Patch Notes

0.27.1 - (12/9/24)

Bugs

• Fixed bug where bots wouldn't drift properly when using parasol up special.
• Fixed bug where limbs wouldn't reappear after successfully parrying with Umbral Cloak.
• Fixed visual glitch where a certain combination of menu actions could cause a saved NPC to appear instead of the training bot in the loadout menu.

(Thanks for the bug reports!)

0.27.0 - (12/8/24)

New Gadget: UFO

• Added a new gadget, the UFO. The UFO is a floating companion that can shoot projectiles, abduct your opponent, and pull you upward with a tractor beam. You can also hop inside it and charge at your opponents, dealing damage on contact.
• Added Arena upgrade for UFO: Warp Drive - your UFO and its projectiles are faster.
• Added a skin for UFO: Jello.

General Gameplay

• Removed shield pokes. (Shield poking was the ability to hit shielding opponents by attacking the part of their body not covered by shield).
• Increased damage taken by shields by 10%.
• Reduced number of frames that the ledge remains "occupied" when a player gets off the ledge.

Warp Mine

• When placing a mine on top of an opponent it'll now stick to them. This works through shield. As with regular mines, mines stuck to your opponent can be detonated or teleported to.

Jet Boots

• Slightly reduced up and down special fuel usage.
• Slightly increased fuel recharge rate.

Parasol

• Float hitbox extends slightly further downward. This combined with the universal ledge change makes it more difficult to ledgehog parasol's up special.
• Increased inner hitbox size of side special.

Harpoon

• Increased start lag by 1 frame.
• Back throw: Slightly increased angle. Increased base knockback and reduced knockback scaling. (This should make back throw a bit less effective as a kill option).

Bugs

• Fixed bug where the game could freeze after quitting out of a lobby and joining a new one.
• Fixed an oversight that sometimes allowed players to cancel jab combos into light and dash attacks.

0.26.2 - (11/7/24)

Bugs

• Fixed bug where UI could become unresponsive after playing a match in a private lobby.

0.26.1 - (10/31/24)

Bugs

• Story mission rewards are now properly scaled from 5 peanuts -> 50 peanuts. Applied this increase retroactively, so accounts who completed story missions for the first time since 0.26.0 should now have the proper amount of peanuts.

The last patch (0.26.0) scaled all peanut values by 10x, but I had forgotten to apply this to mission rewards.

0.26.0 - (10/28/24)

This patch allows players to earn rewards while enjoying their preferred game mode(s), with or without the pressure of human competition. It also aims to promote quickplay usage to increase the likelihood of finding player opponents.

NPC Collecting

• Added optional NPCs (CPUs) to quickplay (explained further below). NPCs vary in playstyle, difficulty, rarity, and appearance. NPC opponents are indicated with "(npc)" next to their name.
• (This means that players can now earn peanuts and progress on daily and weekly tasks even if there aren't any other players to match with).
• There are currently 9 playstyle traits that NPCs can have. Some only appear at higher difficulty levels.
• The difficulty level of NPCs that you match against will increase/decrease as you win/lose matches.
• Higher rarity NPCs start the match with upgrades. Defeating these NPCs will earn you extra peanuts. (Note that rarity is separate from difficulty level).
• NPCs have unique names and appearances. Added several hairstyles and face accessories that NPCs can wear.
• If you like playing against a specific NPC, you can save them and spar against them whenever you want.

Quickplay Matchmaking

• There are now 3 matchmaking modes: Standard, Player-only, and CPU-only.
• Standard is the recommended mode. It will prioritize matching you with other players, but will fall back to CPUs when a quality match cannot be found. (The other two modes are self-explanatory).
• You can now queue for any/all of the 3 game modes (Classic, Arena, and Hybrid), and earn rewards for all 3. You can queue for multiple modes simultaneously, and you will match against opponents who have at least one mode in common with you.
• You can now "snooze" player opponents to avoid matching against them for the remainder of your session.
• Scaled peanut values by 10x. All accounts have had their peanut balance increased by 10x, all prices are 10x, and rewards have been increased 10x, except for the following:
• The peanut reward for match completion is now based on time played, rather than a fixed amount per match. Kudos are now worth 5 peanuts. These tweaks should reduce pressure to only queue for the most "optimal" (i.e. the quickest) mode, and should discourage certain behaviors such as win trading.
• Note that NPC matches will reward slightly fewer peanuts than similar-length PvP matches, to make up for the consistency and speed of the CPU-only queue (and to encourage PvP!).

CPU AI

• There are now 10 difficulty levels, 0 through 9. (Previously there were 7).
• Improved CPU AI's ability to traverse gaps in non-standard stage layouts.
• Made various other minor improvements to CPU AI.

Gameplay

• Removed hidden exploit that allowed players to perform dash attacks directly out of shield and out of jab.

UI/UX

• On/off toggle menu items are now represented with filled/empty boxes.

Bugs

• Fixed bug causing occasional replay descyncs on stages with bumpers.

0.25.0 - (10/7/24)

This patch significantly improves the CPUs. They should now challenge the majority of players and should legitimately help dedicated players improve at the game. Given how difficult it can be to find real people to play against I think this is pretty important!
The new AI will also allow me to add some new features I'm pretty excited about... more on that soon.
Please leave feedback on the new CPUs via any of the usual channels. Thanks!

CPU AI

• There are now 7 CPU difficulty levels, up from 4. The new difficulty levels are Dummy, Very Easy, Easy, Medium, Hard, Very Hard, and Extreme.
• Significantly improved all aspects of CPU AI. Note that some of these improvements are only relevant at higher difficulty levels.
  • Offense: Improved attack selection, timing, combo routes, and edgeguarding.
  • Defense: Improved ability to defend against opponent attacks and projectiles. Added the ability to escape aerial juggles, use directional influence, and floor tech.
  • Neutral: Higher level bots can bait out attacks, whiff punish, and mix up their approaches.
  • Improved awareness of gear piece-specific strategies and abilities.
  • Advanced techniques: Higher level bots now incorporate dash dancing, wavedashing, wavelanding, shield dropping, fastfalling, and more.
  • Improved awareness of common scenarios such as shield pressure and jab mixups.
  • Improved stage positioning and awareness.
  • Higher level CPUs are generally more resistant to "cheese" strategies, encouraging honest gameplay that will help players improve.

Tutorial / Story Missions

• Life Lessons mission: Tweaked the star requirements and the number of opponent lives (due to the improved CPU AI). Also tweaked the stage's platform placement.
• In platformer missions, players now have 3/1 lives on veteran/expert difficulties (up from 5/3 lives). This is a reversion of the increase from patch 0.20.5.
• Expert difficulty story missions are now locked until the mission is completed on any other difficulty.
• Added shortcuts from the pause menu to restart the current mission at a different difficulty level.
• Targets that require a specific attack type are now red + yellow, to differentiate them from "regular" targets.
• Added other minor QoL changes to the Intro Tutorial and Jim's Message mission.

Bugs

• Fixed rare bug where matchmaker could continue searching for a match while already in a quickplay match.
• Fixed issue where equipping Television would cause the Life Lessons cutscene to play out incorrectly.

0.24.0 - (9/7/24)

Art

• Added shading to the majority of character sprites. This includes gear pieces, respawn platforms, and avatar faces.
• Redrew and added depth to stage tiles to give them a 3-dimensional appearance.
• Tweaked a few animations, including some Flame Cannon animations and Chakram back aerial attack.
• Re-drew Oleg. His eyes and mouth are now subtley animated during certain actions to give him a more lively feel.

Cosmetics

• Added shield skins. Currently there are two: Beach Ball and Smiley, each with their own set of unlockable color palettes.

Flame Cannon

• Neutral Air: Added 5 frames of aerial endlag. (Its abnormally low aerial endlag was something of an oversight).
• Neutral Air: Increased size of strong hitbox relative to the weak hitbox.

Bugs

• Fixed bug where shield break hitstun was reduced when a player's shield was broken immediately after performing a self-detonate with warp mine.

0.23.0 - (8/24/24)

Wrecking Ball

• Added a new primary weapon, "Wrecking Ball". The wrecking ball is a mechanized flail attachment propelled by advanced magnet tech. It excels at mid-range combat and can be thrown to finish off opponents from afar.
• Wrecking ball is automatically unlocked online for Gear Pack owners, otherwise it can be unlocked for online use for 250 peanuts.

Cosmetics

• Added 3 wrecking ball skins: Basketball, Tomato, and Eyeball.
• Default wrecking ball skin palettes: Iron (default), Poison-tipped, Bloodied, Gold-coated.
• Basketball palettes: Classic (default), Red, Teal, Lights Out, Showboat, Up-tempo, Intangibles, Inner Dog, World Champs, MVP.
• Tomato palettes: Tomato (default), Tomatillo, Rotten, Sunkissed, Heirloom, Caspain Pink, Blueberry, Grape.
• Eyeball palettes: Blue (default), Brown, Green, Grey, Lavender, Red, Sickly, Alien, Golden.

Arena Mode

• Added Wrecking Ball arena upgrade: "Big Ball" (Your wrecking ball projectile is larger and deals more damage).
• Lightning Grease: there is now has a minimum delay between applications of jolt. This prevents multi-hit moves from applying multiple stacks of jolt.

UX/UI

• Added "Stronger Opponents" setting. Turning this setting on will remove the skill cap for quickplay matchmaking for your account, allowing you to match with stronger opponents.
• The "Find New Opponent" option after a quickplay match now allows you to change your loadout before queueing for your next match.

Bugs

• Fixed an issue where players could be locked out from grabbing the ledge for too long after being hit by a weak attack.
• Fixed bug where a thrown Warp Mine could permanently freeze mid-air if the mine's owner was hit or KO'd mid-teleport.
• Fixed visual glitch where quad staff skin layers were misaligned.
• Fixed bug where pressing the platform drop button while not on a platform mid-turn could cause your character to temporarily get stuck in place.
• Fixed issue where the Advanced Tutorial demonstration of floor teching wasn't working.

0.22.1 - (8/7/24)

A few minor balance tweaks as a followup to the 0.22.0 patch.

