Our 05/21/19 update is now live on Steam. If you haven't yet, restart your games to receive it. Verify your files to get the update instantly.

Another quick patch before we leave for Combo Breaker! By the way - If you want to see our updates from the event, follow our new Instagram @manesixdevteam

We're starting to roll out some adjustments to colors in the fight HUD and character effects in an effort to standardize and unify. Super meter bars now match the colors of the new afterimage effects during superflash, and each character will have an established "color of magic" that will be reflected in all the relevant places. We're implementing some of these design changes now, but there is more to come in the weeks ahead. Take a look!

• The color of all characters' super meter bars for level 2 has been changed from green to yellow. This should improve clarity and match the color of the afterimage during a level 2 super.
  
• The "orb" at the end of the super meter bar now changes color depending on your current meter level. It is no longer character-specific.
  
• There is now a HUD element that calls out reversals! Reversals are actions done from block or wakeup as early as possible to evade or interrupt the attacker. They can be either attacks or evasive moves. Not every move that would be a reversal will actually trigger a reversal indicator, yet. Pom's dogs won't.
  
• Temporary Fix: To mitigate a known issue with keyboards controlling the wrong player when assigned to player 2, we made it so keyboards may only be assigned to player 1 during controller selection.

• Arizona now flashes green when she gains magic instead of purple, to properly reflect her "color of magic". Her magic meter will be be updated to match in an upcoming patch.

• Properly fixed her character select animation and combat portrait that still had the eyebrows issue. We said this was fixed in last patch, but it actually wasn't (our bad).

• Fixed a model issue where Paprika would gain a goatee made from the void when she blocked low.
  
• Fixed a minor color bleed during her 5B.

• On Pom's command list, removed the "hit" from "During Stampede" for Big Papa as a requirement.

• Tian's air throw has a new animation.
  
• Fixed an issue where Tian was missing one of her back legs during her airblock and air pushblock.
  
• Tian's old palette flash effect during Ran Shao Feng now shows up if HQ supers are turned off.
  
• Added additional details to her command list.

• If you have an attack that is disjointed enough, you can still do weird things to Arizona's Trample from afar with proper timing.
  
• The day/night transition in Paprika's pixel lobby is an abrupt change. We're still investigating this bug and will fix it in an upcoming patch.

• On 05/23/19, we pushed a small update that added the long-missing effect to Oleander's intro.

Our 05/17/19 update is now live on Steam. If you haven't yet, restart your games to receive it. Verify your files to get the update instantly.

This is the first of what will likely be a series of patches throughout the next few weeks while we make the rounds, showcasing TFH during our first-ever multi-event tour.

Half of our core development team is clustered around the city of Baltimore, so for you Maryland locals, know that Mane6 will be kicking off our tour by paying a visit to Xanadu in Laurel tomorrow during their monthly. Oreo, Nappy, Leedin, and Aaron will be there! If you're in the area, we'd love to see you. Next week is Combobreaker in Chicago, and the week after is Dreamhack in Dallas. Hoo boy. Heavy breathing.

We'll soon be putting the game in front of a large number of (potentially very influential) eyeballs, so we focused on versus mode quality of life and visual upgrades for this update. Patch notes below.

• Local Versus now has Sparring Mode, accessible from the infight pause menu. When enabled, the match is put on hold and you enter training mode seamlessly. Disable Sparring Mode to return to your match exactly where you left off.
  
• On character select, the Announcer now calls out the names of each character.

• All characters' command lists have been updated to improve visual clarity and provide more details on how moves and systems function.
  
• On character select, there are now arrows to indicate that you can move left and right during palette selection.
  
• In the button configuration menu, "Config all" is no longer the first highlighted option, a change intended to prevent cases of players accidentally FUBAR-ing their controls.
  
• The "wraparound" option preview at the top and bottoms of various menus has been removed to improve visual clarity.

• Fixed an issue where arcade scanlines were not applying to certain objects in Arizona's lobby.
  
• Flipped a skull to its proper orientation in Arizona's lobby.
  
• Slightly lengthened the time it takes to transition from day to night in all pixel lobbies.
  
• Known Issue: There is currently an abrupt jump during the day/night transition in Paprika's lobby. We believe it is connected to network traffic and will be fixed as soon as possible in an upcoming hotpatch.

Gameplay

• Afterimages during superflashes have a new look across all characters.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused Tianhuo's Master 04 combo trial to stop working.

• Fixed an issue where after a low lasso, Velvet specifically would land much closer to Arizona than intended.
  
• Her magic moves now have an afterimage effect.

• Now has an ice shield effect on all blocks and pushblocks.
  
• Both her standing and air throws now have actual ice effects.
  
