Development Update: Combat Systems and UI Progress

Development has been focused on bringing core combat systems online and improving overall clarity and presentation.

One of the biggest additions is a full parry system, including follow-up visceral attacks. This has been a major step toward capturing the kind of high-risk, high-reward combat the game is built around, and it’s already making encounters feel much more dynamic.

Both demo classes are now equipped with unique active and passive abilities that shape gameplay and reinforce class identity.

• The Bruiser focuses on heavy, committed attacks

  • Hullbreaker is a deliberate counter attack that provides 50% damage reduction and hyper armor during the animation while increasing damage done if hit during the windup. Hullbreaker can be used defensively to survive a powerful blow, or offensively to punish opponents.

  • Unyielding passively provides hyper armor during portions of all the Bruiser's attack animations, making him less likely to be interrupted.

• The Corsair leans into mobility and sustain

  • Grog provides rapid stamina regeneration for several seconds, allowing for relentless attacking or dodgerolling.

  • Adaptability passively increases invincibility frames for dodgerolls and backsteps by 25% (15 iframes compared to 12 iframes for other classes).

  • The Corsair's weapon loadout allows for parrying via his firearm. This is limited only by cooldown as there is no ammunition resource.

With these abilities in place, each class is starting to feel more distinct in how they approach combat.

To support this, I’ve implemented skill UI and cooldown tracking, giving players clear feedback on when abilities are available. It’s a foundational system, but an important one for making combat readable and responsive.

On the presentation side, I’ve continued refining menus and HUD elements. This includes replacing several of the placeholder icons with assets from a hand-drawn icon set, helping the UI better match the tone and style of the game.

There’s still plenty of work ahead, but systems are starting to come together in a way that makes the moment-to-moment gameplay feel much closer to the final vision. This next month will be focused on what is still needed for the demo. My hope is to pivot to playtesting soon in preparation for a public demo release in the coming months.

Thank you for following, and stay tuned for future updates!