More animations have been added for Marv, primarily reactions to getting hit/grabbed. These new animations are in black and white for now--the color shader will be turned on in a later update.
Marv has a new animation following his A attack, though it functions the same as before.
Nils, in the final fight of Nick's arcade ladder, has a new animation for his Natural Light special move.
Fixed a bug where Noel's air throw animation would sometimes not play properly on Player 2 side.
The in-development character Nils will be playable in a special edition of our monthly online league, which starts this Friday. Sign up here! If you want to help test out Nils, join our Discord.
Version 0.966 Update
This is a small patch with changes to the in-development character Nils. If you want to help test this upcoming character, join our Discord. Otherwise these changes will only affect Nick's last Arcade mode fight.
Balance Changes
Fixed a bug preventing Nils' throw from causing push. It now pushes 1 square as intended.
Nils Nautral Light now has extra range vs late moving attacks (like Billy's Shiko Slam).
Nils Advance Base is now -20 on block when spaced (was punishable)
Nils will also be playable in a special edition of our monthly online league. Sign up here!
Year in Review & 2025 Dev Goals
Just like last year, we've put a lot of time and effort into improving the game during the Early Access period. The combined patch notes alone from 2024 are over 20 pages long. We probably can't touch on everything, but we'll recap some highlights, then share some of our plans for 2025.
2024 Recap
In 2024 we took the game's visuals to the next level. Paul, Billy, Nick, Lewis and now Noel are in full color with finished quality sprites. There are now 10 swappable (and moddable!) palettes for each character, and that number is likely to go up in the future.
Online got a very important feature: players can now queue up for a match while playing other modes! This is becoming standard for most modern fighting games, and we think it will make it a little easier to organically find matches.
in terms of single player content, a power-up system was added to Survival mode to make the mode more fun and dynamic, and new leaderboards were added (viewable in the Community Hub for now) so that you can compare high scores with other players. We've also added unlockable colors for meeting certain milestones in Arcade and Survival, though tournament organizers and impatient players can skip this process in the options menu.
Our last update brought the first new character into the game since alpha: Nils! Nils is a charge zoner like Street Fighter's Guile, and I think we did a good job translating charge mechanics realistically into a turn based format. He's still in early development using draft sprites like most characters had last year. Nils is currently only playable by entering a code you can get on our Discord, but you can also fight him at the end of Nick's arcade mode..
The menus and HUD improved quite a bit during this time. We revamped the Character Select, the Rebinding menu, the Tutorial and some other menus, and added a VS splash screen before the beginning of fights. The tutorial and hints system has a new mascot charcter: Sensei Bob, who previously appeared on a poster in Paul's stage. There's a new Strategic View you can turn on in-game to see a combat log that includes frame data. More menus have been rigged up for localization, putting us closer to support for a workable set of full translations. There are also some slick new status icons for frame advantage/punish states, which replace the old programmer art that used to appear in their place. fs Menus now have a glyph system to more clearly show in-game actions and hotkeys at a glance, which really helps the look of various parts of the tutorial, rebinding menus and the in game input display.
Replays got better: you can now optionally step through them turn by turn instead of full speed, if you want to analyze your matches. They also remember the colors and stages players picked out. You can now record replays in single player by playing "One on One" mode as well.
We also added a new stage for Noel, the Greenhouse, although it's still in the draft stages. Owners of the free Green Screen Jeremy DLC got a new stage too: Chroma, the green screen stage, which we think has some creative potential.
In terms of balance changes, we made some dominant neutral tools like B attacks and fireballs a little easier to deal with, and midscreen throw loops have been toned down through the addition of push. Nick got a little better with the change to his A combo, Billy got better with a new mobility tool. jC is now a more useful air button for all chracters. A lot of other small tweaks happened as well to most of the cast. Overall the balance of the game is in a pretty good place right now.
