Hello.

Once again, we bring a small update (actually, two in one, as we discovered a small issue that we rectified before uploading the previous version).

The most important bit is that now the first person camera used by specific equipment will, by default, be rotated with the camera controls, instead of the movement controls. That means, by default, with the mouse or the right analog stick.

Another relevant change involves fixing the explosion sound of an attack by B-DSS and the Super Elite bots, which was not configured.

We have also made some small changes to configurations and code, to improve memory management a little bit. The difference is not that noticeable, but should avoid some stuttering in low-spec PCs.

And we leave you with the changelog:

Version 1.1.5

• Fixed bosses briefly dissapearing during their intro animations.

Version 1.1.4

• Improved performance of animations.
  
• FPS camera is by default controlled with camera keys.
  
• Slight improvement to memory management, reducing ocassional stuttering.
  
• Fixed explosion sound in B-DSS and Super Elite.
  
• Adjusted the display of leaderboards, so the colours have better contrast and elements are easier to distinguish.

Cheers from the team!

Hey

A small fix for an issue introduced in the previous one, making Slash unwilling to initiate combat in the tutorial or if you hit it in the city or later.

Plus, a small fix for the leaderboard, which could get stuck if the connection to Steam servers failed.

We hope you enjoy the game and these bugs did not cause too much trouble.

This is mostly a bugfixing patch, but we have sneaked a couple of improvements to enemy AI.
As an extra, we've also made the encounter with COPGORE shorter. Now, three impacts should be enough to defeat it.

We have introduced a couple of small changes to enemy AI which should help with the flow of combat.

First, we have reduced their wandering a little bit, which reduces considerably the number of times enemies get stuck into stairs or handrails. This was more common on the Factory and, as a result, on Endless Dungeon.

Second, enemies will now stop being aggressive if they are not able to reach the player. This was a common problem in the second and third levels, in which robots would remain aggressive eventhough a wall or being in different platforms prevented them from attacking the player.

Thanks to some of you, we have been able to track and fix some issues. We're also fixing things we broke in the last update. Here is the list of fixes:

• Character models were not displayed in the character selection screen of Story.
  
• [@Dettadeus, Nono Ohno] Added missing colliders in B-DSS and FRANK-Y rooms. Fixes HEART going through walls and camera getting stuck behind walls.
  
• Reduced number of hits COPGORE can take from 5 to 3.
  
• [Nono Ohno] Recycling a head while jumping would break the camera.
  
• [Blaise] Completing arenas while using rocket cam lock-on broke camera.
  
• [Nono Ohno] Slash quest 3 dialogue repeats and can cause an overlap.

Happy new year from the aheartfulofgames team!

We want to apologize for the bugs we introduced in the endless dungeon update. We focused a bit too much in that part of the game and the test runs we made of the story mode were subpar.

Making things worse, we had already seen most of those problems when releasing Heart&Slash in other platforms, but thought they were either platform specific or affecting more recent versions of the tools we use. We were mistaken and your game experience was affected by that. We're sorry.

This release includes Win64, Win32 and Linux. Mac builds will be uploaded once we return to our normal lives.


Now, into the bugfixing, which has taken a little longer because most of us were far from a dev machine for the holidays.

• Fixed potential memory leak involving camera shake.
  
• Fixed walls and floors the player could go through in sewers.
  
• Fixed some instances of Z-fighting in factory level.

These are not all the issues we've seen reported, but the problem with collisions in the sewers required a quick fix. We'll try to have the rest fixed in the coming weeks.


We have also introduced a small improvement for people playing in low spec machines and another quality of life change.

• Ambient color is 30% brighter in all rooms, by using a 30%-100% random distribution.
  
• Dynamic resolution can downgrade several steps at once if perfomance degrades significatively.

Hi, all!

Today we are finally releasing the Endless Dungeon mode of Heart&Slash. Follow Slash in its eternal struggle to escape from QUASSY's grip. It might be a never ending fight, but doesn't mean you can't have fun trying!

This new mode is available to all players, and will pitch you against a maze of rooms, filled with ever stronger enemies and less and less equipment to support you. The deeper you get, the more scarce your resources. Use every trick and exploit every weakness, and climb to the top of the rankings!

This mode will be released on consoles soon, so all our fans can expect to enjoy it in the future.



To celebrate the release of the Endless Dungeon, we're releasing Heart&Slash on Switch today, too. Continue you adventures on the park or on the subway! take Heart with you when you meet your family during the holidays! Or simply enjoy it in your TV screen.


Have fun and enjoy the holidays!

We're publishing a small update to fix an issue with the leaderboards: the first time they were opened, they could stall indefinitely when requesting friends information. It should work properly now.

And also, a reminder that once the Endless Dungeon mode comes out of beta, we will reset the leaderboards. There have been a few ups and downs in difficulty, so it's fair to start with a clean slate.

Have fun!

New update for the Endless Dungeon. Mainly, the leaderboard is much easier to understand now. We've also adjusted difficulty a little, actually making the hardest enemies, Heartless, less common.

In detail, this is the changelog:

• Improvements to rankings display, specially for the top 3.
  
• Removed Heartless enemies from all transitions minus the loop one in Endless Dungeon.
  
• Added new, hardest versions of the Heartless encounter in Endless Dungeon.

After quite a long time since the previous update to the game, we're here to upload a new build of Heart&Slash' endless dungeon, and confirm its upcoming release outside the testing branch. For the time being, if you want to be part of the testing team, enter the code 4eWasASk8terBoy in the Beta tab of the game and then select the endless_test branch.

In this patch, we've worked on fixing bugs and improving balance and stability of the mode. If you read the changelog, you'll see this:

• By default, camera speed is set to 50%, instead of 100%.
  
• Set Slash's theme as soundtrack for Endless Dungeon.
  
• Added new enemy Heartless on Endless Dungeon.
  
• Fixed rooms in Endless Dungeon which would not open after completing the combat.
  
• Fixes to Endless Dungeon rankings.
  
• Meat Cleaver no longer spawns in Endless Dungeon.
  
• Balance changes to Endless Dungeon.

We've still got some minor changes in the pipeline, but we expect the next update to be published on Dec. 22, to accompany the release of Heart&Slash on Switch. For the time being, the Endless Dungeon will only be available on Steam, while we add leaderboard support for other platforms and go thorugh their respective certification periods.

We are also working on some fancy extras for a future update. But for the time being, enjoy the adventures of Slash before meeting our dear Heart.

Have fun!

After quite some time, we've finally managed to lock the endless dungeon mode down to something we think is close to our original idea. It's still in development, of course, so we'll keep updating the beta branch with changes and fixes, until it works as expected.

In this first update we're introducing a new type of enemy (not yet in the codex): Heartless, a version of Heart which does not feel the same way towards Slash. They will be special enemies found regularly, with varied equipment.

We've also tweaked the length of sections and adjusted the difficulty. The number of enemies and their speed scales a little slower now, so a whole cycle is relatively achievable.

We've also fixed a couple of issues which might cause a room to remain shut after all enemies were defeated.

In future updates we intend to introduce a finished version of the Heartless challenge room, further tweak stuff and teach Dogbot how to climb a set of stairs. Translations will come at a later time. Heartless also needs to be a little easier, or appear in lower numbers, but we need to do further tests.

And, of course, if you find any issue, let us know. We'll create a thread in the forums, so you can report problems and propose ideas.