Howdy, Jack here.

I know a lot of yall have been wondering why there have been no updates to this game in like...a long time?

Well, the folks that have been hanging out in our discord, following us on twitter, and those that know us personally know that there have been a lot of things going on behind the scenes this whole time, and a lot of things that have come up in our personal lives that took Lasso Games off track a bit.

But! This is not a bad news announcement. It's a good news announcement! A lot of major overhauls are underway that will completely transform the gameplay experience of this title.

A couple examples:

The combat system is getting completely overhauled. We are looking to totally transform the way combat is done in this game. As much as I love the old school Castlevania style combat, we just don't think that it is going to make for an engaging play experience in 2021. So we are adding attack combos per weapon, blocking, a sprint mechanic, the ability to walk backwards and parry/riposte to the arsenal of combat options for The Captain.

Shields are gonna be a thing! You will be able to block more effectively with them, or bash with them so you can actually use them as a melee weapon in a pinch! This will tie in with the new stamina bar somehow and affect your combat options to make the whole experience more fun and strategic.

The enemy AI is getting WAY more sophisticated. Each enemy went from having a handful of properties like HP and move speed to a whole bunch of robust and customizable advanced behaviors. This overhaul will allow us to create a broader array of enemy types that are smarter and more engaging to encounter. Now they will do things like be alerted, back away from you, duck, block, have attack sequences, and so on. And this is all just from any standard enemy, not even counting bosses or advanced enemy types.

You will be able to dual wield! Like a proper pirate, you can have two swords if you want, a sword and a pistol, sword and shield, a two-handed weapon, or the classic sword and sub-weapon combo. We've had to totally overhaul the way the weapon logic works to make these configurations possible but it should make for a robust and dynamic play experience as you travel Cerrawyn.

We are experimenting with some new visual effects to help us clean up your screens and collect garbage from our code. As badly as we wanted to be NES-Pure early on, we realized that it was coming at a great cost to our artistic vision and limiting us in ways that just kept us from being able to get our art into your hands. Subtle things like particle effects and shaders will help us to reach our visual style goals more effectively without having to spend time trying to fit our round peg into the square hole of the medium.

As always, these steps take time and effort and energy that has been in short supply these days. Many of us are struggling to survive these days and have faced a terrible onslaught of tribulations this world has brought upon us. We cannot thank all of you enough for your support over the years as we work on this at a pace that keeps us all from losing our sanity. There will surely be releases in the future that have bugs, or features that need to be addressed. But after all is said in done, we are most interested in bringing this project to you as a fully realized work that is FUN first and foremost.

Thank you all so much for your continued support, and as always, follow us on social media for more updates:

Twitter: @lassolevantera

https://twiiter.com/lasso_games

Discord: https://discord.gg/0kFlC9iiGca986Yq