We made lots of little adjustments to animations and timings to improve game feel and minimize "weird looking stuff" that breaks immersion. Characters do bespoke back throw animations now, too. We did some more optimization on textures--the hard disk footprint is smaller than last year, despite adding a LOT of new sprites. We have also fixed several dozen bugs, some of them which have been hanging around for a long time.
In league play, Steaph continued her reign of dominance, winning 8 of the 11 leagues we ran this year. ItsJustChrisNow, Missingno and hypergrav also won one league each. Think you can step up to the challenge and join the Hall of Fame? Join our Discord!
2025 Goals
We hope to be out of early access by the end of 2025. In no particular order, here are some of the goals we're going to work on:
Finished quality sprites for Marv and Jayne, who still has draft art:
Fully add Nils to the game, at least for multiplayer modes:
Add proper idle animations, win poses, and victory screens:
Add/finish more stage backgrounds:
Improve menus with additional touches like key art portraits in the character select:
Finish and implement our new ending animatics:
Expand localization (thanks to Stealph for her translation help so far):
As a disclaimer, we have a very small team with one programmer, one artist and no publisher money, so we may or may not make as much progress as we'd like toward these goals. If you want to support our continued work on the game, one great way to do that is to join our Patreon.
If you want to see last year's Year In Review, check it out here: https://steamcommunity.com/games/1492750/announcements/detail/3888359911119183912?l=german
Thanks for your continued support!
Noel Update
Full color Noel sprites!
This patch marks our 5th character with finished-quality art: Noel!
Noel was partially done in the last patch, but now (almost) all of her animations are in. The one missing piece is the devouring animation on her ground throw, which will get finished up later.
Noel's air throw animation has been redesiged, and as a result we have reduced the push it causes to 1 square (from 2).
Marv will be the next to get finished sprites, which may take about 2 months because of how complex his animations are. A few of his 'being hit' animations are in this build, but we haven't turned on his color shader yet.
New Opponent Character: Nils
At the end of Nick's arcade mode, you may remember a fight with a character named Wooly, named after Nilson "Wooly" Seegmiller, a character from my previous game 'Nick Beard: The Fedora of Destiny' and the short lived Nick Beard comic.
Wooly, now calling himself Nils, is now his own character. His move set is modeled after "charge" based zoners like Guile. His art is currently in an early draft state (similar to what other characters were looking like last year) while we flesh out his gameplay.
You can fight Nils at the end of Nick's arcade mode, but we are also testing him out as a playable character. Join our Discord if you're interested in helping out with the testing process.
Improved Replay System
To help you analyze your matches, the replays viewer now has controls to pause or resume playback, or step through the replay a turn at a time. These controls are attached to the mouse driven 'Strategic View' interface which can be toggled on or off.
You can now record replays in single player if you finish matches in the "One on One" (versus CPU) mode.
There is now a slight delay at the beginning of a replay before the action starts. Previously the characters would jump the gun a little bit.
New Color Choices and Unlocks
The number of color palettes per character has been increased from 6 to 10.
A few existing palettes have been reorganized to different slots.
Most of these new colors are unlocks that you can earn by playing the game, effectively adding a some mini-achievements for each character.
Color 7 is unlocked when you beat Arcade mode on Normal or higher difficulty.
Color 8 is unlocked when you beat Arcade mode on Hard difficulty. Colors 7 and 8 will require a fresh Arcade run because of how Arcade progress was tracked in the past.
Color 9 requires a score of 5+ in Survival mode to unlock. This may already be unlocked for some of your characters.
You can actually skip doing the unlock process for the above colors by toggling on "Unlock Everything" in the options. This will not affect your saved progress, it just bypasses the requirements while this option is turned on.
Color 10 is unlocked with purchase of the Supporter Colors DLC. (The old Color 6 palettes were moved to this slot).
Now if someone blocks an attack which is minus, the blocking player appears to stay in blockstun for less time. This is a cosmetic change to help the flow of the game--the actual frame advantage of moves is not affected.
