Hello, 2022!

Happy new year!!! Hopefully you had a fantastic holiday! We ended the year strong with a lot of great wins (see more details in update #68). For this update, we wanted to recap all the development achievements we made this past year, so let's kick this thing off!
For the love of Pete, *punch back* 2022!

Ally/Enemy Skills & Party Combos

Over the past year, weve added various in-battle cinematics, meticulously working to add visual and audio flair to every battle. Were now up to 180+ ally/enemy skills, attack combos and in-battle item cinematics!
Keep your eye on the ATB... Where the characters stop, you'll never know!
Talk about passing wind... #dadjoke2022
::Insert 80's action movie montage::
Clearly the Detective had a printer jam right before this battle.
Hot enough for ya?
This gif is a bit of a shocker.
Sometimes you need a cocktail to take the edge off... A Molotov Cocktail that is!
Here's an example of how items now look when you use them in battle
Combos got a major facelift this past year too!
Shade's blade slices through enemies like butter.

Random Encounters & A New Way To Escape Battles

While exploring the world of Pixel Noir, you never know when someone will try to mug you. Throughout Pinnacle City, baddies will jump out, sometimes alone and sometimes along with more bad dudes. Many enemies will just be hanging out in plain sight, while other enemies might be patrolling or disguise themselves as an inanimate object (like a trash can)! We've even overhauled our "run" mechanic. Previously, as seen in Early Access, you'd select run and the enemy just sort of went "poof" and disappeared. Now, when you select run, a mini game will determine if you can run from a battle.
What a nice evening for an ambush.
If you're fast, you might be able to escape a potential enemy encounter!
Pinnacle City has a few different types of mimics, so be careful out there!
Put those fingers to work if you want to run from a battle!

Visual Effects

We've added many visual effects creating much needed polish to the dramatic parts of the game. You'll see flashes of color, new animations for skills, and even heavier use of screen shakes and other camera tricks!
You want dramatic effects? We've got em'!
Whoa, trippy!
That flash of red really adds a nice "oomph" to Deuce's execution.

The Battle Arena, Hosted By Shovel Knight!

We've added a battle arena that you can access later in the game! 14 rounds with one-time prizes for finishing each round, featuring a cameo by none other than Shovel Knight! We can't tell you what the final round's prize is, but trust us, you'll want it!
That's a hell of a power, Shovel Knight!

Quality Of Life Enhancements

For starters, weve been iterating on the menu's user interface to improve intuitiveness as well as display more useful information. We've also added arrows that point to doors and teleports in the game world. You can see them by activating the detective's investigation mode. All main plot lines and cases (side-quests) have been loaded into the Case Manager! This means that you now have clues for each case as well as highlighted map tiles indicating key locations for both main quests and side-quests.
A peek of the latest menu UI!
You can see doorway & teleport indicators now!
It'll be much easier to keep cases moving along even if you step away from the game for a bit.

Items Discovery: Treasures, Traders, Grifters, Black Markets, & Battle Rewards.

Treasure boxes, bundles of cash, and items found through using Investigation Mode are now all in the game. You can also now buy, sell, and get ripped off in the streets of Pinnacle City with the different ways to acquire items and gear off NPCs!
The NPC that owns this garage probably didn't need it anyway \_()_/
Investigation Mode can show hidden items all over town!
Think carefully before making a trade, no backsies now!
So is the "fork" really a fork? Or could it something awesome??? ....or maybe it really is just a $1000 fork?
Keep a generous amount of cash on hand for these Black Market dudes... They charge premium prices, but they also have primo wares!
And of course, what RPG is complete without enemy item drops!

New Game +

We also rolled out this feature that was funded thanks to a stretch goal! Upon completing the game, New Game + will allow a player to start a new game with their current experience, money, items and skills. This time, however, the player can make different choices, which could lead to different outcomes.
New Game + is officially in the game. Thanks to the Kickstarter backers for bringing this one to life!

Audio

We've added 3D sound effects to scenes and moving objects. You can really hear the city come to life as cars drive by, neon signs buzz, trash blows around, waves crash against the beach and more. Additionally doorways with doors now play creeks or other SFX when you transition between rooms. [previewyoutube=vQDX00KtGQg;full][/previewyoutube] [previewyoutube=UoNsKvIlJ6U;full][/previewyoutube]

Stat Balancing

Testing stat-balancing isn't the most exciting element in the development of an RPG, but it's absolutely essential to delivering a balanced gameplay experience. All seven chapters now feature semi-balanced battle scenarios and gear. And, of course, we'll continue to play-test and tweak difficulty up until launch.

Peace out, 2021!

To give you an idea of what's to come in 2022, our efforts will be heavily focused around...

• Polish & Bugs: Implementing the last little bit of polish & stat balancing to get us into post production territory! We also have a handful of small tasks on the coding side, including save/load optimization, several GUI updates, and adding in trophies. Oh, and of course, zapping the bugs that we keep finding and fixing on a daily basis.
• Porting, Localization, & Compliance: As mentioned in previous updates, the good folks over at Badland Publishing will be helping us with these tasks. We'll have a better idea of the porting roadmap and release plans later THIS year after we've finished with development.

Well, that's a wrap for our 2021 year end review update! If you're pumped about Pixel Noir, here are three steps you can take to make sure you're in the know: [olist]

Wishlist Pixel Noir on Steam!

Join our SWDTech Games Discord server for a constant stream of screenshots, granular development updates, sprint summaries, and to chat with the development team!

Check in on development by dropping by Leo's Pixel Noir development streams on Twitch Monday and Thursday nights. Also remember you can follow our progress on our official Roadmap / Twitter bot. [/olist] Our next update will be out on March 24th! See you then! //Team SWDTech