This update contains a few minor tweaks and a new item that appears in every single one of my games known as the Omniblade. This is an all powerful weapon that you unlock after 100% completion typically, but in this game it appears very rarely at random if you turn the items on.
So you may have already noticed this, but I have changed the name of the game from Azrael to Shadow of Azrael. This is what the story was originally called over a decade ago back when it was first conceived. The reason for the name change is that there are a few other games that simply go by Azrael available on Steam right now and I wanted mine to be unique and stand apart from the rest.
I will be releasing the sequel, Shadow of Azrael 2, very soon on Steam Early Access! It will likely be available at the end of March or the start of April 2024. You can check it out here, and be sure to add it to your wishlist!
The sequel will feature new characters, new moves, better balancing, more animations, more stages, more items, more options, more features, grabs/throws, beam struggles, and so much more! It's bigger and better than the original in every way and I hope you enjoy it! I have spent a lot of time and energy on it.
From here on out I will be working on the sequel and updating it often until finally officially releasing it next year. After it is released in 2025 I will continue to patch it frequently just like I did for the first game. I'd like to thank everyone for all of your praise and support over the years!
Nick
Bot fix patch.
Hello, everyone. So I got a negative review complaining about the bot AI from someone named Player 2. I normally try to reply to these updates and fix any issues you might have with the game as soon as I can. I would really appreciate it if you could report the issues in the bug report thread first before leaving a bad review.
In that particular review he pointed out that the AI reads the player's button input. This actually isn't true. There are actually zones around the AI that reads where the player is at and decides what move is appropriate. However, he was right about one thing... it was bugged!
Normally if it's on an easy setting, these zones are hardly in use... and if it's on the hardest setting, the bots use these zones all of the time. This bug was pretty huge, because the zones were *always* active no matter what setting the bot was on, which made the game way harder than it needed to be even on the easiest setting.
So, I fixed this problem and now the AI should reflect the difficulty setting a lot more. They also have a wider variety of moves that they use this time around, too. In addition to fixing the AI, I also did minor updates and balancing here and there. Most notably teching and recovering off the ground, wall, and ceiling while being hit is a lot easier than before. Just press the shoulder button at the right time and you can instantly recover.
I hope you enjoy the newest update. There might only be a few left after this because soon I will be moving on to a sequel to this game called Dragon Smash.
Thank you for your interest and support! Nick
New Colors Update!
This is a pretty big update that adds a new color swapping shader into the game engine. Beforehand I had to quadruple the sprites and color them all manually, but with this new shader I only have one set of sprites for each character and now the colors are changed in the code itself. This not only trimmed the game's overall file size down by a quarter, but it also allows for a much broader selection of colors.
Instead of 4 colors per character, there are now 10 different colors to choose from for each fighter!
It's still a work in progress and I will keep updating it, but for the most part everything works just fine. You will notice Azrael is now blonde, this will mark the final phase of the game. I'm going over each and every single sprite and cleaning everything up and making it look better. More polish, more animations, and so on. You'll notice Shen has already received this type of treatment. His animations look a lot smoother and they have been touched up quite a bit. Soon I will do this to every single fighter in the game.
You can also click on the bot and change their colors as well. Pressing back also works in the menus, and in the character select it automatically grabs your player selector. I'm going to continue to work on the options and make it fully compatible with the mouse and eventually add in a button mapping feature, as well as other new features.
Also, I added new life-like character portraits to the character bios. It helps bring the characters to life. In the future I'm going to extend this entire area and make it even more in-depth. I will create elaborate backstories, list out their stats and so forth. I'm also going to add an in-depth game tutorial that really delves deep into all of the gameplay mechanics and instructs you on how everything works.
There have also been a few player balances and tweaks here and there, primarily with Lilith, who has slightly more knockback resistance and evasion. I hope everyone enjoys the newest update! I've been working really hard on it and there's much more to come!
Nick
Another minor update!
Whoops! Turns out in the latest major update there was a crash bug in single player, so I patched that up as soon as I found out about it!
I also fixed the deadzone issue that some players were experiencing. I'd like to thank the steam user oofiet for the positive review and for bringing both of these issues to my attention!
I hope everyone has a great week. Nick
Memorial Day Update
This update fixes more bugs and has a few gameplay balances.
The biggest feature however is improved analog stick control. Before, when trying to do a forward attack, sometimes an up or down would come out on accident if you tilted the stick too high or low. This is no longer an issue and it vastly improves the gameplay if you use the analog stick to move. It makes the level of control a lot better.
I also received a negative review with some complaints about the game and I'm addressing all of them. So far for this update I've included the ability to control the music and sound effects volumes from within the options menu. There was also this issue to where if you alt+tabbed the game then the bots would do some really funky stuff with your keyboard on your desktop. Now the game automatically pauses when inactive and that issue is no longer there.
I also adjusted the knockback settings in single player mode. There was a complaint that every character felt as if they were in the featherweight class, so the knockback is normal in hard mode, and slightly less in the other two modes. This effectively makes single player a bit more challenging as well since it's a little more difficult to knock your opponent off the screen.
In a future update I will address an issue involving dual monitors and give the players the option to change their controller and keyboard configurations. Until then, enjoy the new version!
Happy Memorial Day! Nick
Another Big Update!
This update fixes a lot of bugs, adds a few new graphics, effects, and gameplay balances. I hope you enjoy the latest version of Azrael!
Thanksgiving Update!
This is another big update with more bug fixes, gameplay balancing and more. There are now 3 different difficulty modes to choose from. When you lost in the single player campaign before, that was it, game over. But now you have a certain amount of continues depending on which setting you chose.
I also added a feature where you can choose "Saved Settings", and whatever changes you make in the options menu will now save to that mode. Next time you load up the game, it will load up all of your saved settings automatically. I also added an information section which contains character bios. I will add more to this as time goes on. If you have any trouble getting the newest update, just uninstall and reinstall the game.
Have a great Thanksgiving and enjoy the newest version of Azrael!
Birthday Update!
Today is my 40th birthday! I bring to you another big update. This one contains a lot of bug fixes, character balancing, as well as new glowing auras and effects around the characters and their attacks. I hope you enjoy the new version! If it doesn't update for you automatically, then you might need to uninstall and reinstall the game in order to get the newest version.
Have a great day and enjoy the newest version of Azrael!
Another Big Update!
This update makes a lot of little changes to the game, including tweaks to the gameplay, character balancing, additional animations, glow effects, and mouse control for the menus. You may need to uninstall and reinstall the game in order to get the new version.
Game Released!
The game has finally been released with a major update! We will continue to update this game over the next couple of years with more graphics, animations, stages and characters.
In order to get the new update, you might have to uninstall and reinstall the game. We will be updating it frequently from here on out, so be sure to get the newest version! Thank you for playing!
