Slayer Knight

Recommended to download game for better performance.

Slayer Knight Playground is intended to be a testing platform for the actual game Slayer Knight, and a way where testers can very easily access the game and provide feedback to me as I develop. Overtime, Slayer Knight Playground will evolve to a demo version of the game, accessible either over browser or downloadable through itch. It's highly recommended if you plan to download the game for Mac, you should download through the itch app. The full game is going to be available for download on either Steam or Itch.io. 

Controls:

• Move:
  • Keyboard: Left Arrow, Right Arrow, A, D
  • Gamepad: Left Thumbstick, Left Directional Buttons
• Jump:
  • Keyboard: Space, W
  • Gamepad: A (X)
• Dash:
  • Keyboard: Z, ; (Semi-colon) 
  • Gamepad: Right Shoulder, Right Trigger (doesn't work on browser), Y (Square)
• Drop Dive:
  • Keyboard: Hold S, Hold Down Arrow
  • Gamepad: Hold Down Directional Button, Hold Left Thumbstick
• Move Camera
  • Keyboard: Numbers on numpad. 8 for up. 6 for right. 4 for left. 2 for down.
  • Gamepad: Right Thumbstick
• Attack:
  • Keyboard: X, ' (Quote)
  • Gamepad: X (Square) 
• God Touched Combo (Only possible while God's Fiery Rays Shine Down Upon Thee):
  • Keyboard: Down Arrow + Attack
  • Gamepad: Down Thumbstick / Directional Button + Attack
• Menu:
  • Keyboard: Enter, Escape
  • Gamepad: Start

A wall-jump separate from the regular jump can be performed if the Knight is mid-air and is close enough to a wall. The Knight will not be able to wall-jump or normal-jump again until they've touched the ground. The Knight will not be able to dash again until they have either touched the ground and waited until a hidden cooldown has completed OR they've performed a wall-jump--the dash reset off a wall-jump is instant so no cooldown wait. Drop-dives can only be performed while midair. Attacks can be done at anytime. Certain Attacks can be Unstoppable, where the unstoppable attacker can still take damage, however they cannot be interrupted--so there attack persists--they cannot be launched, and they cannot be bopped.

Performing Godly Actions builds the Knight's Ascension, indicated by flames surrounding the Knight. Godly Actions include Dashing, picking up Collectibles, Wall Jumping, and other actions. Landing Attacks and Dashing through enemy attacks  builds up Ascension faster. Waiting around too long or getting hit causes Decay, which reduces Ascension. 

High enough Ascension activates Regeneration, whereas Maximum Ascension activates God Touched. While God Touched, the Knight can spend some of their Ascension to perform a more powerful God Touched Combo.

The original game can be found here--a lot of it is going to change later, though:

https://andrewandrepowell.itch.io/slayer-knight

12/8/2024 v0.41.0: Tinted the different variations of goblins with different colors, to make it easier to distinguish. Moved around some of the enemies earlier on in the Combat Demo; will be making adjustments to enemy placement philosophy in future levels. Fixed bug with goblin attack mask. Direction change is now buffered when Dashing out of Attacking.

12/6/2024 v0.40.0: Implemented Wall Slide. The Wall Slide effect was already in the game; I finally took the time to create an animation for it. Made some balance updates to the Combat Demo.

12/1/2024 v0.39.0: Implemented the God Touched Combo. This involved me drawing up my own animations for a unique attack combo. Will definitely combo back to the God Touched Combo, since it desperately needs to have its effects modified so that it stands out more. Rebalanced the Combat Demo with God Touched in mind.

11/19/2024 v0.38.0: Greatly increased hit box size of the Drop Smash. Fixed bug related to cleaning up animations upon game exit. Fixed another bug related loss of Ascension when getting hit. Began the implementation of the God Touched mechanic--the final aspect of Ascension. When the Knight maxes out their Ascension, the grossly incandescent rays of God will shine upon them. Had to disable trimming when publishing the game due to an issue with the tools where necessary code gets trimmed, so now the game's size will be larger. Building now with .NET 8, instead of .NET 6, so there's a noticeable improvement with the WASM version of the game. 

11/11/2024 v0.37.0: Resolved two game breaking bugs: Game no longer crashes after getting hit while restarting. Game no longer bugs out when wall jumping along a specific wall near a door in the Combat Demo.

