New Challengers Update

Mega Knockdown's roster is finally expanding! Maria is an oppressive rushdown character, and Nils is a zoner for the true "Charge Character Sickos." We're hoping to add even more in the future. In addition, this update has a bunch of visual improvements and quality of life changes... including Mac support!

New Character: Maria

• Dr. Maria Flaskin is an aggressive midrange character with tools to quickly close the distance with an opponent. She's also Noel's estranged sister.
• Make Me Beautiful is a spin move that sends her flying toward the opponent, creating a big hitbox that can knock down. It does a lot of chip damage, but is somewhat unsafe on block unless spaced or used meaty.
• Cruel Intentions lets Maria pull the opponent in with her whip for a guaranteed follow-up of your choice. Get over here!
• Heart Breaker blasts the opponent back if they're in a punish state. Near the corner, it does a wall bounce for extra damage and a closer knockdown. Go away!
• Family Ties lets her knock down jumping opponents when she uses her B attack--for instance, when opponents try to jump over Cruel Intentions.
• Maria can be unlocked in single player by beating Noel's arcade mode, or clicking "unlock everything" in options. All characters are unlocked in mulitplayer modes.
• Note that Maria is wearing Noel's hat and glasses in a few animations. These sprites are placeholders that we plan to replace in a later update.
• Lore: While her twin sister Noel pursued her passion for botany, Maria followed in her family's footsteps to study medicine, with a specialization in plastic surgery--eliminating the body's imperfections. Montero pays her top dollar to keep his farm hands "camera ready."

New Character: Nils

• Brother Nils Woolworth is a cultist who fights with the power of Swede-Fu. In fighting game terms he's a zoner and a 'charge' character.
• Nils needs 'charge' to do his special moves, or to get the most damage out of his combos. This is a little technical, so to learn more, scroll down to "Charge and You" at the end of this bulletin.
• Natural Light, is relatively fast projectile that's advantageous on block, and can even hit jumps at certain spacings (similar to how Street Fighter's Guile can threaten a Flash Kick after a Sonic Boom from far enough away). It requires at least half charge.
• Void Cutter is a solid invincible reversal, but it requires full charge to use.
• Advance Base is a little underwhelming as an attack, but it lets him move forward on the ground without losing back charge.
• Nils can be unlocked in single player by beating Nick's arcade mode, or clicking "unlock everything" in options. All characters are unlocked in mulitplayer modes.
• Lore: Nils lived in Greenville most of his life, where he formed an unlikely friendship with Nick. A couple years ago, he left on a religious mission trip to Sweden, where he fell in cahoots with an ancient Order worshipping eight mystical "Devas." Montero invited him back to Greenville for the tournament so that he could prove himself worthy of learning the secret of the Order's "Eight Relics."

"Salty" Win Screens

• At the end of a match, there is now an all-new win screen.
• The loser gets the last word! Each possible matchup has unique dialogue from the loser.
• This change comes together with a slight redesign of the end-of-match menu and score display.
• A new music track by ytknows (who composed the title music and other themes) now plays when you win or lose or match.

Stage Updates

• Lewis, Billy, Noel and Maria have updated stages. None of these are totally final yet, but we're making progress.
• Lewis has a revised Planetarium with a full color background.
• Billy now has The Grind House, a grappler gym. This one is earlier in development so it's still in grayscale. The 3D elements were made by Alan using SketchUp, an architectural 3D software.
• Maria gets Billy's old Bridge, but totally redrawn with crowd extras, some of whom are animated.
• Stages have been rearranged slightly in the char select menu.

Menu Updates

• New key art "busts" have been added to Character Select.
• The "versus" transition screen now appears between fights in Arcade mode.
• In the Online Lobby, you can now enter the Character Select screen to select your character and color, instead of using a dropdown.
• In Local Versus mode, the score for both players remains visible until someone goes back to Char Select, at which point it resets.
• Some menus now use 16:9 resolution as a baseline instead of 800x600, leading to more consistent resizing. Sorry, ultrawide is still not supported.
• The buttons in the Online Lobby and Lobby Browser now look more like buttons in other game modes.
• In an Online Lobby, the options/replay music "GREENVILLE NIGHTS" now plays.
• If you join an Online Lobby while a match is in progress, a few of the buttons will turn off to reduce the likelihood of certain issues.
• Added a loading message to Replay browser when you start a replay.
• Added additional sounds to menu navigation. Menu navigation sounds are now a little quieter.