• Fixed an eye zone color error in her trip and low standing gethit animations.

• Fixed an issue where her line layer had inconsistent colors across various animations.
  
• Fixed eye zone color errors across various animations.
  
• Fixed issues of missing eyebrows across various animations and her combat portrait.
  
• "Fel Spark" and "Dark Spark" have been renamed to "Shadow Spark" and "Shadow Blast" on her command list.

• There is now a magic button (D) indicator over her picnic basket when you are in range to use it for Free Gifts.
  
• Smother has a new animation on whiff/block.
  
• All characters now have proper animations when they are constricted by Paprika's throws.

• Ran Shao Feng now has a new effect during the install portion.

• If you have an attack that is disjointed enough, you can still do weird things to Arizona's Trample from afar with proper timing.

More exciting news!

Them's Fightin' Herds is showcasing at Dreamhack Dallas on May 31st - June 2nd!

Three Mane6 staff members will be going:

• Nappy, Combat & Animation Director​
  
• Oreo, QA Analyst​
  
• Aaron, Production Manager​

If you're in the area please come and say hello at our booth in the Indie Playground section - We're really excited to be able to display our game at the event!

https://dreamhack.com/dallas/expo/indie-playground-thems-fightin-herds/

Our 05/07/19 update is now live on Steam. If you haven't yet, restart your games to receive it. Verify your files to get the update instantly.

It's finally here! Our giant pixel lobby update is available for explorin' an' fightin' to your heart's content. We're sorry this one took longer than expected, but the extra development time gave us the opportunity to include some really cool features and much-needed bugfixes. Details below.

Looking ahead, we've got only a few weeks before Combobreaker 2019. Until that time, we're focusing hard on polish so TFH can make its first public appearance dressed to the nines. If you're going, we'll see you there!

There are a few extra items on the list along with the pixel lobby stuff. Here's our patch notes:



The Pummeling Plains local tourism board has announced that it has relaxed its aquatic activities and camping restrictions. Please be courteous and verify that all your campfires are properly extinguished when not in use. Only you can prevent Prairie Wildfires.​
​
The Council of The City of Reine has approved building expansion of the North Residential District, and new Inns have been erected to satisfy the increased tourism demand... And promptly been filled to capacity. In related news, due to the seasonal daylight changes, public illumination in the Northern District has boosted its power by at least 62.35% - The winter sprites in charge have declined to comment on the rumors this was in response to increasing reports of nighttime brawling in the district.​
​
Look away, look away! The announcement that the Reine Long Distance Ferry System has now opened a new route to the Huacaya Mountains, and now offers a tour of the...quaint... local architecture has been met with dread, panic, but mostly, with indifference from the locals of Reine City. Jarl Stronghoof Hoofstrong declined to comment on the situation. Vixen, of the Elite Eight was also interviewed, and replied: "Enh".​
​
If any Reindeer citizens really must visit such A Dreary Place, caution is recommended when traveling near the edges of the plateaus that make most of the visitable landscape; minor injuries and ruffled floofs have been reported. Requesting your Sprite Retinue don't forget your umbrella is also to be kept in mind, for the area's weather forecast has been, in the words of our local weather deer, "dreadful with some possibilities of horrible. Mainly westerly 6 to gale 8. Rain or thundery showers. Exhaustion. Boredom. Decay. Moderate or poor."​

• You no longer have to reequip everything every time you join a server. The game now saves your character and cosmetic loadout (AT LAST).
  
• Fixed an issue where cosmetics unequipped after a character change.

• A stone fence on the bottom right of The City of Reine lobby has odd lighting currently applied.
  
• Extremely infrequently, one of your cosmetic slots will NOT be remembered.
  
• The bushes by the waterfall in Arizona's lobby have temporarily shaved. Don't worry, they will grow back in a week or so.

• Ropes now have unique grabbed states for all characters.

• Shatter C breath effect should actually be visible this time.

• Fred commands can now be performed at the same time as any attack input.

• All Airdashes now have proper air hurtboxes.
  
• Pressing up before float's minimum height no longer allows horizontal momentum despite unchanged vertical momentum.
  
• Fixed several cases of pups/mama/papa palettes breaking during certain movement/'pom's in hitstun' states.

Our 04/25/19 update is now live on Steam. If you haven't yet, restart your games to receive it. Verify your files to get the update instantly.

Hello everyone! We've got another round of bugfixes and balance updates coming in hot and fresh. We're pulling back Velvet's overall damage output to be more in line with other characters, and also adjusting the properties of Tianhuo's level 2 Volcanic Ash to mitigate an exploitative loop that was discovered recently. Also, Pom has new palettes!