Balance

Chakram

• Increased end lag of forward tilt by 3f. This is a reversion of the end lag buff from 0.22.0, which made the move too difficult to contest. (The start lag buff is still intact).
• Slightly decreased knockback scaling of chakram projectile. At high levels of play forward air was leading to kill setups a little too early.

Pincers

• Decreased knockback angle of neutral air from 50 degrees to 47 degrees. This is intended to make it less easy to combo neutral air into itself at low-mid percents.

0.22.0 - (8/3/24)

This patch aims to increase game speed and pacing by increasing aerial mobility, increasing attack speed, and reducing knockback scaling on many attacks to make them more usable as setup tools for combos and knockouts.

General Gameplay

• Significantly increased fast fall speeds.
• Increased max air speed and acceleration.
• Suits now gain more speed from dash attacking.
• Buffering an air dodge with no direction input will now cause you to wavedash down instead of airdodging in place.

UX/UI:

• Increased volume of "match found" sound effect.
• Escape now must be held for 2 seconds to exit fullscreen. This allows keyboard users to use esc as back button without accidentally exiting full screen.
• You can now bind 3 buttons/keys to a single input, up from 2.
• Keyboard users can now bind a key to use as a dedicated start button, as an alternative to the default keys.

Gear Pieces

Quad Staff

• Slightly reduced length of bladed section of staff. This means most attacks had their range slightly reduced (unless otherwise specified).
• Jab: -1f start lag.
• Up tilt: -1f active frames, -1f end lag. Reduced knockback scaling on strong hitbox.
• Forward tilt: -1f start lag, -1f end lag.
• Down tilt: -1f end lag. Increased size of inner hitbox.
• Dash attack: -1f start lag, -3f end lag. Range unaffected.
• Up strong: -1f start lag, -1f end lag.
• Forward strong: -4f end lag.
• Down strong: -1f start lag, -1f end lag.
• Neutral air: -1f end lag, -1f landing lag. Range unaffected.
• Up air: -2f active frames, -2f end lag.
• Forward air: -1f start lag. Range minimally affected.
• Down air: -1f start lag, -1f end lag. Reduced knockback scaling.
• Back air: -1f active frames, -2f end lag. Reduced knockback scaling on tip hitbox.

Flame Cannon

• Up tilt: -1f start lag, -1f active frames, -1f end lag. Reduced knockback scaling.
• Forward tilt: -1f start lag, -2f end lag.
• Down tilt: -1f start lag, -1f active frames, -2f end lag.
• Dash attack: -1f start lag, -1f end lag.
• Up strong: -2f start lag, -1f end lag. Slightly reduced hitbox size.
• Forward strong: -2f start lag, -2f end lag. Slightly reduced hitbox size.
• Down strong: -1f start lag, -2f between active frames.
• Neutral air: -2f start lag.
• Up air: -1f start lag.
• Forward air: -1f start lag, -1f end lag. Reduced knockback scaling of final hit.
• Down air: -1f start lag, -1f landing lag.
• Back air: -1f start lag.

Chakram

• Up tilt: -1f start lag, -1f active frames, -1f end lag. Reduced knockback scaling.
• Forward tilt: -2f start lag, -3f end lag.
• Down tilt: -2f active frames, -2f end lag. Reduced knockback scaling and increased knockback angle.
• Dash attack: -1f start lag, -3f end lag.
• Up strong: -3f active frames, -4f end lag.
• Forward strong: -3f active frames, -3f end lag.
• Down strong: -2f between active frames. Reduced damage from 13 to 12.
• Neutral air: -2f start lag, -1f active frames, -2f end lag. Slightly reduced range.
• Up air: -1f start lag, -1f landing lag.
• Forward air: -2f start lag, -1f end lag.
• Down air: -1f start lag, -1f end lag, -1f landing lag. Reduced range.
• Back air: -1f active frames, -1f end lag, -1f landing lag. Reduced range.

Pincers

• Up tilt: -1f start lag, -1f active frames, -2f end lag. Reduced knockback scaling.
• Forward tilt: -1f start lag, -2f active frames, -2f end lag.
• Down tilt: -1f start lag, -1f end lag. Reduced knockback scaling.
• Dash attack: -1f start lag, -1f end lag.
• Up strong: -2f start lag, -1f end lag.
• Forward strong: -2f start lag, -3f end lag.
• Down strong: -1f start lag, -1f end lag
• Neutral air: -1f active frames, -2f end lag.
• Up air: -1f start lag, -1f landing lag.
• Forward air: -1f start lag, -1f landing lag.
• Down air: -1f start lag, -1f landing lag. Reduced knockback scaling.
• Back air: -1f start lag, -1f landing lag.

Warp mine:

• Slightly reduced base knockback of explosion and reduced damage from 12 -> 10.
• Endlag of self detonate now scales with percent.
• Reduced start lag of placing mine (neutral special) by 1f. Reduced end lag of strong mine toss by 1f.
• Your mine now freezes in place when you initiate a teleport, making it more consistent to use tosses (especially strong tosses) for recovery.

Parasol

• Reduced dive damage from 10 -> 8.

Jet boots

• Reduced spin attack start lag by 2f, reduced end lag by 1f.

Suits

• Oleg, Skelebob, Television: Slightly increased ground speed.
• Oleg: Slightly decreased weight (knockback resistance).
• Space suit: Slightly increased gravity and reduced jump height. Decreased shield size.
• TV: Increased shield size.
• Skelebob: Decreased instakill threshold by ~5%.
• Cloak: Added +2f end lag on whiffed counters, reduced length of active counter hitbox by 1f.

Secondaries

• Reduced start lag of all secondaries by 1f.
• Plunger: Reduced knockback scaling on up throw and forward throw.
• Spiked fist: reduced end lag by 1f. Reduced knockback scaling.
• Harpoon: Reduced end lag on whiff by 5f. Increased knockback scaling and decreased angles of down throw and back throw (this makes them more powerful kill throws). Reduced knockback scaling of up throw.

0.21.1 - (7/27/24)

UI/UX

• Added fullscreen toggle to graphics settings menu.
• Fixed issue where steam deck users couldn't click any of the buttons in the bottom-right menu.
• Fixed resolution scaling for ultra HD and ultrawide monitors. Previously the game appeared too zoomed out on these monitors.
• Expanded gamecube adapter (PC mode) support.

Matchmaker

• Tweaked matchmaker to be slightly more strict about skill ranges. (New players should no longer match against highly skilled players).

Bugs

• Fixed oversight where tap jump users were able to perform an upward light attack directly out of shield.
• Fixed oversight where tap jump users were unable to hover with Copter.
• Fixed a bug that caused some replays of online matches to play back incorrectly.
• Fixed minor glitch where exiting a replay would not reset your background tint.
• Fixed glitch where Arena mode "round won" overlay wouldn't properly disappear between replays.

0.21.0 - (7/25/24)

Controls

• Added support for playing with a mouse.
• Added a brief controls onboarding questionnaire to help set up new players with a default control layout that fits their playstyle.
• Changed the default keyboard controls based on player feedback. Note that this may mess up your existing keyboard binds and profiles. Please ensure they are correct and re-save any profiles. for the inconvenience!

UI/UX

• Redesigned loadout menus to be less overwhelming.
• Altered UI to be easier to navigate with mouse.
• Secondary menu selection (used to change color palettes) is now bound to [e]/grab instead of [j]/jump.
• To reduce new player confusion, Enter (in addition to Space) can now be used to select menu items. Control now acts as a "start" button for keyboard users.
• Replaced various floating UI prompts with new menu items to reduce clutter.

Gameplay

• When tap jump is on it is now possible to perform upward light and strong attacks out of jump squat.
• Added a 2-frame leniency window for directional light and strong attacks in cases where the direction is pressed after the attack input.
• It is now possible to wall jump with tap jump.
• Tap-jumped air jumps are now delayed by 3 frames to allow players to perform upward aerial attacks without jumping.

These changes should make tap jump much more usable. It should now be much easier to perform upward light, strong, aerial, and special (gadget) attacks without accidentally jumping.

Tutorial

• Tweaked tutorial to better accommodate tap jump users.

Bugs

• Fixed bug where game would crash when joining a quickplay match directly from watching a replay.
• Fixed bug where progress could not be made in the Directional Influence tutorial.

I'm aware of a bug that sometimes causes replays of online matches to desync. Still looking into this.

0.20.5 - (7/19/24)

Story Missions

• Mission names now include a "Chapter #" prefix.
• Added fuel recharge stations to story mission chapter 3 (casual and veteran only).
• Checkpoints now auto-activate on proximity instead of needing to be attacked by player.
• In platformer missions, players now have 5/3 lives on veteran/expert difficulties (up from 3/1 lives).
• Time thresholds for stars are now more lenient in casual and veteran difficulties.
• Tweaked placement and wording of various floating instruction text in chapters 1 and 3.
• Slightly decreased size of bumper and spike ball hitboxes.

Bugs

• Fixed bug involving gadget-input shield drops with Umbral Cloak.
• Fixed oversight where "clear" space suit palette intended for mission NPCs only was equippable by players.
  Considered just leaving this palette but was concerned that it blends in too much into the background, also it was odd that space suit had 3 default palettes instead of the normal two.

0.20.4 - (7/16/24)

• Live Twitch streams (of Counterpick Labs) will now appear in the main menu bulletin.
• Tweaked matchmaker to allow players with very high MMRs to find opponents more easily.

0.20.3 - (7/15/24)

UI/UX

• Made mode selection (classic, arena, hybrid) much more prominent. It now has its own menu that appears prior to the stage selection menu.

The previous UI didn't stand out enough so some players didn't notice the non-classic modes at all.

Matchmaking

• Slightly reduced the max distance between players that the matchmaker will allow for quickplay.

Bugs

• Fixed rare audio glitch where the jet boot sound effect could play on loop while the game was paused.

0.20.2 - (7/14/24)

Tutorial

• Made intro tutorial simpler and clearer.

0.20.1 - (7/12/24)

Bugs

• Fixed bug where game would freeze if joining a quickplay match while playing certain single player missions.

