Long awaited Demo Update

Hey all, thanks for all the valuable feedback throughout the last year. This update should have come a long time ago but we were caught up in some personal issues that took some time to resolve. This game will be finished at some point!

So the largest demo update so far is finally here! Here's what changed:

Combat

• Tier 3 combo attacks are here! Two new attacks per weapon category (unarmed, 1-hand, 2-hand) that do up to 4x damage if you pull them off. Check the inventory for the input combos. There will be more in the full game of course.

• Focus switching - you can now swap your lock-on between enemies (basic qol that should have been there from the beginning)

• Some weapons now deal bonus damage against shields (like axes)

• Enemies now have dodge cooldowns, no more bunny-hopping around

• Player can no longer get stunlocked by multiple enemies ganging up on you (they can still hit you hard though)

• Enemy stagger bar has been hidden as it was more distracting than useful. Staggering enemies still works as before and you're encouraged to hit them as much as you can

• Tweaked and improved enemy behavior all around (dare we say AI improvements?)

Animations & VFX

• Went through and polished almost all character animations both for player and enemies (over 200 in total)

• New attack and dodge animations for enemies

• More and improved death animations for enemies and the player

• Added proper falling and landing animations for the player

• Added turn-in-place animations for the player

• Bigger, better blood splash effects

• Improved hit particle effects for blocks and parries

• More precise dismemberment

World & Content

• New lore additions and stuff in Zulum Keep (demo level)

• Added a new secret passage and area with a new one-hand weapon, the Sabre

• Replaced the weird wine bottle with proper health potions (Full and Small)

• Demo level rebalanced

• Boss now has a name displayed next to his health bar

UI & Tutorials

• More UI polish in general

• Revamped tutorial glyphs, re-recorded tutorial videos and better placements throughout the level

• Weapons can now only be dropped from inventory to prevent accidental drops mid-fight

Sounds

• Added more in-game sound effects

• Improved combat sounds. Hits are now more moist and juicy

Performance & Settings

• Framerate stability improvements

• Fixed VSync and added more anti-aliasing methods

• Improved lighting throughout the level

• Fixed rain sounds randomly turning off

• Fixed camera behavior on player death

• Lots of other minor improvements and bug fixes

Other

• Check out the cooler and improved website - https://sverun.com/

What's next?

We're planning a couple more core features to make the game feel more complete before moving on completely towards the rest of the game levels and content:

• Weapon throwing. This will add even more dynamic to the combat and make more use for having lots of the same-ish regular weapons found throughout game. Maybe the enemies can throw stuff at you as well?

• Also being able to throw random stuff like empty tankards, chairs etc. Setting up a perfect tavern brawl.

• Skill tree with unlockable combat moves and passive bonuses, to better balance progression and avoid in-the-face tutorials in the full game.

• Going to rework the whole "leveling" system. Right now you kill enemies, get experience and levels which only increases your hp and base damage. This makes more sense in an arpg than this type of game. We feel this can be improved in some ways.