itch.io

The best place to contact me in private would probably be my Discord account (it's the same name I use here). When it comes to keys, Steam has been a non-option for me for a long time now, for reasons it's probably sensible not to go into detail about on here. Long story.

2nd attack bug: Fixed!
lvl 3 interrupt bug: Fixed!
lvl 3 infinite duration bug: I had it happen once randomly (the first time I launched after installing the new version). Isn't reproducible like it had been with the interrupt bug though. So fixed-ish?

And the ghost hit bug is also less consistent now, but still sometimes happens.

From my testing so far in the new build, the bug never triggers when the combo includes:
-a missed attack.
-a hit which breaks an enemy's guard.
-a hit which kills an enemy.
It also only triggers on an enemy who got a knockback effect from the attack that hit them, which usually comes from the final hit of the combo.
It won't trigger every time those conditions are met, and I don't know what, if any, other conditions might be relevant. When I knock an enemy back and they end up next to a second enemy, sometimes the ghost hit will stagger both of them, but that's not consistent either.

So... more desktop version weirdness. Both of these, I've tested on the web version and confirmed they're exclusively happening on desktop.

-The 2nd attack in the combo still passes through 0-block enemies without killing them. This was an old bug, still happening consistently.

-If you land all 3 hits of your own combo on an enemy, and it doesn't break their guard, there's a 4th "ghost hit" on them after they get knocked back. Sometimes, it hits multiple enemies if they're close together.

And a fun one which happens in both versions:
-Activate level 3 divine flame, while at least one enemy is still in a death animation, and get a firefly.
-Get killed while the ability is still active, which makes it vanish.
-Resurrect, because you got a firefly.
-When the timer should run out on the level 3, you collapse as if it's still going.

I also had it glitch out once after triggering this bug on desktop, where the next time I summoned the level 3, the timer didn't trigger. Doesn't seem consistent on this, though.

lol and right before I post this (but after I downloaded) you nerfed it... perfect timing! xD

Oooooh!
This does feel a little OP rn, but cool!

That makes sense. If you can only counterattack off the final hit in an enemy's combo, that's already consistent. It's just consistent in a way players will learn over time. A lot of games have mechanics like this, or ones where you can counter some enemies anytime, but others only off certain attacks.

After further experimentation on this... it's only possible on the final hit of the 3-hit combo, that thrust is the only one you can counter.

What about the downward slash which chains off a parry when they don't have 0 defend?

It's a downward slash, not upwards. But yeah, it's triggered by hitting the attack button right after the parry.

Just in case, I checked and it works in the browser too, not just the downloadable version.

...and I found the directional parry counter that lets you slice an enemy's back instead of their chest O_o

So while experimenting with parries and fighting with the weapon sheathed... I realised a well timed attack as you're parrying will perform its own unique follow-up which has the same diagonal cut kill animation as the (missing on the downloadable version) second combo attack.

So all the combo attacks have a second way to get the same kill animation.

With my previous 420 kills, I didn't realise it was going to get that much more difficult... but I did it!

O_o nice!

If it helps for investigating the problem, I just turned on a framerate monitor to check. And it was a solid 239 with occasional steps up to 240 (I have a 240Hz monitor so that's normal for me to see in games which don't have an arbitrary lower fps cap).

I'll try and get a video soon, but for now...

It's in the downloadable version, if that makes a difference.
EDIT: Just tested on the web version and... it does make a difference.
NEW EDIT: Video!

I've tested it multiple times in the training area and the survival mode. Can't get the second combo hit to land on an opponent who's vulnerable. It doesn't help that the first hit being the one to break an enemy's guard will interrupt your combo to knock them back, but even so, following up by whiffing the first swing means the second attack can pass all the way through the opponent's body without registering as a hit. With the right positioning, a parry into a combo has the same result. Opponent is knocked back by the parry, out of reach for the first swing of the combo, but the second attack passes through them without killing, and it's always the third hit which kills.

And when I say "passing through" it can be anything from the tip slicing through the front of the body where it should be catching the front few pixels of the torso, to the blade being visible sticking out behind the opponent, and nothing works.

Might be a hit detection problem in the current build? It registers for enemies blocking it, though.

Fun trick.
Press 1.
Press esc.
Opening the menu while paused unpauses.

