After three years of hard work, learning, and a lot of mistakes, the Harmonious Prelude update to Blade Symphony is out NOW! And to celebrate, we're having a FREE WEEKEND to invite everyone to play. We're so happy for the results, and will be doing weekly updates, we can't wait for you to try it!

• New Level Progression!
  • Gain XP by playing in duels, your performance determines your gain
  • Move up levels to unlock new items to add your character, or show off in the scoreboard.
  • Rewards unlockable via Level Progression:
    • Swords
    • Masks
    • Character Skins
    • Armor Attachments
    • Armor, Chat/Scoreboard and Glow Colors
    • NEW! Intro-screen background Emblems
    • NEW! Sword glow types like Fire, Toxic, Pulsating and Velocity

• Multiple Matches per Arena
  • Multiple duels can now take place within the same arena. Players can can queue to fight or spectate in any match.
  • Each match has its own Style set (Arcade or Classic,) when crated.
  • Previously, only one duel could take place per arena, for six players dueling per server. This means that for larger players, ten or more players won’t have to spectate.
  • Matches can be created and joined by holding the TAB key.

• Arcade Style
  • Arcade Style is a more accessible way to experience Blade Symphony, resulting in a better learning experience for new players, too!
  • Arcade Style uses one sword type, attacks are one string per stance, charge tiers use the same animation, and there is no side canceling.
  • The traditional style of play available prior to this update has been named “Classic Style.”
  • Style Indicator
    • Colored Kanji representing the style is shown behind the stance indicator
    • When not playing inside a duel, there is an indicator in the bottom left of the screen to help remind you what mode you are playing in or watching https://i.imgur.com/cZks7Yx.gif
    • All indications are hidden during a duel, so as to ensure a minimal HUD
  • Players are prompted when joining a server, to select their Style https://i.imgur.com/oA7YIIG.gif
  • The choice of Style within the scoreboard affects the Style of any match the player creates.

• Bot Incentive System
  • As incentive for players (especially new or those in uncommon time zones) to join servers, bots will spawn upon connection. Players will be able to duel bots while waiting for more players.
  • Fighting a bot will result in ¼ of the normal XP gained by fighting human players.
  • Number of bots that spawn when player joins can be changed using bb_duelbots_num_bots, with default as 6.
  • Spawned bots randomly choose Arcade or Classic Style when creating matches, which can be changed by server owners or selected in Offline Training.
  • Spawned bots will leave the server as more players join, which can be toggled on or off using bb_duelbots_proportional, with the default as 1


• Final Blow Slowdown
  • The killing attack on an opponent results in a 2 second time slowdown. This helps emphasize how the duel was ended, and makes for very endings!

• Notification Area
  • Various notifications like players leaving and joining the server were cluttering up the text chat, so they’ve been moved to a special Notification Area.
  • Duels starting and ending show in the Notification Area.
  • Notifications are contextual to the duel the player is watching or playing in. If a player is queued to fight, or currently within a duel, any notifications regarding other matches will be hidden.
  • Unlockable player chat colors are respected in Notification Area
  
  
• New Tutorial
  • The Tutorial has been rewritten from scratch to account for Arcade Style, and more includes more readability and text changes.
  • Tutorial now displays large full-screen popups upon ending a Chapter, so that the player can save their progress and come back later.
  • The end of the tutorial now has easier bot difficulty for new players.
• Larger and uniform Arenas
  • Monastery, Winter, District have had their arena’s flattened, made to be slightly more square, and expanded in size. This should make for a more even experience on every map.
• Bot appearance and difficulty
  • Bots now select their own names, masks, swords, avatars, and armor attachments.
  • Bots now have multiple difficulties that can be selected by the player using the convar bb_force_bot_difficulty.
    • 0 – Dummy, the bot does nothing
    • 1 – Easy, the bot will not throw shurikens or charge attacks.
    • 2 – Normal, the current state of the bot
    • 3 – Hard, this is the same as normal, but we’re working on it!
  • Bot difficulty can be forced to be easy with
• Players can start a vote to change the map
  • Call vote option to change the maps is presented in the UI, navigable by pressing ESC and going to “Play Online” and selecting Call Vote.
  • Maps are presented in an ordered list, populated based on the player’s own maps.
• New in-game music
  • Faction specific music plays while in the Customization Screen, that corresponds with the faction of the player’s character.
  • Meditation music will now play when players sit in a duel or FFA.
• New loading screens
  • Backgrounds of loading screens use the Steam Trading Cards art, and feature the animated Blade Symphony logo. These pieces were too cool not to show off!
  • Loading screens now show detailed information about loading, such as “Downloading files,” “Changing connection”, etc. to ensure that players are never without perceptive output.
  