In-Game Visual Updates

• Lewis, Nick and Paul now have proper idle animations! More characters will get these in coming updates.
• Paul, Nils and Noel now have their own back throws that aren't just modified forward throws. All characters are planned to get these eventually.
• When a character walks, a "dust" effect will appear on the ground briefly.
• If both players stand still, a "dot dot dot" animation appears.
• The "Being Juggled" animation has been adjusted to make air hits look better in most cases.
• Walk animations are now 1f faster (10f), leading to more consistent timing and visuals. Hopefully this doesn't break anything.
• Some of Noel's old palettes have been given to Maria, most notably her Color 2 (which was always Maria-coded). New ones have been added in their place.
• Noel's shoes are now more consistent in their coloring.
• Fixed the ordering of sprite layers when Noel throws somebody

System Updates

• MacOS is now officially supported! It's had some user testing, but if you run into Mac related issues, press F8 while in game to send us a ticket.
• 2560x1440 resolution support added (textures are not any bigger--the game is intended to play in 1080p--but your window can now be bigger on your big resolution monitors).
• Strife Mode now requires all eight characters' arcade modes to be completed to unlock.
• You can now bypass this requirement with the "Unlock Everything" button in Options.
• Expanded translation in a few areas. This update has a lot of new text and most of it has been translated, some of it will have to be translated in a future update.
• More items have been added to the preloader when the game launches.
• Cleaned out some old unused scripts and sprites from the game files.
• Blocking sounds are now a little quieter.

Arcade, Survival and Paul Zone Updates

• New Arcade Mode story scenes added for Nils and Maria.
• The map graphic in Lewis' story scene has been updated.
• A new music track, "SALT STORM" by Nabil "Nabooli" Anthony, now plays in boss fights in Arcade.
• Nils and Maria are now possible Survival opponents.
• Opponents now use a wider range of color palettes in these modes.
• In the Paul Zone, you will now never see the same Paul twice in a row. Each palette has its own Paul Zone specific "salty" loser quote.
• "Healing" in Survival now restores 700hp (up from 300).

Gameplay Balance

• Sweeps ("C" attacks) are now faster and have shorter animations. They are now active on frame 25, rather than on frame 30.
• "C" has always played second fiddle to "B" as a normal attack. This will make them a little more attractive to use, and will help things flow better visually.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where Nick could sometimes walk into the same square as the opponent during an A combo
• Fixed Nick not triggering a step forward during his A combo a the same screen position on player 1 and player 2 side.
• Fixed the scripts which causes menus to default to a certain button.
• Fixed an issue with mousing in the Arcade menu
• Fixed an issue where the current stage was being set every frame in some situations.
• Fixed an issue where the current score display in the HUD was being set every frame in some situations.

This is probably our biggest update ever so there may be some lingering issues--make sure to press F8 to send us a ticket if you encounter any bugs or problems. Or reach out via Discord or post something to the Steam Community forums--I read everything.

International players: our JP, ES and PT-BR translation partners are still working on updating parts of the translation of some of the new content. This will follow in a future update.

Oh yeah, in case you missed it: we'll be at EVO this weekend!
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1492750/view/603035616287916673?l=english

If you're not planning to go to EVO, make sure to join our upcoming Online League, which is free to enter, has no region restrictions and a lore-accurate $100 prize to celebrate 3 years of Early Access. If all goes well we still hope to go 1.0 by the end of this year. League play starts August 8!

Sign up here: https://challonge.com/MegaKnockdownLeague34

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Charge and You: Advanced Strategy Notes for Nils

• Nils is a technical character, and if you've read this far you're probably a little curious how he plays.
• In a real time fighting game, "charge" moves require players to hold down- or back- directions for a certain amount of time before they're usable. "Charging" isn't an action in and of itself, it is almost like a resource that accumulates even during attack, block or hit animations.
• Nils is meant to play like a charge character piloted by a good player who follows the mantra "ABC: Always Be Charging."
• In this game, Nils gets starts the round with full charge (similar to "down+back charge") and loses it by pressing forward. Pressing back also loses full charge, but lets him keep half-charge (similar to "back charge") for his projectiles. Jumping or standing still lets you get or keep full charge next turn.
• If either player is hit or blocks, Nils will get full charge back--similar to how in a real time fighting game, players can charge during hit or blockstun.
• To see his current charge state, look at his character portrait. A Swedish flag indicates full charge, a horizontal line indicates half charge, and a blank blue background indicates no charge. Nils will also crouch if he has full charge, unless he's stuck in a recovery animation.
• This means Nils will usually have at least back charge. When he doesn't have charge, though, he is in trouble!