News

Hi everyone!

Pledger Joey Smith asked a very valid question, that I want to respond to in front of everyone. Recently, there have been a pretty significant lack of updates. For a while, we were doing weekly development journals of progress for Blade Symphony.

Do not fret, updates will return! There is a perfectly good reason for why we have not released updates. However, I'm not allowed to be specific about what that reasoning is; so I'll have to be a little bit vague. We've recently entered into a very small time period, as a business entity, where we are unable to talk about the game. Again, this is a very short period, and we hope to get back to weekly updates within the next 1-2 weeks.

So please don't worry, and try not to think about the reasoning too much. Just know that we're doing this to protect Blade Symphony, and we want to keep everyone updated very much.

In the meantime, our last development journal posted on April 7th, didn't get much love here! So here it is! Development Journal #6 gives you a quick view of the new costumes that we've created for the Ryoku character. Believe you me, we intend on adding additional costumes as time goes on and tweaking our current ones. These costumes will have NO effect on gameplay.

Instead, we've received some very cool ideas about costumes getting their own taunts, gestures and particles. If you have any ideas about how to make costumes more unique, please do leave us a comment!

Today, our weekly development journal shows the sword selection menu, that was available during the introductory playable alpha period, and the new character selection menu which we've never shown before!

The sword selection menu shows a description of each sword, how much they affect every stance, how much the sword costs and lets the player scroll through the various swords which are available. We plan on adding many more swords in the future, and potentially categorizing them or adding a "quick view" of sorts.

The new character selection menu allows the player to go between the various characters (we're still planning on adding more characters,) and choose their costumes. It also shows how the character affects the game's stances, provides description and background information.

Every week (if we can manage it,) we'll release a small 30s-60s video of new content and changes we've been working on. We will focus on one mechanic, concept or component within the game and either give information, or just plain show it off!

If you have a suggestion for a development journal or something you want to see, let us know!

This week, the development journal takes a look at a large change we've made to combat and combat pacing. Introducing the Parry Mechanic. This maneuver offers the player the ability to block an attack AS WELL as stun their opponent.

While their opponent is stunned, they are unable to block or attack for a short time. This allows the player to begin charging or quickly change to a different stance to execute a deadly volley of attacks on the now open opponent. Attacks made in a certain direction (forward, left or right,) must be met with a parry in that direction. Normal blocking can be done in any direction, and can be broken by a fully charged attack. UNLIKE normal blocking, fully charged attacks can be deflected by parrying and the player will incur no damage.

Every week (if we can manage it,) we'll release a small 30s-60s video of new content and changes we've been working on. We will focus on one mechanic, concept or component within the game and either give information, or just plain show it off!

If you have a suggestion for a development journal or something you want to see, let us know!

In the last month, we’ve decided to make a more concentrated effort to release news and update the public as often as possible. One of the results was to start releasing a weekly or bi-weekly development journal, short video updates of recent progress. Another result is to return to releasing news updates, like this one, to our coveted community!

First, we want to show how the sword tracers have progressed in the last few months. Tracers and particles are perfect examples of effects which will constantly evolve during development. We hope to have it perfected by release, based on feedback we hear from fans. Get active on our Facebook and tweet us your opinion!



Also continuously changing, the visual style of maps. The flagship and first map we showed, Monastery, recently got an updated floor for the library area. This could be seen in the second development journal, detailing costumes for the Judgement character.



You may notice during the video, that each player was able to do more than just block their opponent’s attacks. They were able to parry their attackers. Subscribe to our YouTube channel so that you can be the first to see this weekend’s development journal, where we talk about this new game mechanic!

This week, our development journal entry is focused on the three current costumes ("skins") available for the playable character, Judgement. These are the three costumes currently available in our development build, we may make more in the future -- we don't really know yet!

Currently, costumes are entirely for aesthetics and don't offer any sort of gameplay advantage. Unique attacks, effects and stances are on a per-character basis -- but we could always make slightly different effects per-costume. What do you think?

The current 3 other characters offered within our development build have multiple skins as well, we hope to show those in the future. But for now, enjoy this quick look and stay tuned next week!

Every week (if we can manage it,) we'll release a small 30s-60s video of new content and changes we've been working on. We will focus on one mechanic, concept or component within the game and either give information, or just plain show it off!

If you have a suggestion for a development journal or something you want to see, let us know!