Bug Fixes
Fixed an uncommon issue where the game wouldn't know when to hand off a controller to Player 1 in some gamepad related situations, causing problems with navgating menus.
Thanks to King9999 for helping hunt down this bug. To report a bug or send feedback, you can always press F8 in game.
Nominate Mega Knockdown for a "Labor of Love" Steam Award!
Our small team (of two) has been working hard on making Mega Knockdown the best it can be. Since July of 2022 we have made staggering improvements to the game, and we hope to make it out of early access next year. If you like the game, why not show us some support with a nomination?
November Update
New sprites for Noel (Phase 1)
Most of Noel's animations have been overhauled with full-color, hand-drawn, finished quality sprites. Some of her animations are not ready yet (mostly her normal attacks) so the rest will come in the next regular content update.
New Status Icons
A new set of icons appear when a player is punished or is at frame disadvantage, replacing the old programmer art.
There are two variants of the frame disadvantage icon. When a player is -20, more minus signs appear compared to -10. The icon also appears more reddish in color. (The old version had two variants too, but they were harder to tell apart.)
The new icons now appear above the characters instead of on top of them, so as to not get in the way of the action.
These icons now appear during replays by default. There may later be an option to toggle them on/off depending on player feedback.
Palette enhancements for Noel and Marv
Noel and Marv now use 10 total colors rather than 8 for their palettes, and there should be better fidelity between the defined palette colors and what is rendered in game.
These additional colors give better flexibility for alternate palettes, including user created custom palettes. For instance, Noel's lips used to be locked to the same color as her shirt. Now they are on different shades.
Most of the default palettes for Noel and Marv have been adjusted slightly to account for their access to more colors. For instance, Marv and Jayne now have green accents in their Color 6.
Noel has a new "armor" palette that appears for a brief instant if her Plant Armor triggers.
System changes and fixes
While a player is hit by Noel's rapid whip attacks, their position will jitter slightly. Additionally, the "knockdown" animation will now only trigger on the last hit.
Fixed an issue with Paul sometimes snapping slightly below the stage if Paul is hit during a specific frame of Paulcano.
Paul's back throw has been adjusted in appearance slightly. It is still somewhat of a placeholder, like other back throw animations.
Hit sparks have been moved forward in the sorting order so that they aren't drawn under the hit player's lineart. This behaviour may need to be revised more in the future.
Fixed some odd knockback effects during Noel's Fightning Flail
M.M. Lewis Update
Full color sprites for Lewis
This patch marks our 4th character with finished art: M.M. Lewis!
A few of Lewis' moves have new effects, namely his throw and PileDebunker. Also, his slide has a new look, and sports afterimages like all other "late moving" attacks.
Of the starting 6 characters, this just leaves Marv and Noel. Both of these characters will be technically challenging to animate because of their designs, so we plan to work on them in tandem. It may be at least 2 months befoe Noel or Marv is finished.
New air throw for Nick
Nick's visuals were technically unfinished in the last couple patches because his air throw was not complete. Hence overnight we have gone from 2 to 4 visually 'finished' characters.
Functionally the move is the same as before, but it has gained an extra visual flourish: after throwing the enemy down, he will descend into a butt slam on top of them.
Gameplay and System Changes
Lewis' slide attack, Slippery Slope, has been adjusted to be more predictable and consistent. Startup speed is now 35~45f depending on spacing (ranged from 25~55f before). Slide no longer has bonus speed vs other late moving attacks, except Lewis' backward moving specials. Slide's speed used to be adjusted by +10f if the opponent walked backward or reduced by the same amount if they moved forward, now this modified is halved to 5f. This modifier cannot reduce the startup below 35 or above 45.
Nick's A combo now always steps forward if there is room. Previously he would not do the step if he was already in Cheesy Dust Loop range.
The Tutorial UI's alignment has been adjusted slightly.
Hitboxes are now drawn behind the UI once again.
