attack.
  
• Fixed a problem sometimes causing Lewis to end up in the same square as his opponent while using his Slide.
  
• Fixed Lewis popping forward during Slide when hit by Lewis Fist of Euphoria.
  
• Fixed Slide inconsistently winning or losing vs Fist of Euphoria depending on corner position.
  
• Fixed PileDebunker looking strange while trading with Slide
  
• Fixed Fist of Euphoria having extra range during a punish.
  
• Fixed the coloring of a Paul sprite that didn't have white eyeballs.
  
• Fixed Jerma Nick appearing to teleport forward during his A Combo.
  
• Fixed a flickering hitbox issue sometimes affecting air throws.
  
• The "Punish" label in the input indicator no longer dissapears when a player is hit.
  
• Fixed an issue where, if you're in the Matchmaking Queue and find a match, your lobby might break in the transition back to the lobby scene if the game would try to look for other lobbies in the ~1 frame it lingers in the Lobby Browser scene.
  
• Thanks to community members Sente and hypergrav for helping hunt down several bugs and other issues in the recent weeks. To report a bug or send feedback, you can always press F8 in game.

Meta Changes

• The game has a new icon (featuring Paul) for the .exe, Steam library and Steam community. Goodbye, Knocked Down Stick Figure Man. You served us well.
  
• Mega Knockown now has Steam Community Avatars you can choose for your Steam profile.
  

Bug Fixes & System Changes

• Fixed a bug where Marv jumping C would always beat neutral+B, not just when the B attack is out of range
  
• Fixed a bug where Marv jumping B would play no sound when hitting Marv's Blazing Ent
  
• Fixed issue where Marv would be hit instantly by a vine if it would connect with Jayne's limb. The timing of this hit is now more plausible.
  
• Fixed a bug where Noel's partial Vine damage bonus would stack with the direct hit Vine bonus in the corner (not intended)
  
• Fixed a bug where Noel would add the full damage of her attack to vine damage on a trade, even if her slower attack is interrupted.
  
• Fixed an odd situation where Noelswould not delay the same amount of time if trading vines.
  
• When a trade happens involving a vine, the vine will now knock down more consistently
  
• If Noel's plant armor triggers, she is no longer immune to side switching.
  
• Billy's stomp no longer makes a sound if it is interrupted at the exact wrong timing
  
• Adjusted Nick's back walk to end in the idle pose.
  
• Adjusted timing of anti airing jumping C moves so the interaction looks more natural
  
• If you change the resolution to an approved aspect ratio while you are displaying an aspect ratio warning, it should clear the warning.
  

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Thanks to our community on Discord for finding these issues. You can press F8 in game at any time to report a bug or give feedback.

New Feature: 'Find Match' While Playing Other Modes

• There is a new "Find Match" button in Online mode. This lets you queue up for a match while playing other modes (training, arcade, etc). Other players can see your Lobby listed without you actually having to wait in it.
  
• If a Lobby is open or someone is waiting in Find Match, a special icon will display in the Main Menu next to the Online button.
  
• You can still wait for players in the lobby screen by selecting New Lobby.
  
• Opening the Online Mode now automatically searches for open lobbies. The old "Join Lobby" button is now "Refresh Lobbies."
  

New Stage: CHROMA

• Going back to our roots a little bit here. It's a green screen! On this stage you can take screenshots or videos and easily edit out or replace the background if you want.
  
• Currently the Green Screen Jeremy DLC needs to be active for you to use this stage. It's free, however.
  

System Changes

• Lewis' shoes are now on a separate palette color from his turtleneck. Lewis' shoe color is now different in some palettes as a result.
  
• One new Lewis animation is in. Lewis is the next character who will get finished art.
  
• Billy's fearsome air throw now has a name (Tengoku Chaos Dunk)
  
• Nick's back jump was reworked to have more similar timing to other back jumps.
  
• Improved hit detection when whiff punishing Jayne's limbs after Marv's special attacks.
  
• If the game is launched in an "Ultra Wide" aspect ratio (which is not supported), the game will attempt to correct it to 1080p. This has not yet been tested, so it may not work. Let's just say this is a feature that's in beta.
  
• If the game is changed to an unsupported resolution (such as by dragging the game window), a warning message will display when you change menus.
  
• When using a jumping C attack giving a successful side switch, the displayed hitboxes are now different, though the actual range of these attacks has not changed.
  
• Adjusted frame disadvantage delay in situations where both players walk+block
  
• Your bindings have been reset again to fix a controller mapping issue (sorry).
  

Balance Changes

• Nick's counter hit bonus has been reworked to be simpler. He gets the bonus if his attacks are same speed or faster than the opponent’s, unless it's during a trade or an anti air. (Old rule: nick got bonus damage if his ground attack interrupted another ground attack that would have hit)
• Counter hit damage bonus now 50 (was 100) because this is a much more common situation.
  
• Lewis Fist of Euphoria chip reduced (75->50). This move is just really good, so some toning down is in order.
• Lewis PileDebunker chip increased (75->100). It's supposed to be a big swing, and anyway you eat a big punish when this move is blocked.
• Marv Gravity Spike is now -10 (was +10). This move does everything. It probably does not also have to be plus on block.
• Characters with "short" jumping C attacks (Nick, Paul, Billy) now have extra 1 range against late moving attacks. This is to prevent dead zones vs moves like PileDebunker.
  

Bug Fixes That Also Kinda Affect Balance

• The Big Billy Buster now does the extra 50 damage only when there is a wallbounce. There were a few stage positions where it would get the damage without a wallbounce.
  
• Fixed Marv's Vapor Strike not pushing on hit in some situations (grounded, player 1 side only).
  
• Noel's Fightning Flail now does full damage against jump ins (previously the first hit would sometimes whiff--not intended).
  
• Some low-hitting specials (Lewis slide, Billy stomp) are no longer able to hit Jayne's limbs after Marv's specials whiff. This was notintended.
  
• PileDebunker can now properly whiff punish Jayne's extended limb after Vapor Strike at round start spacing, as intended.
  

Other Bug Fixes

• Fixed a serious misalignment of health bars in 16:10 resolution. This was a new issue caused by rearranging the game canvases.
  
• Fixed a problem where the resolution would update unexpectedly when closing menus for sound, gameplay, etc.
  
• Fixed a problem where dragging the game window to a new monitor would cause the Graphic Options to default to native resolution instead of whatever resolution you're actually using
  
• Fixed directional control bindings for menu navigation not saving properly after closing the game.
  
• Fixed the timing of certain jumping moves when they are jumping over attacks without an anti air hitbox (fireballs, slide, etc).
  
• Fixed sprite positions when Lewis is hit out of his Bravery Step specials (Fist of Euphoria, PileDebunker), or punished when those moves are blocked.
  
• Fixed a sprite error in Nick's low block.
  
• Fixed a sprite error in Nick's wakeup animation.
  
• Fixed a misalignment in the glyph circles in the input display panel.
  
• Fixed not being able to select Color 6 on gamepad while in the online lobby, even if you have the DLC
  
• A timing issue was fixed when using Blazing Ent vs players jumping on wakeup.
  
• "C" attacks are now called "Salty" attacks on the rebinding menu and nowhere else. This is classified as a bug because this change was supposed to happen last patch, but did not because of an error.
  

Special thanks to community member Sente for doing a lot of legwork identifying bugs in the last build.