Monthly Update - 05/01: TRAINING, QoL, Bug Fixes

May Update Notes

Ask and thou shall receive, verily. What have I been working on this month?

Thanks to all the wonderful people popping into my community hub and giving feedback & requests, I’ve dropped these particular new features to hopefully improve everyone’s overall experience.

Popular request; new tutorial stage!

Gone are the days where you must run and read at the same time. Come relax in the new Training stage. Replaces the “continue” tab in the main menu. I noticed a lot of players had trouble getting into the groove and focusing on the on-the-fly tutorials. Many do not know what to do when they launch remnant blade. This feature should hopefully improve everyone’s onboarding experience and make it easier to learn mechanics and how each character ticks. I want everyone to enjoy each character fully and experience everything they are able to do!

• The training stage consists of 1 stationary enemy. If you get close it may attack, but will do so at less of a frequency than normal difficulty enemies. (Elaine’s enemy is a bit aggressive so you can test parry!)

• Both enemy and player have infinite hp. Hack and slash and get yourself hurt to your heart’s content. Take your time with the tutorial prompts. Do some shadowboxing. Restart if needed.

• Tutorials come with Visual aids. If you’re having trouble understanding a character, there are tips and tricks with an attached video ingame to show you the way.

New Quality of Life options

• CONTROLLER ICONS It’s about a 60/40 with Xbox in the lead in terms of what controllers people are using for Remnant Blade! I hear the frustration with the PlayStation default icons. So I’ve added an option to allow icon switching depending on what device you’re using.

• GRAPHICS OPTIONS I understand far too well about performance when it comes to PC games. As a solo dev who runs on a barely alive MSI GE66 with an RTX 2070S, I get it when games can’t perform well for my machine. I’ve added graphics options so that the player can lower settings for a smoother experience on their machine. No gatekeeping! Potato lives matter.

• QUARTERS PROBLEMS This room has been like a 1 star hotel and I apologize. For awhile there was a gamepad bug that caused drifting. Players did not know how to leave the room.

• Some ask what the room even is for? The Quarters will be your main hub for gear management and mission selection. The Operator will be able to interact and visit Conduits’ rooms as well,

  I’ve changed the controller settings for this room and added a fresh new actor, switched the phone to R2, and added the universal esc/start menu to leave. There are still some small quirks to tackle, that is for the June update. Same with the X vs Square for menu navigation. Slowly working on it.

Bug Fixes

• Esme who is still a work in progress in terms of combat kit, had many issues with animation cancelling. If you spammed triangle/y or right click on mouse, she would go into a frenzy because there was no time or frame limit to how often you can perform the animation. I’ve added animation locks to remedy those specific situations. Let me know if you catch any more!

• Elaine had similar issues with her heavy attack. I have added animation locks for Calamity Strike. Witness her power without it interrupting itself.

• Rinne doesn’t play by the rules. If you had paused while she was moving, gamepad controls for the mouse would cease to work. You had to let her finish what she’s doing before making a move. Not anymore! Rinne also had her share of heavy attack spam bugs, that I’ve taken out successfully, I hope.

• Tutorial Quirks I noticed some players who were trying to fight through the tutorials would trigger a bug where the sound feedback of the tutorial would play every time they try to attack. What a headache that might have been, so I’ve temporarily removed Tutorial sounds. Plan might be to remove tutorials from the combat trials (since there’s now a specific tutorial stage for that) or keep the sound off. Let me know what you think on the community hub!

• Other unnamed bugs I might’ve missed have also been fixed. I’ve been working hard this month to improve user experience, thanks to everyone who has stuck with me and I hope you all can continue to assist me with improving the game with all your feedback and gameplays!

Closing in on 2000 wishlists and 1000 downloads. I can’t thank you all enough for giving my game a chance. I was just a small solo dev with an ambition, trying to create my perfect dream game. I was given a nudge by someone to share this to the world and he was right. This game is a love letter to those who enjoy hack and slash character action games and beautiful characters. Help me make the game better not only for myself, but for you who enjoy it. Don’t hesitate to leave feedback positive or negative, it motivates me to continue evolving Remnant Blade.