The slurs plugin in the online lobbies chat has been replaced with a new one that is less likely to trigger false positives.
Bug Fixes
Fixed a literally four year old bug where, in situations where players are three squares away and both jumping toward each other, Player 2 would get priority for the square in the one specific screen position where Player 1 was supposed to, creating a very slight screen position advantage for Player 2.. at least on paper.
Fixed an uncommon softlock that could sometimes occur when whiffing a move in a punish situation.
Fixed a turn order glitch that would occur if the player spammed low attacks vs a neutral jumping training dummy
Fixed a hit detection problem causing asynchronous trades in some anti air situations.
Fixed a problem where characters were reacting to grabs out of sync with the grab in some cases.
Marv jC is now consistently -20 for both Player 1 and Player 2. Previously there were some specific ranges where it was plus, and these were not consistent among both players.
Player 1 can now break Noel's plant armor. Player 2 already could do this, but there was a bug on P1 side.
Fixed Noel's attacks causing no hitstop during a plant assisted combo.
Fixed Noel's opponent taking attack damage plus vine damage if her vine traded hits with a 10f attack, but her actual attack was slower than 10f.
Fixed player 2's animations (only) getting delayed in a vine trade situation.
If Noel whiffs jA but hits with Vine, she can still pick up a high damage OTG combo afterward into knockdown, but this no longer includes the damage of her whiffed jumping attacks. This interaction is a little bit unintended so we may revisit it in the future.
Fixed two Noel players sometimes doing inconsistent amounts of knockback on each other if they hit each other with vines while doing other, slower (interrupted) attacks.
Fixed Lewis taking less chip than intended when blocking a vine together with a normal attack.
Fixed a problem sometimes causing Lewis to end up in the same square as his opponent while using his Slide.
Fixed Lewis popping forward during Slide when hit by Lewis Fist of Euphoria.
Fixed Slide inconsistently winning or losing vs Fist of Euphoria depending on corner position.
Fixed PileDebunker looking strange while trading with Slide
Fixed Fist of Euphoria having extra range during a punish.
Fixed the coloring of a Paul sprite that didn't have white eyeballs.
Fixed Jerma Nick appearing to teleport forward during his A Combo.
Fixed a flickering hitbox issue sometimes affecting air throws.
The "Punish" label in the input indicator no longer dissapears when a player is hit.
Fixed an issue where, if you're in the Matchmaking Queue and find a match, your lobby might break in the transition back to the lobby scene if the game would try to look for other lobbies in the ~1 frame it lingers in the Lobby Browser scene.
Thanks to community members Sente and hypergrav for helping hunt down several bugs and other issues in the recent weeks. To report a bug or send feedback, you can always press F8 in game.
Meta Changes
The game has a new icon (featuring Paul) for the .exe, Steam library and Steam community. Goodbye, Knocked Down Stick Figure Man. You served us well.
Mega Knockown now has Steam Community Avatars you can choose for your Steam profile.
Version 0.956 Update
Bug Fixes & System Changes
Fixed a bug where Marv jumping C would always beat neutral+B, not just when the B attack is out of range
Fixed a bug where Marv jumping B would play no sound when hitting Marv's Blazing Ent
Fixed issue where Marv would be hit instantly by a vine if it would connect with Jayne's limb. The timing of this hit is now more plausible.
Fixed a bug where Noel's partial Vine damage bonus would stack with the direct hit Vine bonus in the corner (not intended)
Fixed a bug where Noel would add the full damage of her attack to vine damage on a trade, even if her slower attack is interrupted.
Fixed an odd situation where Noelswould not delay the same amount of time if trading vines.
When a trade happens involving a vine, the vine will now knock down more consistently
If Noel's plant armor triggers, she is no longer immune to side switching.
Billy's stomp no longer makes a sound if it is interrupted at the exact wrong timing
Adjusted Nick's back walk to end in the idle pose.