0.20.0 - (7/12/24)

Steam Early Access

• Counterpick Labs is now out (for free) on Steam Early Access! The web and Steam versions of the game remain equivalent, with cross-play, cross-progression, and account linking.
• The banana stand is now open on Steam and has been re-opened on web. Thanks for your support!

Story Missions

• Added a new single player mode: Story Missions. Learn about Jim and his fellow interns in the first three missions of Season 1: Intern Drama. New Story Missions will be released periodically.
• As with all offline modes, you can play Story Missions while queueing for quickplay.

Dash Attacks

• Added dash attacks for all primary weapons.
• With auto dash attack turned on, input a dash attack by pressing light attack while running. You can disable auto dash attacks in the controls menu.
• You can also dash attack by pressing any two attack buttons (light attack, strong attack, grab) simultaneously.

UI/UX

• Added a Roadmap under Main Menu > Extras.
• Reorganized menu structure to hopefully be less overwhelming for new players.
• In modes where players have infinite lives, added a new infinite hearts icon (previously 3 hearts were shown).
• Added a "quit" button to main menu for Steam version.

General Gameplay

• Slightly increased overall knockback. Knockback from most attacks is now slightly higher at the start of the knockback trajectory. This is intended to give hits more impact and make knockback feel less floaty.
• Slightly to moderately increased base knockback of most tilt attacks (directional light attacks).

Balance

Televisioin

• Instant transmission (teleport) no longer inflicts self damage.

Space Suit

• Slightly increased fall speed.

Skelebob

• Slightly increased fall speed and ground speed.
• (Visual only) Made Skelebob shorter.
• Slightly reduced jump height.

Oleg

• Slightly increased fall speed.

Warp mine

• Self-detonate no longer sends you into knockdown/tumble and has set endlag regardless of percent. Distance knocked back still scales with percent.

Chakram

• Increased base knockback of down light, forward light (close hitbox only) and forward air (close hitbox only).
• Forward light: Reduced endlag by 3f.
• Up air: slightly decreased knockback scaling.

Cannon

• Increased base knockback of forward light.
• Forward and up strong: Reduced start and end lag by 1f, and slightly decreased size of uncharged hurtbox.
• Down strong: Reduced start lag by 1f.
• Up air: Reduced start lag by 1f.
• Forward air: First and second hitboxes are lower. This is intended to reduce instances of whiffing slightly over your opponents' head.

Pincers

• Increased base knock back of forward light, down light, up light, and forward air.
• Forward strong: Reduced end lag by 2f.

Quad Staff

• Increased base knockback of up light, forward light, down light.
• Up light: Slightly reduced range and reduced end lag by 3 frames.
• Forward strong: Increased endlag by 2 frames.

Performance

• Optimized rendering of various graphical elements. This should hopefully address rare crashes experienced by a few individuals.

Arena Upgrades

• Removed "Shield Dmg Up", "Reaper" (heal on KO), and "Regenerate" (heal while shielding) from the upgrade pool.
• These upgrades consistently felt unimpactful.

Bugs

• Fixed bug where it was impossible to interrupt Jet Boot hover with aerial Spiked Fist.
• Fixed glitch where attempting to input a shield drop with a gadget input while not on a platform would cause you to momentarily drop your shield.
• Freezing Grease: fixed glitch where oleg wouldn't get unfrozen properly if frozen while charging a strong attack with super armor.
• Fixed UI bug where arrows were sometimes difficult to click on horizontal value selector menu items.

I planned to have a new gear piece and new cosmetics ready for this patch, but unfortunately adding the new single player mode took much longer than anticipated. I'll work on this next! And now that the structure's in place, future missions will be easier to add. Thanks for you patience.

0.19.4 - (6/10/24)

UX/UI

• Added pausing to offline modes (bot matches and local multiplayer matches). From the pause menu you can resume, exit, and restart your match.
• When a player exits a private lobby match, the lobby will no longer automatically disband. Instead, both players will be sent back to the loadout screen.
• Simplified the post-quickplay menu. This is intended to reduce incidences of players accidentally searching for a new opponent when they intended to rematch.

Controllers

• Added support for PowerA Switch Pro-style wired controllers. (If you have a third-party controller that doesn't work properly, please reach out!)
• Increased the default deadzone value for the right control stick to accommodate controllers with high default resting values.
• Updated the controller guide.

0.19.3 - (6/7/24)

UX/UI

• The color swatches in the loadout menu are now clickable, and will take you directly to the corresponding color palette menu.
• Fixed issue where binding jump to space and light attack to J would make it impossible to enter the color palette menu.

Tutorial

• The shield section of the tutorial is now easier.
• Added back the "quick start" tutorial module.

Gear Pack

• Purchasing the gear pack will now refund all peanuts you have previously spent on loadout gear. The amount you'll be refunded is displayed in the UI (as long as it's greater than zero).
• Increased the price of the gear pack to 600 peanuts ($6 USD), as mentioned in the release date announcement.

0.19.2 - (6/4/24)

Account Linking

• Account linking between Steam and web is now available!
• Linking your Steam and web accounts enables you to carry over all your data (currency, gear, skins, control profiles, etc) from one account to the other. Once linked, you will effectively have a single shared account that you can access from either Steam or web.
• Account linking is optional and irreversible. (You do not need a web account to play on Steam, nor do you need a Steam account to play on web).
• Navigate to the Settings menu in-game to get started.
• You'll receive 50 bonus peanuts for linking your accounts :)
• Please reach out to me if you run into any issues during the account linking process.

If it wasn't clear to anyone, Steam demo progress (and web progress, if you link your accounts) will carry over to the Early Access launch.

0.19.1 - (6/1/24)

Release Date Announcement

• Counterpick Labs will release to Steam Early Access on July 12th, 2024! You can wishlist it here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2837280/Counterpick_Labs/.
• Expect a content patch alongside the release.

Steam Demo

• The Steam demo has been upgraded to include the full content of the web version of the game.
• Added cross-play between the Steam and web versions of the game.
• Account linking between Steam and web will come soon.

Bananas

• The Banana Stand will be temporarily closed until Early Access release on July 12th. This is to make sure I'm compliant with Steam's Terms, since the demo version of the game doesn't support purchases.

Note that on Early Access launch, the price of the Gear Pack will likely increase to 600 bananas ($6 USD). I'll be adding more value to the pack, and while I want it to be cheap, $3 felt a little too cheap.

0.19.0 - (5/27/24)

Steam Demo

• The Steam demo is now live for Windows, Mac, and Linux! Download it here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2837280/Counterpick_Labs/ and make sure to add Counterpick Labs to your wishlist to be notified on the full launch.
• Since it's a demo, it has some limitations such as no quickplay and no account progression. The full Steam version will obviously not have these restrictions and will include account linking, cross play, and cross progression with the web version of the game.

Balance

Parasol

• Projectile is now destroyable.

Skelebob

• Slightly reduced threshold for instakill. This change is less pronounced against suits with higher weight.

Umbral Cloak

• Increased counter whiff lag by 1f.
• Decreased run speed by ~2%.

Oleg

• Increased full jump height.
• Reduced wavedash distance.

Note: Web users may be forced to re-login after loading this patch, due to changes in the backend to support Steam authentication.

0.18.8 - (5/4/24)

UI/UX

• Improved functionality of the back button at the bottom left corner of the screen. It can now be used to navigate sub-menus instead of exiting the current scene entirely.
• Added graphics option to stop UI text from wiggling.
• Slightly increased the distance from which stage bricks appear in order to reduce visual noise near the player.
• Improved support for a specific model of wired PowerA controllers. (If you're still having issues with third-party controllers please reach out in Discord).

Parasol & Jet Boots

• Up special recovery height for jet boots and parasol is now consistent across all suits. (Previously heavier suits would gain less recovery height).

(This patch also includes an experimental patch with some balance tweaks)

0.18.7 - (3/29/24)

Bugs

• Fixed bug where umbral cloak could no longer "shield drop" during the first few frames of counter.

0.18.6 - (3/27/24)

General

• Added a logo to the main menu.
• Created a press kit, available from the Extras menu or at https://counterpicklabs.com/press.

Bugs

• Fixed minor memory leak that could cause background elements to render incorrectly after extended play sessions.

0.18.5 - (3/25/24)

General

• The "Lab" tile skin is now the default. (Previously "Stone" was the default).
• Tweaked various skin and stage palettes that were unintentionally too dark or bright.

Bugs

• Fixed bug where shield stun would be ignored when inputting a shield drop on the same frame that you get hit.

0.18.4 - (3/17/24)

General

• Significantly optimized rendering performance. This should eliminate or reduce stuttering on GPU-bound systems, such as older macbooks in general and M-series macbooks using Chrome's Metal ANGLE graphics backend (the default setting on Chrome). CPU-bound machines may not see as much of an improvement from these optimizations (typically you can tell that you're CPU bound if your fps counter dips below 60).
• To accommodate various performance optimizations, certain player states are now displayed differently, including invulnerability, rage, and charging strong attacks.
• New players will now automatically be placed into the starting tutorial when first running Counterpick Labs. The tutorial can be skipped by pressing backspace/start. Because this is a new feature, all players (even those who have already played CPL) will encounter this the first time they play after this patch.
• To reduce visual clutter, floating tutorial prompts now only appear when the player is in the relevant section of the tutorial.
• Tweaked color palettes of player skins and backgrounds.

0.18.3 - (2/26/24)

General

• Tweaked the colors of all character, stage, and background sprites. (Colors should "pop" a bit more now).
• Added temporary in-game notice on Steam page launch.

0.18.2 - (2/25/24)

General

• Added the option to sign up for a mailing list during account registration.
• Previously, purchasing any amount of bananas would automatically unlock all current and future gear pieces. It came to my attention that some players enjoy the process of unlocking gear pieces themselves, and if such players wanted to purchase bananas for skins they'd be unable to do so.
• To accommodate these players, purchasing bananas will no longer automatically unlock all gear pieces - instead, players can now opt to purchase the Gear Pack from the Gallery & Shop menu for 300 bananas.
• Players who purchased bananas prior to this patch have been automatically granted the Gear Pack. (If you fall into this group and you don't wish to own the Gear Pack, shoot me a message or an email letting me know).

