Some of the balance changes might not be immediately obvious, so I'll go ahead and list them out for you guys just so you know we're not asleep at the wheel over here. The offscreen indicators got some much-needed love. They now only turn red if the enemy's current move has damage coming up. It will now always show the enemy that's attacking, if one is and one isn't (previously it didn't do that.. oops!). Each one will show a small timer so you can time exactly when to evade or block. Now when you press an offscreen indicator it will dodge towards the enemy or away, depending on whether or not they are attacking (away if they're attacking, toward if they're not). You can tap a white offscreen indicator immediately after a knockdown, for example, to quickly change to the next target, or simply use them to evade offscreen enemies that are attacking. In addition, the basic corrupted (shovel/pitchfork variety) got a pretty huge nerf to their offensive power. The range on their non-leap attacks was cut way down and all their attacks pick a target movement position much earlier in the attack, making them a lot easier to dodge. On top of that, we added taunt startup to all of their attacks that had short startup before their active frames, so they "tell" way earlier when they're going to deal damage. In all, it's much easier to avoid their attacks. The delay on movement alone makes it so you can basically just walk around and not get hit. To even that out a little, we made them a bit more aggressive: they attack a little bit more often, but miss way more often and you can always tell when they're going to attack. In line with general combat improvements, we went through and improved dodge and block cancel times: it's easier to doge, block, and walk out of many attacks that previously seemed to force you to stand still during their recovery frames. We also made it much easier to combo in general. Where previously only the charged fist version of the punch could combo into starting blade attacks, now any punch can. Previously gunshots could only combo from starting blade attacks, and now they can cancel out of any non-finisher blade attack. Essentially, this means you can now use a punch or gunshot (or series of gunshots, just leaving out the last "reload" shot - depending on your upgrade level of Quick Draw) to "reset" your combos, so long as you reset before one of the finisher moves (spin, stab, or the knockdown downward finisher). We realized that without a combo list and without a way to discover attack strings outside of combat (i.e. in a no-stress/no-risk scenario) it was a lot to ask from our players that they try all the different attack strings to find the ones that chain into one another, so now they pretty much all do. This should also help out with the feeling that input is unresponsive. With a gamepad you would know that you hit the button and realize that the attack doesn't combo, but with gesture-based touch there's no such feedback, so it's best to just let it combo (it's a bit more fun too). Like I said previously, we're focusing on the highest priority issues and features first, so feeling of responsiveness and general combat polish are pretty high on that list. Note that these things are requisite precursor changes to any alternate control schemes we'd want to try out since everything listed above affects perceived responsiveness of the controls and general frustration during combat that we've seen. We'll keep you posted on the alt-controls front as well - there will definitely be news on that soonish. Regen and Second Wind were tweaked for balance purposes, but it's a minor change overall. Second Wind was a bit too strong and kind of boring, so now it recovers 1/2 of the HP you're missing. The lower your health is, the stronger Second Wind becomes. Regeneration, on the other hand, is now a life-steal effect that heals you based on the damage you deal. Both of these changes were meant to address the rather boring turtle-up strategy. Not to kill it entirely, but to make that style of play a little more interesting. Specifically with Second Wind, we wanted to make it sometimes better to save your spirit until your health is lower or maybe use it on a different technique if you're near-full health, rather than always blowing it on healing. As for Regen, it was always extremely powerful but now it encourages a more aggressive style of play, rather than strictly defensive, which we think is a bit more interesting. These changes weren't intended to discourage healing, but to encourage more interesting gameplay and balance out the effectiveness of the defensive techniques with the offensive ones. Keep in mind, combos are much easier to chain and enemies are much worse at hitting you, so this isn't an overall nerf to the player, it's a net buff. Also worth noting, now the max health upgrade (Fortitude) buffs Second Wind, and the damage upgrades (Brute Force and Stopping Power) buff Regeneration. The rest of the changes were subtle, but include enemy type modifiers to add slight variety in the difficulty and behavior of the enemies, and now you must use a punch QTE finisher on an enemy with green stars in order to get a stone fragment from combat. We want to introduce additional ways to earn stone fragments over time, but generally this change is intended to make combat and fragment collection a little more interesting, since the player has agency in the process (i.e. stone fragment drops are not less frequent, they just require player action to "catch" the drop chances). Anyway, thanks for checking out the update, guys - and thanks again for the feedback! P.S. Other BS devs and Kerosene dudes have said this, but we're sorry to those of you with iTouch 5th gen out there - we're just as frustrated with the issue as you are.