Adjusted timing of anti airing jumping C moves so the interaction looks more natural
If you change the resolution to an approved aspect ratio while you are displaying an aspect ratio warning, it should clear the warning.
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Thanks to our community on Discord for finding these issues. You can press F8 in game at any time to report a bug or give feedback.
Matchmaking Update
New Feature: 'Find Match' While Playing Other Modes
There is a new "Find Match" button in Online mode. This lets you queue up for a match while playing other modes (training, arcade, etc). Other players can see your Lobby listed without you actually having to wait in it.
If a Lobby is open or someone is waiting in Find Match, a special icon will display in the Main Menu next to the Online button.
You can still wait for players in the lobby screen by selecting New Lobby.
Opening the Online Mode now automatically searches for open lobbies. The old "Join Lobby" button is now "Refresh Lobbies."
New Stage: CHROMA
Going back to our roots a little bit here. It's a green screen! On this stage you can take screenshots or videos and easily edit out or replace the background if you want.
Currently the Green Screen Jeremy DLC needs to be active for you to use this stage. It's free, however.
System Changes
Lewis' shoes are now on a separate palette color from his turtleneck. Lewis' shoe color is now different in some palettes as a result.
One new Lewis animation is in. Lewis is the next character who will get finished art.
Billy's fearsome air throw now has a name (Tengoku Chaos Dunk)
Nick's back jump was reworked to have more similar timing to other back jumps.
Improved hit detection when whiff punishing Jayne's limbs after Marv's special attacks.
If the game is launched in an "Ultra Wide" aspect ratio (which is not supported), the game will attempt to correct it to 1080p. This has not yet been tested, so it may not work. Let's just say this is a feature that's in beta.
If the game is changed to an unsupported resolution (such as by dragging the game window), a warning message will display when you change menus.
When using a jumping C attack giving a successful side switch, the displayed hitboxes are now different, though the actual range of these attacks has not changed.
Adjusted frame disadvantage delay in situations where both players walk+block
Your bindings have been reset again to fix a controller mapping issue (sorry).
Balance Changes
Nick's counter hit bonus has been reworked to be simpler. He gets the bonus if his attacks are same speed or faster than the opponent’s, unless it's during a trade or an anti air. (Old rule: nick got bonus damage if his ground attack interrupted another ground attack that would have hit)
Counter hit damage bonus now 50 (was 100) because this is a much more common situation.
Lewis Fist of Euphoria chip reduced (75->50). This move is just really good, so some toning down is in order.
Lewis PileDebunker chip increased (75->100). It's supposed to be a big swing, and anyway you eat a big punish when this move is blocked.
Marv Gravity Spike is now -10 (was +10). This move does everything. It probably does not also have to be plus on block.
Characters with "short" jumping C attacks (Nick, Paul, Billy) now have extra 1 range against late moving attacks. This is to prevent dead zones vs moves like PileDebunker.
Bug Fixes That Also Kinda Affect Balance
The Big Billy Buster now does the extra 50 damage only when there is a wallbounce. There were a few stage positions where it would get the damage without a wallbounce.
Fixed Marv's Vapor Strike not pushing on hit in some situations (grounded, player 1 side only).
Noel's Fightning Flail now does full damage against jump ins (previously the first hit would sometimes whiff--not intended).
Some low-hitting specials (Lewis slide, Billy stomp) are no longer able to hit Jayne's limbs after Marv's specials whiff. This was notintended.
PileDebunker can now properly whiff punish Jayne's extended limb after Vapor Strike at round start spacing, as intended.
Other Bug Fixes
Fixed a serious misalignment of health bars in 16:10 resolution. This was a new issue caused by rearranging the game canvases.
Fixed a problem where the resolution would update unexpectedly when closing menus for sound, gameplay, etc.
Fixed a problem where dragging the game window to a new monitor would cause the Graphic Options to default to native resolution instead of whatever resolution you're actually using
Fixed directional control bindings for menu navigation not saving properly after closing the game.