This new model should hopefully be more straightforward for new players as it's more in line with similar free-to-play titles. It also enables dedicated free players to eventually save up from weekly tasks to purchase the Gear Pack. It does however mean that paid players who do wish to purchase the Gear Pack will be down an extra 300 bananas (sorry).
(If you have a name idea that's better than Gear Pack please let me know...)

UI/UX

• Tweaked various in-game prompts (to confirm loadouts, change palettes, etc) to make them more prominent and hopefully easier to find for new players.

Bugs

• Fixed bug that allowed players to sometimes grab the wrong side of the top-right ledge in the tutorial stage.

0.18.1 - (2/23/24)

Tutorial

• Reorganized the tutorial menu. Removed most of the Beginner tutorial modules, and moved the remaining ones to Advanced Modules.
• Added a stopwatch timer to the Intro Tutorial for speedrunners.
• The laser beam now has a longer visual cue.
• The first target is now only destroyable with a jab, and the next two targets are only destroyable with tilt attacks.

0.18.0 - (2/21/23)

General

• Added a new obstacle course-like tutorial for beginners. It can be found at the bottom of the tutorial menu.
• Added new stage hazards that are used in the new tutorial: targets, barriers, and lasers.
• Re-worked and optimized stage tile rendering.

The goal with the new tutorial is to replace the existing beginner tutorials, which are too dull according to some player feedback. Please give it a shot and let me know what you think, and if you run into any performance issues (currently it's expected to be laggier than regular gameplay, but I'd like to know by how much).

0.17.3 - (2/7/24)

Bugs

• Fixed bug where changing your loadout immediately before loading into an online match could trigger a desync.
• Fixed bug in the rematch loadout menu where the harpoon preview animation could actually harpoon the opponent.
• Fixed bug affecting some accounts where the most recently used loadout wouldn't be saved between online matches, forcing players to have to reselect their loadout each match.

0.17.2 - (1/22/24)

Parasol

• Parasol projectile is now destroyed when hitting an opponent or an opponent's shield.
• Increased parasol projectile dmg from 4 to 5.
• Slightly decreased parasol projectile's base knockback, but increased its knockback scaling.

0.17.1 - (1/20/24)

Bugs

• Fixed bug that allowed players to navigate the loadout menu even after locking in their loadout for quickplay rematches.
• Fixed issue causing reflected strong-tossed warp mines to deal 6 dmg instead of the full 12.

0.17.0 - (1/19/24)

New Content

• Added a new suit: Copter - "A single seat rotorcraft, capable of intricate maneuvers in the air."
• Copter trait: Hover - "To hover, keep the jump button held. Alternatively, press down while jumping (with the jump button still held)."
• Copter trait: Lift - "Your aerial jump's momentum is gradual and can be cancelled with an aerial attack."
• Added two skins ("Primitive" and "Target Practice") and several color palettes for Copter.

General

• New primaries/suits/gadgets/secondaries (including Copter) will cost 250/200/200/150 peanuts to unlock for online use (in offline modes, all gear pieces are available whether or not they have been unlocked). This should give new players something meaningful to work toward and prevent them from being overwhelmed with choices early on. It also provides additional incentive to make purchases from the banana stand (see below).
• Purchasing any number of bananas now grants "paid account" status (the minimum purchase amount is $6 USD). Paid accounts automatically get all current and future gear pieces unlocked, and also automatically gain experimental patch access whenever such patches are available. Paid account status applies retroactively (anyone who has previously purchased bananas has been granted paid account status).
• Umbral Cloak and Pincers will also be unlockable, but only for new accounts (i.e. they have been unlocked for all existing accounts). New accounts will therefore start out with the same gear pieces that were available at the game's initial launch.

For context, the average player earns ~50 peanuts/hr from quickplay alone. With daily + weekly tasks included, non-paid accounts should be able to unlock a new gear piece every few hours of gameplay. Note that these prices are subject to change based on player feedback, so please leave a message via the in-game feedback form or drop by the Discord if you have any thoughts to share.

Bugs

• Fixed visual glitch that caused player characters to slowly descend when switching between secondaries in the loadout menu.
• Fixed bug that could occur when Skelebob's touch of death was activated on the same frame that Skelebob got hit or grabbed.

0.16.5 - (1/12/23)

Gameplay

• Inputting a secondary attack while in the air now inputs an aerial attack (unless your equipped secondary is usable in the air).

0.16.4 - (1/4/23)

General

• Optimized core gameplay code.

Bugs

• Fixed issue where rollbacks could cause excessive screen shake.
• Fixed issue where rollbacks could cause glitchy visual effects.
• Fixed issue causing certain hitboxes to be slightly offset while the attacker is in motion.

0.16.3 - (12/12/23)

Netcode

• Increased maximum possible frame delay from 5f to 8f. This is to aid extremely poor connections in the 300-400 ping range that can occur when playing across continents or when both players are behind strict NATs + on wifi and multiple relay servers must be used.

0.16.2 - (12/12/23)

General

• Optimized camera performance. Lower-end machines should get a slight boost in performance.

0.16.1 - (12/11/23)

General

• Optimized file sizes of sprite sheets. The game should load slightly faster, and rendering performance should be slightly improved.

Cosmetics

• Tweaked existing color palettes for "gay rights" respawn platform. Added new "gender reveal" palette.
• Reduced the number of stage bricks shown when the "fixed stage" graphics setting is active.

0.16.0 (12/10/23)

This patch is focused on making gear pieces more straightforward and fun to use.

UI/UX

• Damage number popups are now displayed in all modes by default. You can turn off damage numbers for non-arena/hybrid modes in the Settings menu.

Gear pieces

Jet Boots

• Boost (up special) and spin (down special) now only use 30% of your maximum fuel, instead of depleting all fuel and causing overheat. They can still be used while below 30% fuel (doing so will set your fuel gauge to zero). Boost or spin be used only once per airtime.
• When spin/boost have already been used, up special will act like neutral special (causing you to hover).
• Hover can now be buffered out of other actions by holding down the gadget input.
• Fuel recharges slightly slower.
• Increased start lag of boost and spin by 2f each.
• Slightly reduced hitbox size of boost.
• Reduced active frames of boost by 2f.

Recovering with jet boots should be more straightforward, and players won't be punished for using up special too early. Inputting up special will now always allow players to recover (until you run out of fuel). Players should also have more freedom to use the boost and spin abilities to combo and spike their opponents.

Warp Mine

• Placing a mine and then detonating it can now be animation cancelled, allowing for much faster self-detonates.
• When no mine is out, up special will place a mine and then immediately detonate it, aiding in recovery.
• Slightly increased base kb and decreased kb scaling of warp mine explosions.
• Self-detonates now only deal 6 dmg (down from 12).
• Repeated self-detonates now become less effective (at providing vertical distance) until you touch the ground or ledge.

Recovery without having a mine onstage is now less punishing. Inputting up special will now always allow you to recover. The diminishing knockback on self-detonate was added to prevent annoying looped self-detonate recoveries and also reduce mine's effectiveness at recovering during drawn-out edgeguards.

Parasol

• Parasol projectiles (neutral special) will now fall after briefly rising, instead of continuously rising.

This should significantly increase the usefulness of neutral special as a tool to control space and extend combos.

Chakram

• Forward air now has a melee-range hitbox in addition to its projectile.
• Down air no longer has early or late sourspots (it will now always spike). Increased start lag by 2f and end lag by 12f. Increased landing lag by 1f.
• Up strong: Reduced active frames by 3f. Increased start lag by 1f and end lag by 2f. Increased damage by 1.
• Neutral air: Increased start lag by 1f.
• Up air: Decreased damage by 1.

Down air and forward air should feel more consistently useful. Balanced this by reining in some of chakram's stronger moves.

Quad Staff:

• Down air no longer has a sourspot. Increased start lag by 1f and end lag by 8f.
• Neutral air: Slightly reduced range, reduced active frames by 2f, and increased landing lag by 1f.
• Down tilt: Reduced end lag by 2f. The hilt hitbox (that pops opponents up) is now larger, and the tipper hitbox sends at a more aggressive angle.
• Tweaked animations for several moves.
• Tweaked the default quad staff skin (made it more curvy).

Neutral air was tuned down as it was too strong in too many situations. Down tilt should be more useful now, the hilt hitbox as a setup tool and the tipper hitbox for pushing/keeping opponents off stage.

Space Suit

• Slightly increased gravity.

Television

• Increased the time it takes for gravity to take effect after teleporting. Previously, after teleporting gravity would take effect slightly before the player became actionable. Now gravity does not take effect until the player is actionable.

This should make teleport easier to use, especially offensively.

Oleg

• Oleg has been hitting the gym and now has bigger biceps. (This is a visual-only change that helps prevent limb "breakage" during certain animations).

Skelebob

• Decreased height (body hurtbox size was also slightly reduced).

Bugs

• Fixed issue where inputting up-strong out of shield with a strong attack input would result in a forward-strong.
• Fixed rare glitch caused by parasol projectile hitting a grabbed opponent right before they're thrown.

0.15.3 - (12/5/23)

Matchmaking

• Quickplay matchmaking is now distance-based, with location approximated based on user IP. The allowable distance for a match gradually expands over time.

Distance-based matchmaking is more accurate than the previous region-based matchmaking, and simpler for users (no need to select a region when first queueing quickplay or switch regions when traveling).

Gear Pieces

Warp Mine

• Strong side toss input now requires holding down the input slightly longer. This is to help prevent accidental strong side tosses when attempting to recover.

(This patch also includes an update to the current experimental patch)

0.15.2 - (11/21/23)

Bugs

• Fixed glitch that could occur when a player gets hit while being grabbed by another player.

(This patch also includes an experimental patch that tweaks some gear pieces.)

0.15.1 - (11/15/23)

UI/UX

• The replay menu now displays each match's mode in the match preview.

Bugs

• Fixed a few visual glitches that could occur when viewing replays of Arena mode matches.