First, thanks for the extensive recap of the new update. Im enjoying the game alot and i find it one of the best looking games ever made on ios platforms. But for the ipod touch part, sorry but that doesnt work as an excuse. Dont get me wrong, im saying this with all the respect of this world - but blocking a range of users who own a device instead of another for different reasons doesnt make sense. Countless of developers just opted for a disclaimer in their game description and Kerosene could do the same without bothering much. Example: "Please note that this game needs a A5 powered device to work correctly due to technical requirements and its not possible to make it work on A4 devices or lower due to many factors, including limited ram and power. If you own an old device please dont buy the game. We're sorry for the trouble. Also: "Supported devices: - Iphone 4s, Ipad 2, Ipad Mini, Ipad Third Gen.,Ipad Fourth Gen,Ipod Touch 5th Gen.,Iphone 5" Not everyone is aware of the trick ive discovered which involves ifunbox, althought i tried to spread it around on Reddit, hopefully it will bring some cash to Kerosene as well. EDIT: the game seems to work on Ipod touch 4th gen as well, but as soon you enter the city it crashes, probably due to the 256mb ram. This means somewhat that the game could run possibly on older devices as well.
Hi KingpinZero, We did try that with our soft launch and got hammered in reviews by people getting confused between what Apple displays in iTunes and what we said in our app description. Unfortunately apps live or die by reviews on the store, so we had to make a call on it and decided to hold out on iPod Touch 5 until such time that we feel we can offer a decent experience on the 4 as well (or Apple provides a way for devs to be more specific about the devices they support). If you really do want the app on your touch 5, there are posts on this thread from users who have managed to get it running (and updated) on these devices. [Edit] I see you're one of those describing how to do it [/Edit]
Yup im sure i was not the first discovering the ifunbox trick, but if i was good to know. Its not a big issue installing it thru pc, but its just another step to do in order to play it. I hope in the future there will be good news for everyone.
This is an Apple policy problem. They don't allow to precisely choose which machine the application works on. And, putting a message on top is never going to help avoid people who buy without reading to put bad ratings...
Not sure if this has been mentioned before, are there plans for standard combos to be introduced in an update or Bladeslinger ep 2? This game does not have standard combos so you're slashing wildly most of the time. It can get tiring fast, and this makes the gameplay feel a little unpolished. Also having melee+gun combos would be awesome. For example certain combos could be made to activate card abilities without the need to pause the game. Maybe up-down-up triggers Impale or something.
HEY EVERYONE. The game is now a buck! Can anybody tell me if the most recent update and the price drop makes this worth the time spent to play it?? a developer can also give his point of view
Heheheh it works, awesome! I was pretty bummed when I heard this wouldn't work on 5g iPods. Works just fine so far!
I bought it and now I see the scary tales about controls and crazy camera hadling was true. Also the game still incomplete as there is "coming soon" area in the char menu. Worst experience even for just one dollar.
Give it a bit of time to learn the controls, Kotovsky. We think you'll like them. Protip: Don't try to control the camera unless you're standing still. As for the incompleteness, the game is hours long and pretty deep. But our games are never "complete." We'll be working on Bladeslinger to add more content and improve the game for a long time to come. Hope you stick with it! Brett @kerosenegames kerosenegames.com
If you press a finger during the cutscenes, they are FFWD-able. Brett @kerosenegames kerosenegames.com
Just bought it for a buck and I love it. I think the controls are almost perfect. The only problem is the punching and dodging sometimes get mixed up but it doesn't happen very often. The controls just clicked for me I guess.
is there a satisying conclusion or is the coming soon part that i am hearing a really bad cliffhanger im not one for episodic gaming ... cuz then on top of new releases every week i have to keep track of wen new episodes come out n i only have so much money! lol
No, you're left in the middle of the story. I think 1 buck is the right price considering the length of the game, the IAPs and the overall fun you may have with it. (No IAPs required if you get the Infinite Second Wind or Infinite Regeneration from the start, without those, this might be challenging).
Regeneration and Second Wind are cards you unlock by completing some actions(mini challenges) then buy with game money as consummable(one time use) or buy with shardes to use as many times as you want(Infinite use) -Game money: 1. earn at each encounter you win 2. IAPs -Shardes: 1. find them in the chapters (3 fragments making 1 sharde to find by chapter) 2. some encounters give you one at the end 3. knocked out ennemies with green highlight gives you a fragment if you finish them. 4. IAPS. So Regeneration card requires 4 shardes if I recall, whereas Second Wind requires 6 shardes. You should be able to buy ONE card with Infinite use. Several might be hard as you also need to invest in power ups.