  
• New graphical improvements
  • For players that want a more saturated and vibrant experience, we’ve added a custom tonemapper that is on by default.
  • Players can turn the tonemapper off by pressing ESC, selecting Options and toggling “Tonemapping” in the Video menu.
  
  
  
  • Added Cascaded Shadow Maps, which allow for lighting in more complex situations
  • Many rendering system optimizations, hopefully resulting in higher framerates!
• Accessibility for everyone!
  • Added 32-bit and 64-bit game client and game server. Both are accessible for 64-bit uses, due to any extenuating computer configuration.
  • Added Linux 64-bit game client and game server.
  
  
  • Added MacOS 64-bit game client.
  
  
  • Added language support for 9 new languages! To help us complete localization for all Steam supported languages, click here.
    • Dutch
    • French
    • German
    • Hungarian
    • Japanese
    • Korean
    • Portuguese
    • Russian
    • Spanish
• New game engine
  • Rebuilt from the ground up in the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive branch of the Source Engine. Previously, it ran on the Portal 2 branch, which makes for a 7 year difference!
  • Characters can no longer change active stance (but can change desired stance) while charging.
  • Networking Changes:
    • New priority layer for players origins, both local and external players.
    • Player origins are no longer rebuilt using cell bits
      • Increased accuracy and update rate of player position
    • Completely rewritten lag compensation system
    • Fixed numerous prediction errors in hitting and jumping
    • Affects both player movement and sword tracers
    • Tickrate has been increased to from 60 to 64 ticks per second
      • Interpolation values have been changed and much improved to reflect this.
      • cl_updaterate & cl_cmdrate updated to 64 also.
      • Moved to the Source 2 networked sockets system
    • Game servers use half tickrate for simulation.
    • Max and default rate has been increased to allow for more players on a single server
    • Added ratelimiting for usercmd and string commands to help prevent bad/ddosing clients.
  • Performance Optimizations:
    • Threaded world building
    • Players’ bones are cached and only setup once per frame instead of multiple times per frame.
    • Multiple changes to Winter, District and Monastery for better rendering performance.
    • Tracers and FX are not simulated when not rendering.
• Fixed a bug where some achievements that were based upon consecutive actions would not reset when that consecutive action was not performed.
• Fixed sword and scabbard position being 1 frame behind - very noticeable on lower framerates.
• User Interface
  • Removed GetSatisfaction link
  • Added Discord link
  • Modified forum link to point to the Steam forums
  • Text for in-game performance profiler is now larger
• Discord Rich Presence
  • Show what character you’re playing as, and in what arena you are in in each map with cute little pictures!
  • Join people straight from Discord! (Ask to Join)
• Crash reporter
  • Let us know what went wrong easily by using this handy tool that autostarts when you crash, and automatically sends us all the info we need to debug your crash!
  • You can, if you choose, give a description of what you were doing when you crashed which may help us.
• Software Development Kit
  • We've included an SDK for Blade Symphony! Get access to everything you need to make levels and models at the click of a button!
  • Includes Crowbar model compiler. Thanks ZeqMacaw!