NEW Gravity Parry & Directional Slams, Tons of Improvements and more...

Let's start with the craziest addition that I can't get enough of.

GRAVITY PARRY

Some may already knew that it is possible to parry fall damage, as any physical strike How to... Consistent Sword Parry

And while it was a fun option to save your flawless run after a high fall, the flow was broken as you had to climb ALL the way back, meaning the risky parry move wasn't really rewarding. Until today.

• Gravity Parry lets you bounce right back into the fight to the height you fell from, if you're willing to take the risk!
• It is also possible to trigger the ground parry from a smaller fall (Gravity Denial), if you have your parkour charged. Great way to add even more style to your fights!

DIRECTIONAL PULL & SLAM

Another dimension for your chained dagger action! You can pull and even slam your enemies sideways!

• Aim left or right while chaining an enemy and enjoy his gracious directional fall (or slam, if your positioning is perfect ;)
• The chain visuals have been updated to ensure your view is never blocked when looking left or right while chaining an enemy.
• A special red blink has been added to indicate the threshold at which you can slam and dropkick.

Improvements

Gameplay

• Improved grounded Weapon Dash consistency. You can't dash while grounded to a weapon that's airborne, so to avoid accidental fling offs, the grounded weapon dash was always meant to be your safe option to switch weapons as opposed to the risky but omnidirectional airborne dash.
• Object boost is more stable (no more weak boosts when jumping off a barrel while falling).
• Enemy (head/body) boost is slightly stronger when you have some horizontal momentum (to match the feel of the object boost and make it more comfortable).
• Wallkicking and Boosting now restore your mid-air Weapon Dash. If Dash Recovery can do that, why can't these? ;)
• Nerfed consecutive Head Boost (it's a parkour move after all!) + Lancers and Heavies have unique reactions to it.
• You can find experimental Stun Jars on Strong Stance.

UI / Menus

• SSS ranks highlighted with a color in the Hubs Selection Menu for a quicker progress check.
• Also added a new special glow effect for the SSS rank on the results screen to make it stand out from other ranks.
• Your entry in the leaderboards is highlighted with a color.
• Added new option "Strike Cancel" to Gameplay Options, you can set it to On Tap, 0.2s (hold) or Off completely if you never use it other than accidentally.
• Changed debug menu open method for Steam Deck / Controllers: hold both left and right triggers for a second.

Enemies

• Blessed Spider's explosion can be blocked by enemies and breakables, so there's a small chance that a knocked deadman could become your bodyguard.
• When you're in the air, enemies won't jump to reposition themselves if they're too close below you, preventing unfair damage in some tight spaces.
• Nerfed consecutive Head Boost, it was too overpowered for a parkour move and too safe of an option on later enemies + Lancers and Heavies also have unique reactions to your next attempt at consecutive boosts.
• The armless knight skips the 'wait' phase, which I don't think anyone would miss, since it was misinterpreted as a bug rather than a threatening state as I originally intended :)

New Style Points

• Chain Sweeper (directional pull), pull an enemy sideways with the chained dagger.
• Wall Slam (directional enemy slam).
• Gravity Parry a fall damage parry (high fall).
• Gravity Denial a parkour-charged gravity parry from a smaller fall.
• and Underslide for a slide between Heavy's legs ;)

Spinning camera / uncontrolled menu selection issue.

If you are paying with mouse & keyboard and have another input device connected that is causing these issues, but would prefer to keep it connected, you can disable "Mixed Inputs" by holding F2 at any time. This will prevent the game from reading ANY inputs from other devices that may be causing the incorrect inputs.

Fixed Bugs

• 1/2 A thrown sword is less likely to get stuck in edges, and even if it does...
• 2/2 the dash is also improved to prevent clipping the floor/walls.
• No more accidental tangent wallkicks on sloping walls when aiming down.
• PARRYCORE Achievement fixed. If you don't have the achievement, but are sure you've parried all five enemy types, try deflecting/parrying another arrow and the achievement should be yours.
• Fixed another bug where arenas would end before the last enemy was dead (some specific enemy deaths counted as double deaths).
• Fixed a bow parry bug where your stored/fallback weapon wouldn't equip after a parry bow drop.
• Fixed a rare bug when you move to a wrong position due to a climb while dashing or dash while climbing.
• Fixed a rare Weapon Dash double boost bug.
• Fixed a rare frame-perfect quick-restart-during-level-fading bug when the results screen wouldn't show your time.
• Fixed a small debug/speedrun timer bug where it would stop counting deaths for a moment after destroying an orb.

That's it for now! I've been working on the practice areas and once again the amount of fixes based on your feedback has reached a critical point + I just couldn't wait to share the Gravity Parry! As always, feel free to share your thoughts and thank you so much for playing!

See you in the next update!

Yours
cptnsigh