0.15.0 - (11/14/23)

New Game Modes: "Arena" and "Hybrid"

• Arena: The loser of each round gains an upgrade to help them counter their opponent. The first player to take 5 rounds wins. Each round is played on a random, hazardous stage.
• Hybrid: Gain an upgrade each time you're knocked out. Knock out your opponent 5 times to win.
• The default mode (3 lives, no upgrades) is now called Classic.
• Currently, all quickplay matches are played on Classic mode. You can play the new modes in private lobbies, local multiplayer, or against a bot.
• There are currently 33 possible upgrades. Some upgrades require other upgrades as prerequisites, and some require you to be wearing a specific gear piece.
• You can explore all the available upgrades in the Upgrade Catalog (found in the Extras menu).

New Stages and Stage Hazards

• Added moving platforms.
• Added icy stages/platforms, which have significantly decreased traction.
• Added bumpers, which are stationary stage hazards that knock players back.
• Added 3 new stages that contain these hazards: Floater, Bumper, and Triple (icy). Bumper and Triple (icy) are not included in the quickplay playlist.
• Added ~10 new Arena-only stages that utilize these stage hazards.

General Gameplay

• Spawn positions are now lower. This is intended as a quality-of-life change to allow more of the stage to be visible at the start of the match and between rounds.

UI/UX

• Added damage number popups that appear while playing Arena and Hybrid modes.
• Added a new Game Modes module to the Introduction section of the tutorial.
• "Percent" is now referred to as "damage." This is to prevent confusion with Arena mode upgrades that reference percentages.

Cosmetics

• The default color palette of the Brick tile skin is now brown-ish instead of white. This is to prevent confusion with the new icy stage hazard.

Huge thanks to the folks on experimental who've helped test these new modes over the past several weeks.

0.14.9 - (11/9/23)

UI/UX

• Added gamepad setting to swap d-pad inputs with left analog stick inputs.
• Added popup directing players to close Steam or turn off Steam Input if controller issues are detected.

Bugs

• Fixed rare bug that could cause crashes and desyncs during rollbacks.
• Fixed issue that was preventing use of d-pad to navigate menus.

0.14.8 - (11/7/23)

General Gameplay

• Slightly increased air mobility of all suits.

(This version also contains an update to the ongoing experimental branch).

0.14.7 - (10/20/23)

Bugs

• Fixed rare situation where player could unexpectedly fall off a platform after performing an action that clamped them to the edge (such as an attack or a roll) with high horizontal momentum.

(This version also contains a significant update to the current experimental branch.)

0.14.6 - (10/11/23)

Balance

Parasol

• Slightly increased hurtbox size of neutral special projectile (it now better matches the visuals).
• Increased knockback of neutral special projectile.

0.14.5 - (10/9/23)

Bugs

• Fixed bug preventing projectiles from being destroyed.

0.14.4 - (10/6/23)

(This version contains an experimental patch that includes a prototype of a new game mode).

UX/UI

• Renamed Skelebob's damage-through-shield passive to "piercing shadow" (previously it was called "darkness comes").
• Skelebob's opponent being past touch of death's threshold is now indicated with a skull icon over the victim's head. Previously, it was indicated by flashing grey.

0.14.3 - (10/3/23)

UI/UX

• Increased resolution and improved color depth of various UI elements and icons.
• Renamed "classic" stage layout to "triple".

General Gameplay

• When multiple damage multipliers are active at the same time (such as rage + charged strong attack), they now stack additively rather than multiplicatively.
• Shield stun calculation now takes active damage multipliers into account. Previously it was calculated from base damage alone.

Balance

Jet Boots

• Reduced start lag of up special by 1 frame.
• Reduced start lag of down special by 2 frames.

Parasol

• Reduced start lag of neutral special by 1 frame.

0.14.2 - (9/20/23)

General Gameplay

• Keyboard players with "always run" active can now input a walk with "mod x" and "mod x/y", instead of having to use "hold to walk". (Note that these inputs will not cancel an existing run into a walk).

UX/UI

• Screen shake amount now scales to screen size. Screen shake should no longer feel disproportionately aggressive on smaller screens.
• The default bot level is now 1 (previously it was 0).

Bugs

• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused replays to crash if the player tabbed out during the original match.

0.14.1 - (9/14/23)

Balance

Flame Cannon

• Added outer hitboxes to neutral air (deals 8% damage), up air (7%), down air (7%), forward tilt (7%), and up tilt (8%). These outer hitboxes send at slightly lower knockback angles than the strong hitboxes of each attack. In all cases, the strong hitbox takes priority over the weak hitbox.
• Slightly reduced range of forward air.
• Added slight base knockback to the final hit of forward air, but reduced knockback scaling.
• Added 1 frame of start lag and 1 frame of end lag to up air.
• Added 1 frame of start lag to down air.
• Added 1 frame of start lag to back air.
• Added 1 frame of landing lag to neutral air.

Cannon's previously-uniform hitboxes made its combo game too consistent and promoted one-dimensional followups. Adding hitbox variety should improve this while also promoting good spacing (in this case landing attacks close to the cannon's mouth). While the reduced consistency acts as a nerf (cannon is considered the strongest weapon by many players), the overall impact is not intended to be large - some of the weak hitboxes won't feel that different from their strong counterparts, and they only come into play at the outer edge of attacks' ranges. Also, some of the new hitboxes (down air and neutral air in particular) have potential as situational DI mixups.

Pincers

• Added an inner (shaft) hitbox to the second hit of neutral air that deals 5% damage. The strong (pincher) hitbox takes priority over the weaker hitbox.
• Added inner (shaft) hitboxes to up air and down air that deal 10% damage. Up air's inner hitbox sends at a slightly higher angle. The strong (pincher) hitboxes takes priority over the weaker hitboxes.
• Extended the active frames of up air and down air by 3 frames and added late hitboxes that deal 7% damage. Up air's late hitbox has a slightly higher knockback angle.
• Slightly increased range of down air.
• Slightly reduced knockback scaling of down air.
• Reduced start lag of forward strong by 1 frame.

Similarly to cannon, pincer's combo game sometimes felt one-dimensional. Unlike cannon, pincers is seen as undertuned balance-wise, and in particular can struggle with setting up kills at higher percents. So, while these new hitboxes are intended to promote better spacing and improve combo variety (as with cannon's new hitboxes), due to their knockback angle and their positioning (close to the player) they're also intended to assist in creatively extending combos and setting up kills. They're also accompanied by some straight buffs.

Umbral Cloak:

• Added 3 frames of end lag to shadow riposte.
• Reduced active frames of shadow riposte by 2.
• Slightly reduced knockback scaling of shadow riposte.

This is intended as a roughly power-neutral change that makes counter more punishable in exchange for easier followups when landing it at mid-high percents (due to lower knockback scaling).

0.14.0 - (9/11/23)

This patch adds additional abilities to existing gadgets, increasing their offensive utility.

Balance

Parasol

• Added new neutral special ability: release your parasol as a slow-floating upward projectile. (Previously neutral special was the same as side special).
• Attempting to cancel down special with a jump or up special while in hitlag will now buffer the action to be performed immediately after hitlag ends.

Jet Boots

• Added new down special ability: spin with your jet boots in the air, unleashing a whirl of flames. This overheats your jet boots. (Previously down special was the same as neutral/side special).
• Reworked up special. It now has more start and end lag, provides slightly less vertical gain, and spikes opponents. It also has a new weak late hitbox and a new animation that should make it clearer when the ability is over.
• Reduced overheat cooldown by 50%.
• Reduced max vertical hover speed by 8.5%. (Acceleration is unaffected).

Warp Mine

• Reworked side special ability (warp mine toss). You can now hold the special button for a slower, stronger toss that explodes on contact.
• Added 1 frame of end lag to "light" toss (tap side special).
• Slightly increased size of mine's hurtbox.
• Reduced damage required to destroy mine. This allows chakram's jab #1 to destroy mines.
• Slightly reduced size of warp mine explosion.

Chakram

• Slightly increased range of neutral air and tweaked startup animation to not misrepresent early hitbox location.
• Added weapon trail effects to neutral air, back air, and getup attack. (This is a visual change only).

Bugs

• Fixed issue where certain projectiles' hitboxes would not become active until a frame after the projectile spawned. Projectiles' hitboxes are now active immediately. The startup lag of certain attacks have been adjusted (by +1 frame) to correspond to this change, to achieve a net zero change in startup time before an active hitbox is created. The adjusted attacks are flame cannon's up air, down air, back air, down strong, up strong, and getup attack. Note that despite the net neutral change to frames before active hitbox, the 1-frame delayed spawning of projectiles can change the outcome of situations that previously would've resulted in attacks trading between opponents.

(This patch also includes a new experimental patch with added hitboxes for flame cannon and pincer attacks. Experimental patch notes are posted in the Discord.)

0.13.5 - (9/8/23)

Bugs

• Fixed a couple issues related to lobby rematches that may have been contributing to players sometimes getting stuck on "waiting for opponent".

0.13.4 - (9/5/23)

Bugs

• Fixed rare desync that could occur during projectile spawns.
• Fixed rare crash/desync caused by animation mixing during parasol float and jet boot hover.

0.13.3 - (9/3/23)

General Gameplay

• Increased average control stick threshold required to input directional light attacks and special moves. This should make it easier to input jabs and neutral special attacks.

Balance

Plunger

• Increased active frames by 1.

The previous nerf to active frames made grabbing enemies out of the air too inconsistent.

(This patch also includes an experimental patch with changes to gadgets. Experimental patch notes are posted in the discord.)

0.13.2 - (8/26/23)

Bugs

• Fixed bug where switching between gear pieces while playing online matches would cause skins to become unequipped.
• Fixed bug that sometimes prevented certain gadget palettes from being equipped during online matches.

0.13.1 - (8/25/23)

UI/UX

• Tweaked loadout menu UI to make it clearer which options are cosmetic-only.
• When attempting to purchase a color palette without owning the required paints, the purchase menu will now provide an option to directly purchase the missing paint(s). (Previously players would have to navigate to the paints menu, purchase the paint(s), and then return to the loadout/stage gallery menu).
• Added button to purchase bananas directly from the loadout menu.