11/11/2024 v0.36.0: Implemented health indicator on hit. Made changes to combat to make combat feel faster. Removed some effects on collectibles since they were causing performance issues. Implemented Drop Smash, where the Knight will damage enemies when landing on them with a Drop Dive. Added some pitch randomization on certain sounds. Need to download game to experience the pitch variation.

11/3/2024 v0.35.0: Fixed another issue related to projectiles, where if a projectile is created out of the screen, it didn't get cleaned up properly and thus would prevent the game from closing properly. Added decreased cooldown on Dash during Ascension. Implemented new combo during Ascension.

11/2/2024 v0.34.0: Implemented hotfix to resolve an issue where the game freezes due to projectile and physics bug.

11/1/2024 v0.33.0: Implemented the bob and Drop Dive conditions to the Ascension mechanic--applying bob to an enemy and chaining bob to other enemies all increase Ascension gauge, and Drop Diving increases the gauge the longer the Knight is in the Drop Dive state. Implemented regeneration while in the Ascension state. Cleaned up the shader effect on dash ready and wall jump ready.

10/27/2024 v0.32.0: Started implementing the Ascension mechanic, where the Knight can get extra buffs so long as they fill a hidden gauge by fulfilling certain conditions. Currently, implemented the  ascended fire effect that appears over the Knight, indicating the ascension is in effect. Implemented the collectible and dashing conditions to Ascension. Cleaned up blur effect, so dashes and glowing effects look cleaner.

10/19/2024 v0.31.0: Resolved aspect-ratio issue with ultra-wide screen monitors.

10/18/2024: Entirely focused on refactoring and optimizations currently. Cleaned-up more unnecessary dynamic allocations on the heap (e.g. Func<T>s, Sysntem.Int32 due to unboxing, Enumerators due to LINQ, etc.). Implemented Object Pooling on the effect animations--this made a considerable improvement; garbage collection went from every 30 seconds to a little bit over 2.5 minutes. Combat Demo is vastly more playable but still needs a bit more improvement. 

10/15/2024: Implemented the ability to control the camera with either the Right Thumbstick or the numbers on the number pad. Mostly worked on optimizations, including implementing quad trees, cleaning up more deallocations, and other optimizations. The Combat Demo still isn't perfect on browser but's much better. Still recommend downloading rather than playing on browser for optimal experience.

10/2/2024: Made some small fixes to special effects. Added some more tiles to the Combat Demo. Combat Demo is still not optimized for browser play, so it's highly recommended to download executable (probably won't be updated until the next two weeks or so due to other commitments).

9/29/2024: Fixed issue where game wouldn't always close properly. Added a large portion of the textures to the Combat Demo. Combat Demo is still not optimized for browser play, so it's highly recommended to download executable.

9/23/2024: Slightly modified how Dash and Wall Jump Charges work: Both types of Charges have an increased maximum limit, but will always reset back to 1 on ground. Implemented Super Charges. Completed all the wall/ground tiles, adding enemies, and started adding the Coins to the new level. The Combat Demo from the title menu now starts the Combat Demo--the level that's currently in the works. There are performance issues with playing the Combat Demo in the browser currently, so it's highly recommended to download to play.

9/16/2024: Implemented larger slash with attack. Implemented more with new level. Won't be released until the new demo level's completion.

9/8/2024: Implemented the encounter system, where if enemies within an established encounter are defeated, then a corresponding door is opened. If the Knight leaves the encounter without defeating all the enemies, all enemies will respawn with original properties upon the encounter's reactivation. Started building up the new test level, however it's not yet accessible in the playable demo. Fixed another bug with the physics system when moving from slope to flat plane.

9/2/2024: Implemented goblin spearman, along with projectile system using splines for different projectile pathing. Fully implemented the Shield mechanic, where Shielded Characters don't take damage until their Shield is broken. Shield generates over time. Fixed several bugs related to inconsistent physics applied when game lag.

8/26/2024: Implemented Untouchable mechanic, where certain enemies can cause harm to another Character--such as another enemy or the Knight--on touch. Slimes become Untouchable on sight. Fixed bug with Bopping enemies into one another. Made updates to slime enemy. Implemented the boar enemy. Partially implemented the Shield mechanic. 

8/14/2024: Implemented slime enemy. More improvements to AI, including edge detection and peaceful mode. Decided to start adding the devlog videos to this page, since I don't think I'll be updating the original Slayer Knight page.

