Happy New Year everyone!! Hard to believe it's been a year since Punchy became a roguelike. With all the art and story work I've been doing, I thought I'd treat myself by working on some good old-fashioned combat design. The result is a more dynamic system with a higher degree of intentionality. In short, it fuckin slaps.

This updates introduces a spectrum of outcomes for your attacks based on various enemy states. The combat now has a greater focus on setting up opponents for big payoffs. There are better crowd control options, new techniques, and yes unarmed attacks are stronger ;P

The biggest change comes from enemy states. Enemies have various states (like Idle, Blocking, Stunned, etc) that change the effect of your attacks. This was always in the game, but now the states yield more distinguished and dramatic outcomes. For instance, kicking an Idle enemy will knock them back, pushing through others a bit. Kicking a Staggered enemy will knock them back much more, lift them into the air, and potentially knock them over. If you kick them when they are Stunned, it turns them into a bullet that'll cut through crowds like butter. 

There are a number of ways to manipulate enemy states, from parrying their attacks to breaking objects over their heads. It makes for a fun challenge to try and stagger an enemy with a guard break, stun them by smashing a stool into them, and then kick them into their friends for some high-impact crowd control.  I'm basically lifting this type of sequencing from God Hand - I hope I'm doing Mikami proud :D

My intention with this game is to give you basic tools and let you come up with crazy combos and stuff yourself. It should feel like a sandbox, and the random generation combined with tenacious enemies should force you to improvise and stumble across new interactions. Honestly, the more I work on it, the more I realize I'm steering towards immersive sims, and I'm excited to see how far I can push it!

I'll say that the game is fairly harder than it used to be, but it is all in effort to induce flow, force improvisation, and make for more satisfying victories. You should feel like the underdog! Like in Jackie Chan movies!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this. If you do, and want to see it reach its full potential, consider making a donation. I need money to pay my bills, and my funds are gonna run out in February, at which point I'll have to get a Day Job and the game's development will most likely grind to a halt. Hooray capitalism! 

Thanks for reading!
- Drew