Bugs

• Fixed issue where viewing a replay while queueing for quickplay would cause the game to crash.
• Fixed minor glitches related to loadout menus.

0.13.0 - (8/24/23)

General

• Counterpick Labs has transitioned from open alpha to open beta!

This transition doesn't change much practically speaking, but it does signal to a wider audience that they should expect a relatively more stable experience than they would from an alpha. It also means that you can expect a renewed focus on content (gear pieces) in the coming weeks and months now that many of the core gameplay and cosmetic systems have been ironed out.

Cosmetics

• Gadgets can now have skins. Added "flower" and "sausage" skins for parasol, "winged" skin for jet boots, and "pie", "baby oleg", and "explode-o-tron" skins for warp mine.
• Added unlockable color palettes for gadget skins (48 palettes in total).
• Added unlockable color palettes for suit skins (92 palettes in total). These palettes are separate from base suit color palettes, which remain unchanged. This gives players flexibility to tweak the colors of their unlocked suit skin accessories to match (or clash) with their preferred base suit palettes.
• Tweaked Oleg's "mustachioleg" skin to have more neutral-looking white teeth by default instead of gold teeth. The gold-teeth palette can now be unlocked with a gold paint. (Players who had mustachioleg unlocked have been given 200 bananas that they can use to purchase a gold paint if they desire).

UI/UX

• Instead of always showing both keyboard and gamepad prompts in menus, now only prompts for the currently-active input device will be shown. This applies to tutorial modules as well.
• Tutorial instruction text will now update to reflect your custom keyboard and gamepad bindings, instead of always showing the default bindings.
• Parasol is now the first gadget on the gadget list, and will be equipped by default for new players.

General Gameplay

• Decreased grab release timer (the amount of time you can wait while grabbing an opponent before throwing them) from 2 seconds to 1.5 seconds.

Balance

Oleg

• Increased max drift speed and drift acceleration.

Pincers

• Hitboxes that deal extra shield damage now also deal an additional 25% shield stun (previously they dealt no extra shield stun).
• Reduced startup of strong attack by 1 frame.
• Slightly increased size of up strong sweetspot hitbox.

Chakram

• Increased kb angle of forward strong weak hits. Also slightly reduced size of weak hitboxes and slightly increased size of strong hitbox. These changes should make forward strong's weak hits more consistently link to the strong hit.

Cannon

• Projectile-based cannon attacks (up air, back air, down air, strong attacks, and getup attacks) now incur 50% hitlag to the attacker upon hitting a shielding opponent (previously they incurred no hitlag on shield). This matches the amount of hitlag they incur on non-shielding opponents.
• Added 1 frame of start lag to up air.

Plunger

• Slightly increased inner range of grab.

Harpoon

• Increased inner range of grab.

Harpoon's inner grab range is still not as good as plunger's or spiked fist's, but it's significantly better than it was before.

Bugs

• Fixed issue in wall jump tutorial where instructor kim would grab ledge instead of wall jumping.
• Fixed issue in recovery tutorial where progress would fail to update.

0.12.0 - (8/14/23)

Thanks to everyone who helped test out these changes on the experimental branch!

Balance

Plunger

• Added 2 frames of end lag to up throw.
• Slightly reduced range of grab.

Spiked Fist

• Increased knockback angle by 5 degrees.

Jet Boots

• Increased total fuel by 15%.
• Slightly decreased length of overheat cooldown.

Warp Mine

• Self-detonation now deals 80% hitstun rather than 75%.
• Increased end lag of teleport (+5 when teleporting to the ground, +3 when teleporting to the air)
• Teleport now has distinct animations depending on whether the player is teleporting to the ground or to the air. Teleporting to the air now freezes the player in place briefly before gravity takes effect (this change does not affect total end lag).

Umbral Cloak

• Reduced end lag of shadow riposte on activation by 2 frames.
• Shadow riposte counter now activates 2 frames sooner and lasts 1 frame longer. The total animation length is unchanged.
• Slightly increased base knockback of shadow riposte, but reduced knockback scaling. (This results in overall less knockback at higher percents).
• Slightly increased range of shadow riposte hitbox.

Television

• Slightly reduced size of shield.
• Reduced ground speed by ~5%.

Flame Cannon

• Up air, back air, down air, ledge getup, and floor getup attacks now incur 50% hitlag on hit to the attacker (previously they incurred no hitlag because they are projectiles).
• Added 6 frames of end lag to forward strong.
• Slightly reduced range of forward strong.
• Added 1 frame of start and end lag to up tilt.
• Added 1 frame of start lag and 3 frames of endlag to forward tilt.
• Added 3 frames of endlag to ledge getup attack.
• Reduced end lag of down tilt by 1 frame.

Some of flame cannon's attacks were too low-commital for how strong and disjointed they were, particularly forward tilt and forward strong. The addition of hitlag on certain aerials partially reins in the huge frame advantage that flame cannon gets on hit.

Chakram

• Added strong close-range hitbox to ledge getup attack (similar to the strong hitbox of forward tilt).
• Slightly reduced range of neutral air.
• Added 1 frame of start lag and 2 frames of end lag to neutral air.

Bugs

• Fixed bug where it was sometimes possible to drop through platforms while attacking in the air with spiked fist.
• Fixed visual glitch where the "change palette" text wouldn't disappear on the "waiting for opponent" screen in lobbies.

0.11.5 - (8/11/23)

Bugs

• Fixed bug where wall spike velocity would sometimes fail to be applied.

(This patch also includes an experimental patch with balance changes. Experimental patch notes are posted in the discord.)

0.11.4 - (8/10/23)

Bugs

• Fixed visual glitch where camera sometimes wouldn't focus on winner after end of online match.
• Fixed bug preventing players from going back while navigating loadout sub-menus in the rematch loadout screen.
• Fixed positioning and alignment of matchmaking timer so that it remains centered and no longer overlaps with other text on certain screen aspect ratios.

0.11.3 - (8/9/23)

General Gameplay

• Added the ability to grab ledge while facing the "wrong way" (away from the stage). Note that the backwards-facing horizontal ledge grab range is smaller than the forward-facing range.

This is largely a quality-of-life change to reduce accidental deaths among newer players, but it also makes recovering to ledge more straightforward in general. Dying because you were facing the wrong way and couldn't grab ledge never felt good, and this became more common with the recently-added ability to wall jump (which causes you to face away from the stage). The short range of backwards ledge grabs should make unintentional ledge grabs rare.

• Reduced the time it takes to drop through platforms by pressing down by 2 frames.
• Increased the amount of time it takes to drop through platforms using the platform drop input by 1 frame.

Previously, dropping through platforms by pressing down was slower than using the platform drop input or shielding and then shield dropping. Now all three methods of dropping through platforms are equally fast, from idle.

• Reduced the invulnerability of air dodges by 4 frames (30 -> 26 frames of invulnerability).
• Added 4 frames of end lag to air dodge.

Previously there were only 6 frames of vulnerability at the end of air dodges, which made them difficult to punish at most levels of play. Now punishing an airdodge should be easier if you know one is coming, and landing reversals from airdodges should require more precise timing.

Television

• Added 3 frames of end lag to instant transmission. This additional end lag does not apply when teleporting to the ground.
• Added a 5 frame delay between disappearing and reappearing during instant transmission. During these frames Television is invulnerable, and the location at which it will appear is not indicated.

These nerfs are meant to correspond to the air dodge nerfs (which Television is unaffected by). The 5 frame delay tightens the timing for reversals and provides more time for opponents to punish predictable teleports, without providing more time to react to the actual teleport destination.

0.11.2 - (8/8/23)

General Gameplay

• Wall jumping directly out of certain actions should now feel more consistent. Previously, attempting to wall jump immediately after teleporting or using parasol side special into a wall would result in a double jump. Now this will result in a wall jump.
• Previously, "jab resetting" an opponent (hitting a knocked-down opponent with a weak attack, forcing a getup), and then immediately hitting them with another weak attack during the getup (e.g. by using the first two hits of chakram's jab combo) would cause them to instantly transition to a standing flinch animation. Now, the opponent will remain in the getup animation. This is less jarring, and more in line with the behavior in other platform fighters.

Bugs

• Fixed minor bug where hitting a ledge-grabbing opponent while positioned between the ledge and the opponent would cause the opponent to turn around.
• Fixed visual glitch where projectiles' colors would appear less saturated once thrown. This was most visible with darker-colored projectiles.

0.11.1 - (8/7/23)

Umbral Cloak

• While shield is pressed but counter is not active, pressing light attack will now input a grab, regardless of what direction is held.

Bugs

• Fixed visual glitch where grabbing a teleporting television would prevent it from reappearing.

0.11.0 - (8/4/23)

This is the full release of the recent 0.10.X.Y experimental patch. Thanks to everyone who helped test out these changes! Feel free to reach out if you'd like to be included in future experimental patches!

General Gameplay

• Increased length of spot dodge animation by 3 frames.

Balance

Chakram

• Jab is now cancellable into a 3-piece jab combo.
• Reduced down tilt end lag by 3 frames.
• Added 1 frame of start lag to neutral air, down air, and back air.
• Decreased down air sourspot hitbox size and increased sweetspot range.
• Chakram projectile deals 4 fewer frames of stun (hitlag + hitstun) on hit (16 frames -> 12 frames) and 2 fewer frames of stun on shield (11 frames -> 9 frames).

Cannon

• Jab is now cancellable into a 2-piece jab combo.
• Added 1 frame of start lag to up air.
• Added 2 frames of end lag to forward tilt.
• Increased hitbox size of forward air.

Quad Staff

• Added 2 frames of end lag to jab.

Pincers

• Increased damage and kb of jab, and reduced kb angle from 45 to 35.
• Added 3 frames of end lag and slightly reduced range of jab.

Plunger

• Reduced active frames of grab. (It still comes out just as fast).

Oleg

• Increased rage damage multiplier from 1.2x to 1.25x.

0.10.3 - (8/4/23)

Umbral Cloak

• While shield is pressed but counter is not active, inputting gadget will now shield drop, for consistency with other suits.