8/8/2024: Implemented health system. Now the Knight and mobs can take damage and enter a death state. Implemented shader effect, indicating whether the Knight or a mob is hurt or close to death. Implemented hit feedback when the Knight takes damage.

8/4/2024: Implemented the Unstoppable mechanic on Attacks. Made more improvements to the enemy AI system.

7/28/2024: Implemented the Drop Dive mechanic, where the Knight will fall to the ground quickly. Built up a lot of the infrastructure for the enemy AI system. Implemented attack interruption, where a character can interrupt another character's attack if their attack lands first.

7/25/2024: Gamepad support now available for browser--except if you want to use Right Trigger for Dashing! Also implemented the ability to launch enemies by launching other enemies into them if they're bopped (i.e. spinning).

7/21/2024: Added the combat demo. It's still a work in progress of course, but you can at least knock some goblins around. Updated the gamepad controls on the dash. Updated the parallax motion in the platformer demo to operate on the Y direction. Fixed several bugs.

7/14/2024: Made more optimizations and refactoring to the codebase. Implemented a significant portion of the menu system. Now, when the game starts, the title menu appears. The player can start the platform demo, and from within the demo, they can open up and interact with the main menu.

7/9/2024: Made several optimizations in the codebase--in fact, for the next week, the most I'll be doing is making optimizations and doing some refactoring. Fixed a major bug that was causing jumping, dashing, and attacking to behave inconsistently. Jumping especially should feel perfectly consistent now.

7/6/2024: Added more decorative textures to the platforming demo. Added downloadable versions of the platforming demo, available for Linux, Windows, and Mac.

7/4/2024: Implemented an end state, where once the Knight reaches it the level is restarted to the beginning. Made several small balance changes, such as slightly more ledge correction to make landing precise jumps a bit easier.  Added multiple control schemes for keyboard control.

7/3/2024: Reimplemented how coyote frames work--may change again. Increased the friction when stopping on ground. Altered areas of the platform demo map to limit challenge and fix location where the Knight can fall out of the map. 

7/2/2024: Modified the jump such that there are only two heights for a more controlled jump. Increased wall detection and grace frames on wall jumps. Implemented subtle coyote frames on ledges (will need to rethink this for better fluidity).  

6/30/2024: Implemented more of the user interface, specifically the timer and coin counter in the upper righthand corner of the screen. Started on the platforming demo level. Currently, the platforms/walls and the majority of the visuals are in. Still gotta work on the end state and a way to restart the level.

6/26/2024: Fixed a collision bug where the Knight would make a glitchy hope motion when transitioning from a slope to flat ground. Fixed a glitch in the Knight's dashing where the Knight would perform a landing animation and create after a dash on the ground.

6/23/2024: Implemented more of the collectible system. The Knight can now pick up the dash and wall-jump movement reset collectibles, restoring their dash or wall-jump respectively when picked up. Sign system is also in. When the Knight stands next to a sign, a message box appears from below. 

6/16/2024: Implemented the parallax system, collectible system--just the coin so far--and added a few textures to verify how everything would look. There were also a bunch of bug fixes and GC-related optimizations done in the background. The desktop version of the game has gamepad support, but unfortunately the browser version of the game won't have such support. 

I'm trying to push myself to have at least a proper demo that demonstrates all movement, including movement enhanced by collectibles, and also includes sign system to explain the game's mechanics in game. Will create a downloadable executable too.

6/9/2024: Added a bunch of visual feedback effects. This includes kickback dust when dashing and jumping, and glow effects to indicate dash is charged and wall-jump is available. Implemented buffered inputs on jump and dash.

5/28/2024:  Made a small update where the game preloads all the assets at the beginning, eliminating the stuttering when the player starts to control the Knight.

5/27/2024: Implemented the hit-resolution system, as well as the beginnings of the enemy behavior system and the special effect system. The game now also resizes itself according to the dimensions of the browser window. Noticed some degree of lag because of the resizing.  This may have to get looked again later. Still need to fix the on-the-fly fetching of assets that causes the stuttering at the beginning. 

5/22/2024: Added a bunch of work on the game's attack system. The Knight currently leverages the system. Plan to work on hit resolution and moving platforms next.

5/20/2024: Reimplemented physics and core sounds and animations. The actions available include running around, dashing, and wall jumping.