#4 Weekly Fix 3 – KAENU, the Shadow Warrior!
Onward and upward!
Another week, another Monday, another Weekly Fix!
In our last article we introduced you to Anchorn. Today, we’re excited to unveil Kaenu, the shadow warrior! Of course, we’ll also fill you in on everything we accomplished over the past week.
Just a quick reminder: our closed Pre-Alpha test is coming soon, and pre-registration will be available on our website shortly. 🙂 In the meantime, join us on our Discord server.
So, who is Kaenu?
Kaenu is the master of the shadow realm. He’s an exceptional fighter-not just because of his raw power, but because he blends strength, agility, and all the tools at his disposal. He loves to deceive his enemies and strike by surprise. Let’s take a closer look at Kaenu’s abilities:
Ambush:
Attacking from the shadows, this ability damages his opponent and briefly stuns them. While stunned, the opponent can’t use any of their abilities.
Sharp Cut:
A fast attack where he throws a shuriken to damage his enemy. In addition to immediate damage, the attack can inflict a bleeding wound that causes damage over time. If Kaenu lands multiple hits, the effects stack for even more damage.
Silent-Shot:
He uses a hollow bamboo tube to shoot a poisoned dart, inflicting damage over time. On top of that, the poison prevents the enemy from healing. Timing is key—since the poison takes a bit to kick in, you’ll need to plan your move. 😉
Stealth Form:
Kaenu can fool his enemies and hide in the shadows for a while. If you can’t see him, it’s pretty hard to hit him!
Kaenu is a true ninja, maybe the ultimate among them, with even more potential to unlock. Thanks to his stuns, he’s not only a great DPS, but also an extremely valuable teammate in any squad.
Now, here’s what we worked on this past week!
✅ While publishing our last article, we noticed that oversized images were messing up the admin panel and the website display. Since this put the article at risk, we fixed it ASAP-and the article was published right on time.
✅ That same article helped us catch a bug: on mobile, ability descriptions weren’t displaying in the usual “description-image” order, but sometimes as “text-image,” “image-text.” We fixed that before the article went live, too.
✅ Real talk marketing-no taboos here! We ran a mini test campaign on Facebook for the price of a few coffees. According to Facebook Ads Manager, 129 people clicked through to our site. But our analytics showed only 4 users actually came from the ad. 🤔 Our guess? The cookie consent bar wasn’t noticeable, so most people ignored or dismissed it. To give everyone a real choice, we redesigned the cookie consent as a pop-up-now you have to make a clear decision to accept. It might be a bit strict, and we’ll probably tweak it again as we see new data.
✅ Added “forgot password” functionality to the game.
✅ It was confusing when, the moment an enemy died, the results screen would pop up instantly. We added a transition to make it clearer what just happened.
✅ When an enemy died, the HP bar wasn’t resetting to zero because the client learned about the character’s death before it got the updated health value from the server. Fixed.
✅ With Anchorn, we realized that if you used Dark Shield multiple times in a row, every shield effect would stack. Fixed-now only the last active Dark Shield remains.
✅ Sometimes, attacks would produce fractional damage values, cluttering the screen with numbers. Now, only rounded whole numbers appear.
✅ The Pre-Alpha registration page for the website is finished! Just a final review left, and it’ll be live soon. Woohoo! 🎉
✅ If all players left a battle or lost their connection, the match didn’t actually end on the server side. We fixed this, because otherwise, over time, it would have led to memory leaks.
✅ We found a sneaky bug in one of Zyn’s abilities that could cause the server to restart. And speaking of Zyn... stay tuned, Zyn will be introduced next week!✌️
✅ Effect handling overhaul… This was a pretty major change, especially just before Pre-Alpha, but we felt we had to make a choice:
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Patch the current system, knowing we’d have to rewrite it after the test anyway; or
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Roll up our sleeves and do it right before the test.
We’re not the type to sweep problems under the rug-so we went with option 2, giving you a test version we believe in and plan to use for the long haul. Of course, if testing shows we need to pivot, we’ll adapt. But when it comes to quality, we won’t compromise.
Even though actual game development is our main focus, I also want to mention how much time goes into communication, updates, and sharing our progress. This article alone takes several hours to reach a state I’m happy with (I’m no professional writer). And then there are the other platforms, which we’re gradually bringing to life so you can find us anywhere.
As for all the extra tasks we handle on top of game development, I’ll talk about those in a future article.
Don’t forget, Zyn is coming in one week! In the meantime, come chat with us on Discord or follow us on our other platforms:
Tian