Parasol

• Increased the control stick threshold for raising/lowering the parasol during up special.

Bugs

• Fixed rare bug where getting hit out of a non-invincible ledge grab could result in being teleported to the stage.

0.10.2 - (8/3/23)

(This patch includes some additional changes to the current experimental branch. Experimental patch notes are visible in the Discord).

General Gameplay

• Getting hit immediately after inputting an airdodge (before the invulnerability begins) will no longer use up your airdodge. This was previously a rare occurrence, but was confusing whenever it happened.

Balance

Chakram

• Decreased the damage required to destroy the chakram projectile from 3 to 2. (This allows cannon forward air destroy chakram - the fact that it previously couldn't was an oversight).

Umbral Cloak

• While shield is pressed but counter is not active (e.g. when holding shield after a counter), it is now possible to roll with the right stick and grab with light attack (like you'd be able to while shielding with a different suit). This should feel more consistent with other suits.

Television

• Instant transmission no longer grants any invulnerability.
• When inputting instant transmission (air dodging), getting hit prior to the actual teleportation will no longer use up your air dodge.

Warp Mine

• Teleport (up special) no longer grants any invulnerability.

These changes are largely for QoL, but they also strengthen the counterplay against teleports. Previously, players could correctly read a teleport attempt and throw out a hitbox at the target destination, but still occasionally fail to connect due to the invulnerability. This felt unfair, especially given the relative difficulty of predicting/reacting to teleports.

0.10.1 - (8/2/23)

General

• Added the capability to release experimental patches, where players can test certain game updates before they are fully released.
• Experimental patch notes can be viewed in the Discord.

Access to experimental patches may be limited in the future. For now, just reach out in the Discord if you'd like access.

General Gameplay

• Umbral cloak's counter can now be cancelled into grab during the first few frames of the animation. This is to accommodate players who are accustomed to grabbing with shield + light attack.

0.10.0 - (7/27/23)

Cosmetics & Progression

• Added 192 new unlockable color palettes. These include palettes for categories that previously did not support palettes: weapon skins, respawn platforms, face skins, stage backgrounds, and stage tiles skins.
• Introduced Paints, a new currency used to unlock color palettes. Paints are split into 3 categories of rarity: common (red, blue, green, brown, yellow), uncommon (black, white, pink, purple, orange, silver), and rare (gold). Paints can be earned randomly from paint pouches (purchasable for 100 peanuts) or purchased directly with bananas (100-200 bananas depending on rarity).
• Added a daily and weekly quest. The daily quest (land 10 quickplay KOs with a randomly-selected gear piece) rewards 20 peanuts and resets at midnight PT. The weekly quest (land 60 quickplay KOs using any loadout) rewards a gift basket and resets at Sunday midnight PT.
• Gift baskets (earned exclusively from completing the weekly quest) can contain a paint pouch, peanuts, or bananas.
• Some suit palettes now require winning a certain number of quickplay matches with that suit before they can be unlocked. Each suit has a palette that requires 50, 100, and 200 wins. The 200-win palette of each suit is gold-themed. (Because this is a new feature, all players' win counts will start at zero with this patch).
• Increased price of stage backgrounds "jelly tank" and "supervisor," and stage tiles "brick" and "hollow" from 100 to 200 peanuts. This brings their pricing in line with that of other cosmetics such as face skins and respawn platforms.

The new paint system should hopefully feel fun and engaging, while also increasing the usefulness of bananas. The belief is that loot drops - random rewards for playing the game (think boss drops in MMOs) - are mostly fun. But they can also be frustrating when you're repeatedly unlucky in getting an item you want. The ability to purchase specific paints using bananas should hopefully alleviate this, especially now that players will have a chance to earn some bananas from the weekly quest.
Daily/weekly quests were a requested feature, and are a fun way to reward quick play usage and experimentation with new gear pieces. To avoid the FOMO/burnout that daily/weekly quests can sometimes cause, note that (1) there are no additional rewards for streaks, (2) rewards are not outsized compared to the rewards from normal quickplay, (3) quest objectives (landing KOs) are straightforward and naturally achieved from simply playing the game, and (4) quests are designed to be completed in a reasonable amount of time (~20 minutes for dailies and ~2 hours for weeklies).
The primary goal of all of these changes is to promote quick play activity so that players will actually be able to find matches once there's a sufficient playerbase. In the meantime, note that queueing quickplay with the intention of matching with a specific friend is totally ok (even encouraged), so long as you do so in good faith - use your correct region and don't quit out of the game if you happen to match with someone else.

General Gameplay

• You can now wall jump out of tumble (just like you can double jump out of tumble).
• Simplified default keyboard/gamepad bindings to include a single button for strong attacks. Tweaked the strong attack tutorial module to match. Please note that this may impact your saved control profiles - please overwrite any existing profiles once you've confirmed your preferred bindings.
• The strong attack button can now be used to perform getup and ledge attacks.

Balance

Umbral Cloak

• Slightly increased short hop height and slightly decreased full hop height.

This change is not intended as a buff or nerf, but is more of a fix. The previous jump heights were unintended.

UI/UX

• The randomize buttons in the stage and loadout galleries no longer change your cosmetics.

Bugs

• Fixed Google login breakage on certain browsers caused by an undocumented/unannounced update from Google.

0.9.1 - (6/26/23)

Bugs

• Fixed bug where wall jumps wouldn't behave correctly if performed while fastfalling.

0.9.0 - (6/23/23)

General Gameplay

• Added wall jumps. You can perform a wall jump by jumping toward the wall while pressed against it. You can wall jump while facing either direction. As with aerial jumps and air dodges, you can wall jump only once before touching the ground or grabbing the ledge.
• Added wall jump tutorial module to the "advanced techniques" section of the tutorial.

Balance

Jet boots

• Holding back while initiating hover now reverses your direction. Note that you can still hover backward without reversing your direction by pressing back only after you've started hovering.

Flame Cannon

• Slightly reduced up air hitbox size.
• Reduced up air knockback angle from 70 to 65.
• Increased active frames of neutral air's late hit by 2 frames.
• Slightly reduced knockback scaling of the final hit of forward air.
• Reduced knockback angle of back air from 45 to 40.

These changes are intended to broaden flame cannon's aerial gameplay. Its up air juggle and kill potential is tuned down, while its ability to combo horizontally (with forward air, the late hit of neutral air, and up air on certain DIs) and kill off the side (with back air) are increased.

Misc

• Removed the golden poo skin. It may return in a different form in a future patch :) Players who had the skin unlocked have been refunded 2x the cost of the skin.

0.8.3 - (6/20/23)

Netcode

• In very high ping matches, input delay will now intelligently adjust in order to reduce the frequency of extreme rollbacks. Extremely long distance matches and matches played on weak internet should now feel much more playable, at the cost of slight input delay.
• In private lobbies players can now optionally set their preferred input delay (doing so will prevent any automatic adjustment from occurring).

Input delay will be set at the start of the match and will change mid-match conservatively, only if the connection quality has changed substantially.

0.8.2 - (6/13/23)

General Gameplay

• Tweaked leg hurtboxes to more accurately match visuals.
• Slightly tuned back the dash acceleration increase from 0.8.1. Dashing now has a frame of acceleration instead of instantly accelerating to max run speed.

Cosmetics

• Added new "pink" and "watermelon" suit colors for Television (renamed previous "pink" color to "mauve").

Misc

• Added bouncy secondary animation to Skelebob's head piece and Television's antenna.

0.8.1 - (6/11/23)

General Gameplay

• When dashing, you now accelerate to max run speed instantly instead of accelerating over the first couple frames of dash.
• Walking forward directly out of a wavedash no longer kills the wavedash's forward momentum.

These tweaks should make grounded movement feel smoother and more responsive.

0.8.0 - (6/9/23)

New Content

• Added a new suit: Umbral Cloak - "A cozy shroud, suitable for covert assassinations and snowy weather."
• Umbral Cloak trait: Shadow Riposte - "Your shield is replaced with a swift counter. If attacked while countering, a swirl of shadows will burst forth and knock back your opponent. You remain vulnerable to secondary weapons while countering."
• Added 2 skins for Umbral Cloak: Parka and Wizard.
• Added 8 colors for Umbral Cloak: Nylon, Denim, Leather, Silk, Linen, Hemp, Velvet, and Satin.

Umbral Cloak is tied with Television as the fastest suit, and has moderate fall speed and knockback resistance. It cannot shield, but instead has a quick counter that can initiate combos at most percents.

General Gameplay

• Reduced regeneration rate of shields by ~17%.
• Slightly increased the amount of shield stun caused by attacks on shield (additional 0-2 frames depending on the strength of the attack).
• Increased invulnerability of ledge roll by 3 frames and ledge hop by 4 frames.

Landing powerful or well-spaced attacks on your opponent's shield previously didn't feel rewarding enough, and shielding overall felt like too strong of an option. The low invincibility granted from ledge hop and ledge roll made it too easy to trap your opponent at the ledge.

Balance

Warp Mine

• Reduced blast radius of warp mine.

Flame Cannon

• Tweaked up tilt hitbox to make it slightly less prone to shield poking the feet of players shielding on platforms.

UI/UX

• Improved support for tabbing out between lobby matches (previously this would sometimes cause crashes if you remained tabbed out while your opponent initiated the next match).

0.7.2 - (6/3/23)

UI/UX

• Players can now press start+back to cancel matchmaking (instead of having to click the "cancel" button).
• Tabbing out/losing page focus while searching for a match is now better supported. (Previously, matches would sometimes crash if either player was tabbed out while matchmaking).
• A sound effect now plays when a quickplay match has been found.
• Players with extremely low fps are now prompted to enable browser hardware acceleration.

Bugs

• Fixed an issue causing the game to sometimes freeze when an opponent disconnects from a match.
• Fixed a rare issue that prevented the login modal from appearing for some new players.

0.7.1 - (5/30/23)

UI/UX

• Added a randomize button to the stage selection screen.