The first attack of your basic combo and the jumping slash share a death animation.
The third combo attack shares its death animation with the non-focus sword draw attack.
The the focus+block attack and the sprinting slash share a death animation.
The sheathed and unsheathed focus+slash attacks each have unique death animations.
The basic flame attack, and the first and second level focus+flame attacks, all have unique death animations.
Focus+up and focus+down both have unique death animations, and focus+down has a second version of the death animation if you follow it up with a kick.

If there are more than those 10, I haven't found them yet.

Other than the focus+down>kick animation, kicks don't have any death animations, which makes sense because they're clearly non-lethal attacks. Weirdly, though, the second combo attack isn't capable of landing a killing blow either (but does damage enemy block). Taunts obviously also don't kill. Especially not the one with your weapon sheathed, but it's nice to do this anyway. You can't attack while ducking, and jumping onto enemies doesn't kill unless you do the jumping slash attack (but jump+kick has surprisingly good knockback).

Not yet! I commented on it in one of the update posts (12/23/24) and the dev confirmed it's coming "soon".
EDIT: Not sure why the site didn't show my the devpost until after I replied but... yay! O_o

Being 90% makes a lot of sense for what I've been seeing, it did seem higher than 50 xD thanks for confirming that.

And more importantly, thanks for a really fun game!

Getting the hang of things...

Best result so far on the new update. I'm liking the new changes, takes a lot more effort to stay in the fight!

-quickdraw is unblockable but only affects one enemy

*USUALLY* only hits one, but... sometimes you get lucky...

Also... that was my first time since trying the new build that an enemy *didn't* spawn a firefly... so it's definitely not 100% spawn rate. Might have just had the coinflip go my way about 300 times in a row? xD

I have changed my opinion slightly on the above. Blocking or parrying a kick doesn't look right. Blocking and parrying sword attacks does though.

Also, I think you bumped the spawn rate for fireflies to 100% somewhere along the way, but the cap is only 3 now.

After some experimentation...

Sheathed blocks and parries don't have their own unique animations, but they look smooth coming out - it's just the teleport back into the sheathe that looks wrong. Could be fixed by triggering the weapon drawn state when successfully blocking or parrying an attack.

Also, getting kicked with your weapon sheathed still uses the animation where the weapon is out.

Basically, they have 2 ranges. First is the blast radius, and inside that, is the radius where you trigger the self-destruct timer. If you're inside the blast radius, but outside the self destruct range, killing them deals damage to you, without any prior warning.

I agree that it's harsh, but there is a mechanical reason why they sometimes kill you without lighting up.

That said, with the new block mechanics, it feels like the sheathed focus attack might be impossible to get kills with at the moment.

It's starting to feel like I can choose a kill count at which I'm happy dying... I may be playing this too much xD

"When it's ready" - don't feel like this is rushing you. You're doing great!

Disappointed to hear about this game and look it up to find "moved to steam" instead of expanding the availability. There are a variety of reasons for people to avoid Steam in recent years (not the least of which being the fact that Valve has been knowingly harming their customers for over 5 years now...)

I hope you bring the game back to a storefront that's not a pile of trash. There's a lot of advantages to using Steam, but there's good reasons for some of us to avoid it (like, for example, the storefront not actually providing any safe way to access the games you buy there... kind of a big one).

Another thing to note: If you do slice an enemy then kick them from behind, the skeleton still comes out their back, flying through you and landing behind you instead of flying in the direction you kicked it.

Current feedback:

Shift+down feels a bit too strong. Decapitation can be ducked by enemies, thrust can be blocked, but the down slash is a guaranteed kill if you're in range, and you can follow up with a kick to stun an enemy behind the one (or sometimes 2 or 3) you killed.

Bath is broken. No haiku timeout. Can't get past the door. It opens, but doesn't let me through.

Bowing is cool. Phoenix and dragon attacks are cool. All the animations are cool. Enemy block animations are cool. Kicking skeletons out of enemies is cool. Game is just cool. xD

Really looking forward to the addition of music/sounds, cleanup of the spawn mechanics, and hopefully further improvements to the combat system in the game.

This looks painful...

Can confirm First Cut is a lot of fun. Unfortunately, I can only play the itch.io demo version, not the "finished" game, since the dev hasn't made that available on here yet, and Steam exclusivity means it's not an option for some of us -_-

Good luck with the Steam launch, but please *don't* move the game exclusively onto Steam. It's been having growing numbers of problems for some people in recent years (including being a literal health risk in some cases, locking some people out of our existing game libraries and making it functionally a non-option for any future purchasing).

Definitely having fun with the new updates... xD