However, these and a few other gameplay adjustments (detailed below) are the only items included in this particular patch. The triple pixel lobby update promised in the previous patch notes is not ready yet and will deployed separately early next week. Long story short: Paprika's lobby needs a little more work. Our estimates conclude that the lobbies will be ready for launch on Monday, the 29th. We need just the weekend to make sure the seams are properly stitched up.

Since there are major gameplay updates going out now, we're doing a post-patch stream! Catch the usual crew: Oreo, Cam, Nappy, Aaron, and the exalted MPK on Monday, the 29th at 3pm PT. That link again is https://twitch.tv/manesix.

And here. We. Go.

• (Previously undocumented because Nappy's a dummy) Invulnerability during backdash has been increased by 3 frames. This was originally going out with the initial backdash -> jump patch but ended up going in immediately afterwards.
  
• All supers PER HIT scaling has been reduced. (Minimum damage is untouched, this simply allows multihit supers across the board to deal slightly more damage earlier in a combo than before).
  
• Superjumps and other unique air movement/jump types no longer allow air attacks to autocorrect towards the opponent after crossing up.

• Fixed an issue with multiple overlayed hitboxes breaking Magic Counter even if they do not have armor breaking properties.

• Forward Walk animation no longer detaches her shoulderblade.
  
• Shatter C animation updated slightly (Ice breath used to spin her).
  
• j.B animation updated slightly (Ice shards are smaller).
  
• 6A animation updated slightly (Softer background layer).
  
• Ice Missiles deal less damage and have reduced minimum damage.
  
• All Shatters deal a bit less damage.
  
• All Specials deal slightly less chip damage.
  
• Level 1 Super damage has been reduced.
  
• Slightly lowered damage on 2B, 5C, 3C, and 2C.

• Fixed a lingering color bleed issue on Paprika's eye during her intro animation.
  
• Paprika breathes more smoothly during character select.
  
• Fixed minor blanket layering issue during idle animation.
  
• Gifts are no longer affected by slow motion until they've been launched or have touched the floor. (Freezing or magic dashing towards paprika no longer disables her magic abilities).

• Pom has new palettes!
  
• Pilot Pup's hurtboxes have been normalized, they no longer shrink significantly during attacks.
  
• Pilot Pup's attackbox during swoop has been reduced in height.

• Volcanic Bash's collision box height has been shrunken so Tian no longer pushes opponents she couldn't hit in the first place.
  
• Volcanic Ash during Ran Shao Feng now attacks more quickly between hits 2 and 3.
  
• Tianhuo now drops slightly more slowly after the third hit of Volcanic Ash during Ran Shao Feng.

• If you have an attack that is disjointed enough, you can still do weird things to Arizona's Trample from afar with proper timing.

HUGE NEWS.

Them's Fightin' Herds will be exhibiting at COMBOBREAKER 2019: May 24-26 at The Mega Center in Chicago, IL.

This is our first EVER convention showcase! Come visit us onsite or catch us on stream!

More details to come.

Our 04/16/19 update is now live on Steam. If you haven't yet, restart your games to receive it. Verify your files to get the update instantly.

Quick hotpatch this time to take care of a few hanging wires.


General

• All Special FX should now disappear or clear up very quickly when the character creating them gets hit or cancels their attack by landing

Arizona

• Can no longer continue running if you input and hold the opposite direction without touching neutral
  
• 236ATK+ATK (Trample) hurtbox has been significantly moved back

Velvet

• Combo Trial Master 02 has been replaced and Prestigious 01 has been removed due to previous character changes breaking them

Paprika

• Can no longer continue running if you input and hold the opposite direction without touching neutral
  
• 2B should now properly count as multihit for meter building purposes
  
• 236ATK+ATK / 214ATK+ATK (Smother) now armor breaks on the first hit, as intended

Pom

• Follower Dig Dog now kicks up dust visually, rather than metaphorically

Known Issues

• Arizona's 236ATK+ATK (Trample) still acts stangely when making contact with certain disjointed attacks
  
• Paprika's edible gifts may still act strangely if she attempts to eat them after throwing a certain amount of them out all at once

Our 04/11/19 update is now live on Steam. If you haven't yet, restart your games to receive it. Verify your files to get the update instantly.

Oh boy! We've got another round of animation updates, bugfixes, and balance changes for ya'll, but unfortunately, not everything we wanted for this patch made it in by the deadline. Here's the situation:

In our most recent development update, we promised the return of Arizona's pixel lobby and the overhauled AI system. Regrettably, neither of those features are included in this patch. Long story short: they're not ready to ship yet. They need more time in the oven.