General gameplay

• Holding two shield buttons at the same time now prevents analog shield actions such as rolling, spot dodging, and analog platform shield drops. This makes it easy to tilt your shield.
• You can no longer use your secondary weapon while in jump squat. This allows players to buffer aerial spiked fist. (It also prevents turnaround secondary attacks from shield, which were previously possible).

Balance

Plunger

• Reduced the size of the inner hitbox of plunger's grab.

Bugs

• Fixed a rare bug causing players in lobbies to sometimes get stuck on "waiting for opponent."
• Fixed a bug where cancelling parasol down-special with up-special would sometimes fail to register the up-special's upward momentum.

0.7.0 - (5/28/23)

General

• New feature: You can now view replays of your recent matches. While viewing a replay you can pause, frame step forward and backward, rewind, and fast-forward. Replays can be found under "extras" in the main menu. Replays are created for quickplay matches, lobby matches, vs AI matches, and local multiplayer matches.
• Enabled support for more web browsers: Opera, Opera GX, Brave, and ungoogled-chromium.
• Renamed "warp bomb" to "warp mine".

Please report any replay or browser-related bugs through the Discord or the in-game contact form.

General Gameplay

• Increased end lag of rolls and spotdodges by 1 frame.
• Double jump VFX now appears on frame 1 instead of frame 3.

Balance

Skelebob

• "Darkness comes" now deals .5x damage through shield, up from .3x damage.
• "Touch of death" threshold now scales based on the opponent's knockback resistance, from ~112% (against skelebob) to ~126% (against Oleg).
• Skelebob's opponent will now flash grey when at "touch of death" percent.

Oleg

• Increased rage damage multiplier from 1.15x to 1.2x.

Television

• Increased teleport self-damage from 1% to 2%.

Warp mine

• Slightly increased size of hurtbox.
• Destroying warp mine now incurs only 1 frame of hitlag.

Chakram

• The chakram projectile now deals set knockback.
• Slightly increased size of the chakram projectile hurtbox.
• Destroying the chakram projectile now incurs only 1 frame of hitlag.
• Reduced knockback angle of back air from 70 degrees to 50 degrees. Reduced the damage of the first two hits from 4% to 3%.

Pincers

• Increased shield damage multiplier of pinching hitboxes from 1.5x to 1.8x.
• Reduced landing lag of neutral air by 1 frame.
• Reduced start lag of forward air (1 frame), forward strong (2 frames), up strong (2 frames), and down strong (1 frame).
• Reduced end lag of down tilt by 1 frame.
• Slightly increased range of down air.
• Slightly increased base knockback of forward tilt.

Spiked fist

• Reduced range of grounded and aerial attacks.
• Reduced active hitbox frames of grounded and aerial attacks.
• Decreased knockback angle of grounded attack from 80 to 75 degrees and of aerial attack from 70 to 65 degrees.

Plunger

• Reduced startup lag by 2 frames.

Bugs

• Fixed several sources of rare desyncs caused by improper animation mixing.
• Fixed minor UI issue where the right arrow on number selectors was sometimes not clickable.

0.6.1 - (5/17/23)

• Increased hurtbox size of warp bomb.
• Fixed issue where attacks colliding with flame cannon projectile-based attacks would induce hitlag.

0.6.0 - (5/16/23)

General Gameplay

• Tweaked physics of knockback reduction. The end result is that vertical knockback is slightly increased across the board (vertical finishers will KO roughly 7-8% sooner), and slight horizontal knockback will decay less abruptly (meaning attacks that send upward and slightly to the left or right will have a smoother knockback arc).
• Slightly increased distance and invulnerability (1 frame) of ledge roll.

Balance

Warp bomb

• Warp bombs are now destroyable.
• Reduced warp bomb placement end lag by 5 frames.
• Reduced warp bomb toss startup by 2 frames and end lag by 5 frames.
• Hitstun when self-detonating is now reduced by 25%.
• Slightly reduced size of warp bomb explosion.

This is an experimental rework intended to make warp bomb more interactive, both for the user and their opponent. Previously, recovery with a bomb onstage was a little too good (with little counterplay available), and recovery without a bomb was a little too poor. Usage revolved around simply placing a bomb, and then teleporting to it when needed. These changes should add more counterplay while also making warp bomb users less reliant on having a bomb out. Because these changes promote more usage of the "bomb" part of the gadget, its sizable explosion radius was slightly reduced.

Chakram

• The early hitbox of uptilt is no longer a weak "sourspot". It now deals the same damage and knockback as the strong hit, but sends upward and slightly outward instead of straight up. The early hitbox now more consistently lands on grounded oppponents.
• Changed up air's knockback angle from slight behind to slight forward. Up air can now reverse hit. (With the new angle, both normal and reverse hits should now appear consistent with the attack's animation).
• Reduced up air damage from 14% to 13%. With this damage reduction and the universal buff to vertical knockback, up air will KO at around the same percent as it did before.
• Increased down air end lag by 3 frames.

Early uptilt still won't combo into itself (unless it catches poor DI), but should now feel less bad to land. Down air's recovery time is still very quick for a spike. Using it offstage, especially as a double-spike edgeguard, will now require a little more commitment.

Flame cannon

• Reduced down tilt startup by 3 frames.
• Increased down air end lag by 2 frames.
• Tweaked up air animation and hitbox. The explosion is now up and slightly forward, instead of straight up. This aligns better with the move's knockback angle, and makes it so that landing reverse hits will require more intent.

The down air nerf is to make the move a little less spammable as a vertical stall.

Pincers

• Increased damage of most attacks.
• Reduced knockback scaling of most attacks such that, when combined with their increased damage, the total knockback will be mostly unchanged. Strong attacks, however, deal slightly higher knockback overall.
• Added 2 frames of landing lag to neutral air.
• Reduced range of neutral air.
• Added slight knockback scaling to the first hit of neutral air, and removed the fixed knockback.
• Increased startup of forward air by 1 frame.
• Tweaked the knockback angles of all strong attacks to improve their KO potential. Up strong sends slightly more vertically, and forward and down strong send slightly more horizontally.

Pincers' neutral game was too centered around neutral air, which dominated significant horizontal space and was difficult to punish. Pincers' finishing tools outside of forward air felt lacking, and overall they didn't pack enough of a punch damage-wise.

UI/UX

• When both players are using warp bomb, the remote player's (or second player's) bomb will appear blue instead of red.
• In local multiplayer and AI bot matches, if both players are using the same suit with the same color, the second player's color will be switched (previously this was only done for online matches).

Bugs

• Fixed issue where using warp bomb could cause unintended platform fallthroughs.
• Fixed issue with tutorial where instructor's gadget usage would trigger 'menu back' input.

0.5.3 - (5/13/23)

UI/UX

• Added experimental "anti-snapback" gamepad settings that attempt to detect and ignore control stick snapback.

0.5.2 - (5/13/23)

Gameplay

• Turnarounds can now be buffered when performing grounded attacks.

UI/UX

• Players can now customize their control stick deadzones, control stick tap threshold, and trigger input threshold.
• Added binding for neutral attack input, which inputs a neutral aerial or jab regardless of which direction is being held.
• Added volume sliders for background music and SFX.
• Added steam deck and troubleshooting sections to the controller guide.
• Reduced default screenshake caused by certain actions.
• Added graphics option to reduce overall screenshake.
• The gadget/special button now functions as menu back, as long as it doesn't collide with hardcoded controller or keyboard menu binds such as start/enter/escape/etc. (The light attack button continues to function as menu select).
• The numpad enter key is now properly detected as a valid key bind. It also functions as a "menu" button along with the regular enter key.
• Added descriptions to non-obvious input binds in the gamepad and keyboard input binding menus.

Bugs

• Fixed issue where chakram ledge getup projectile would spawn slightly too high.

0.5.1 - (5/9/23)

Bugs

• Fixed bug where players were sometimes unable to grab the ledge.

0.5.0 - (5/8/23)

New Content

• Added a new primary weapon (free for all players): Pincers. "A pair of heavy duty pincers that delivers devastating damage and can toss opponents in unexpected directions. Its powerful jaws deal extra damage to shields."
• Added three skins for pincers: Mandibles, Toy Grabber, and Goblin.

Besides being the (current) slowest and strongest weapon in the game, the pincers also have some grappler-like capabilities. Though they don't have true command grabs, they deal heavy shield damage when spaced correctly and have some "tossing" hitboxes that can serve as interesting DI mixups.

General Gameplay

• Increased invlunerability and slightly increased travel distance of forward and backward ground techs.
• Increased end lag of roll and spot dodge by 1 frame.
• You can now up special and up strong directly out of shield. (Up on the attack stick will no longer buffer bump out of shield).
• You can no longer up strong out of jump squat unless tap jump and tap strong are enabled. (This enables the majority of players to buffer up aerials, while still enabling tap jump + tap strong users to reliably input up strongs.)

Balance

Chakram

• Forward air projectile no longer goes through platforms.
• Added additional, weaker hitboxes to the beginning/end of down air, the beginning/end of up tilt, and the end of up air.
• Forward tilt now has a stronger hitbox when used at point-blank range.
• The strong hit of up air can no longer reverse hit.
• Increased end lag of up strong by 2 frames.
• Increased end lag of forward strong by 1 frame.

In the right hands, chakram was too oppressive in neutral and its combo and finishing potential was too consistent. The projectile change should make forward air less spammable while maintaining its use in closing mid-range gaps. With the new weak hitboxes, chakram's combos and finishers are still very potent but require more precise spacing and timing to pull off.

Quad staff

• Slightly increased knockback scaling of tippered forward smash.

Harpoon

• Slightly decreased hitbox size vertically.
• Slightly decreased range.

The range decrease is by the length of 1 chain link. The reduced vertical hitbox size better matches the visuals, and makes jumping over the harpoon more consistent. Harpooning falling enemies to extend combos will require slightly more precision.

Jet boots

• Increased fuel recharge rate (still only recharges while grounded).

Bugs

• Fixed bug where hitting an opponent with parasol while they were on the ledge would sometimes cause players' animations to freeze.

For patch notes prior to 0.5.0 please see the #patch-notes channel in the Discord.