Fixed the timing of certain jumping moves when they are jumping over attacks without an anti air hitbox (fireballs, slide, etc).
Fixed sprite positions when Lewis is hit out of his Bravery Step specials (Fist of Euphoria, PileDebunker), or punished when those moves are blocked.
Fixed a sprite error in Nick's low block.
Fixed a sprite error in Nick's wakeup animation.
Fixed a misalignment in the glyph circles in the input display panel.
Fixed not being able to select Color 6 on gamepad while in the online lobby, even if you have the DLC
A timing issue was fixed when using Blazing Ent vs players jumping on wakeup.
"C" attacks are now called "Salty" attacks on the rebinding menu and nowhere else. This is classified as a bug because this change was supposed to happen last patch, but did not because of an error.
Special thanks to community member Sente for doing a lot of legwork identifying bugs in the last build.
Nick Beardguy / Combat Log Update
Full Color Sprites for Nick
Almost all of Nick's animations have been revamped with finished art, except for his Air Throw related animations. Those will be finished soon.
The next character to get an art update will be Lewis, and we expect this will take about two months.
Balance Change: A Small Step Forward for Nick (literally)
Nick now steps forward 1 square when doing his A combo, instead of slipping back to his starting square. This keeps him at a desirable range after landing an A combo instead of pushing the opponent to an unfavorable distance.
The corner distance for Cheesy Dust Loops is checked AFTER this step, meaning that Nick can now do his enhanced A corner combo from a further distance than before. His B combo is unaffected.
New Feature: Combat Log
Now, whenever you pull up the clickable mouse controls (also known as the 'Strategic View') by clicking the game window during a match, a new Combat Log will appear.
This log contains detailed information about the inner workings of the game, and it will explain in text why a player got hit, the current frame advantage situation, how much damage was dealt, and so on.
All of the above can be learned without pulling up the log, but my hope is that inexperienced players to the fighting game genre can use it to better understand the game.
You can click to "pin" this view so it always shows up if you want a "turn based strategy" style view, or you can disable this feature entirely in the options menu for a more immersive fighting experience.
Currently the log requires the clickable mouse controls to be active, but the log can be toggled on or off separately. In a future patch we may decouple the log from the mouse HUD.
Improved Input Display Bar
The input display on the bottom of the screen is now glyph-based, to make it easier to read at a glance, and to make the layout more consistent.
In single player, you can now see your own input choices before locking in both actions. This information is still hidden in Versus, for obvious reasons.
Other System/Visual Changes
When a player is hit in the air outside of the jumping state, they will play a Juggled animation. If a player is hit on the ground despite electing to jump, they will no longer be Juggled. This is entirely a cosmetic change, and does not influence things like Noel's anti air combos.
Mega Knockdown is now compatible with the Game Recording Beta. We're not currently using any special API features, but you can follow the instructions in the link to make easily sharable clips of gameplay.
When the Guide is open, the mouse menu will be temporarily hidden so it doesn't cover up Guide elements.
Adjusted the shape of Player 2's mouse controls to match Player 1.
C attacks are now labeled "Salty" attacks in the rebinding menu, and nowhere else. (was: "Spicy")
Bug Fixes
Fixed Player 2 not being able to rebind gamepad controls from the Options menu.
Fixed Jerma appearing during some of Marv's animations after a KO.
Fixed the red "damage" bar not recovering in Training mode when Recover HP is enabled.
Fixed a bug where Faith Smasher would sometimes appear to trade with attacks, instead of winning.
Fixed a rare issue where certain jumping A attacks would sometimes trade "asynchronously" with other jumping attacks.
Fixed an issue where cutscene conversations could not be advanced by clicking the mouse.
Fixed a brief "jitter" that would happen when a special move name is displayed on the input display HUD.
Fixed a mousing issue sometimes causing the selected lesson to change when loading a Tutorial lesson.
