Hello! This is a short update post to accompany a small patch to the '6-24' Combat Demo, making a few adjustments in response to feedback and fixing some bugs that have been discovered since it's release.  

New Additions:

• Knocking an enemy down by breaking their posture now deals a small amount of additional bonus damage, roughly equivalent to an average heavy attack, with the intent to make them feel a little more innately rewarding, even in situations where the player is unable to follow up with a combo. The amount of bonus knockdown damage dealt can be altered in the difficulty settings.
• A unique shadow sprite with a more visible outline is now given to airborne opponents, to better highlight their position on the battlefield and make it easier to gauge their depth.

Changes:

• Greatly increased the initial stun period from knocking airborne enemies into other enemies, making it easier to follow up with a combo.
• Increased the length of the 'punish' stun of various enemies' attacks, with the intent to make the mechanics of stunning easier to understand and utilize in the early game.
• Some enemies have had their HP slightly increased to compensate for the new bonus knockdown damage.
• Increased the window of time in which Saki's first light attack can be chained into its follow-ups, allowing for a longer gap between the attacks if delayed.
• Slightly changed the Upgrade menu UI to make it easier to distinguish between available and unavailable upgrades. Previously, when highlighting an unpurchased upgrade, it wasn't clear at a glance whether the player met the XP or prerequisite requirements to purchase it.
• On the overworld, added a prompt indicating when the player is within range to interact with a highlighted object.
• Added an additional tutorial on stunning to the first battle.

Bug/Error Fixes:

• Fixed an admittedly hilarious bug in which, if timed with frame perfect accuracy, a deceased enemy could be grabbed out of the air at the exact moment they were hitting the ground, and then attacked and killed again, causing the battle to end early.
• Fixed a bug in which reloading a save file from the game over menu could cause the game over menu to be opened again at incorrect times.
• Fixed an error that caused the player to be teleported out of bounds when leaving training mode in the post-game.
• Fixed a bug in which cancelling an attack with a block would sometimes delay the ability to attack again for longer than normal.
• Fixed an issue in which Keyboard icons would be displayed instead of Gamepad icons in a few menus, including the battle results screen and cutscene fast-forward UI. The fast-forward UI also displayed the wrong keyboard input, which has been mended.
• Fixed inputs not correctly displaying on the "Help" section of the Abilities menu.
• Removed access to the unfinished map menu, which had been left in the demo by mistake.
• Fixed a bug in which the title screen may display incorrectly with the game resolution at 1920x1080.
• Cleaned up some of Leon's sprites.
• Fixed a handful of minor typos and grammatical errors.

This will hopefully be the last update to this particular combat demo. A special thanks to my very thorough playtester and his special ability to break my game in ways I never would have thought possible.

Right now, my focus is shifting back to writing the game's story script. I've just made a start on the game's 4th chapter, and have a very rough estimate of about 35 - 40K words total in the script so far. As always, it's simultaneously a lot of fun and completely exhausting.

I've also recently finished laying out the moveset and basic AI of the game's second major boss fight! The character is one who I've yet to show off anywhere, but might showcase a little in a future blog post.

Thanks for reading!

- Topaz