This is no doubt disappointing, but even though the flagship feature of this update wasn't ready in time, there's still plenty of tasty stuff to dig into today. We will continue working on AI improvements to accompany the release of our Salt Mines update in mid-May.

We want to do more for you guys in exchange for more time to work on AI. Arizona and Paprika's lobbies are millimeters close to being finished, so we're gonna bump things up and do an intermediate patch later this month for a triple-scoop pixel lobby update. Arizona's lobby will be reopened, Velvet's lobby will be receiving some small upgrades, and Paprika's lobby will finally become available for the first time ever! The Alpake Highlands could certainly use some livening up.

As promised, we're doing a post-patch stream this coming Monday, April 15. Same time (3pm PT), same place (https://twitch.tv/manesix)

During the post-patch stream, we'll be reviewing the thought process behind the changes we made, responding to feebdack, and answering your questions. Here's who will be there:

• Oreo (QA, master of ceremonies and of the streams)
  
• Cam (QA, community manager, knower of things, just went to japan and we're all jealous)
  
• MPK (community manager, now an official staff member, let the hazing begin)
  
• Aaron (production manager, the floggings will continue until morale improves)
  
• Nappy (lead designer, responsible for all of... this)
  
• Hope to see you there! If you can't make it, no worries. You'll be able to catch the VOD archived on Twitch and on YouTube.

Okay. That said, let's get into the patch notes!

• Some folks have been experiencing performance issues in Pom's stage, and we believe we've finally found the culprit: the flowers. Yes, the flowers. As a temporary measure, we've removed all of the flowers from Pom's stage until we can find a way to prevent them from causing unusually high CPU activity in certain computers.

• Reduced meter gain both given and received on multi-hit attacks (per hit) across all characters.
  
• Attacks that force standing on hit no longer cause stand blocking. (The previous change to this presented too many underlying problems that would have ballooned later on.)
  
• Fixed pushblocks still allowing chip kills.
  
• Fixed situations that allowed players to block while still running straight towards their opponent.

• Can no longer whiff-cancel launcher into everything on the planet.

• j.C recovery animation frames fixed.
  
• Air throw now properly counts each hit of damage ingame and in training mode info.
  
• Fixed the cancel windows across all :D: snowballs. (The previous animation update shifted them around, our b).
  
• j.B animation effect is no longer cardboard.
  
• j.C animation effect is no longer cardboard.
  
• 6A (Anti-Air) animation effect is no longer cardboard.
  
• 3C (Launcher) animation effect is no longer cardboard.
  
• Shatter B fixed crumble animation effect.
  
• Shatter C ice cracks on animation effect no longer show up on top of players.

• Cleaned up page flip animations.
  
• New character select animation.
  
• Fixed incorrect book coloring on 'Mecha' and 'Eastern' palettes.

• The second hit of 6C,C,C (Free T-Shirt) now pulls significantly harder towards Paprika.
  
• Can now cancel 6C,C,C (Free T-shirt, all hits) into Kiss (command grab) on contact.
  
• 5C and 2C are now active for longer.
  
• 2C now slides forward a bit.
  
• Teleport C now has paprika more closely fitting the hitbox area
  
• Teleport C gets closer to the ground before Paprika lands, so it now hits opponents more reliably.
  
• Eating a gift you created now locks you into the eating animation for less time, with no penalty to the total bonus health/meter.
  
• Fixed weird eye color bleeding, missing leg colors, and various other artifacts during several animations.
  
• Super 1 (Smother) no longer triggers off of Arizona's Magic Counter. It's now treated as a blocked attack.
  
• Cinnamon Roll no longer self destructs if Paprika blocked an attack before the roll touched the ground.
  
• Fixed a situation where if Paprika's super is performed after being pushed blocked into a corner, the superflash disappeared entirely.
  
• Paprika now breathes heavily during her "selected" idle in character select.

• Fixed minor artifacting during 3C (Launcher) animation.
  
• Fixed specific situation that caused Pilot Pup to groundbounce unusually high.

• 5A has a new animation.
  
• j.A has a new animation (during Ran Shao Feng).
  
• Stand Throw has a new animation.
  
• Volcanic Ash animation has been updated.
  
• Volcanic Bash animation has been updated (ground version).
  
• Fixed being unable to do Volcanic Ash during Ran Shao Feng.
  
• Tianhuo no longer loses her ears during character select and victory poses (whups).

Hello.

Normally this is about the time we'd be announcing our next work stream.

During the last few weeks since the previous patch, we've been working on some highly technical stuff, and we're not convinced it would make for a very interesting stream. So this month, we made the difficult decision to skip the stream in favor of a more traditional progress update, complete with some yet-to-be-released predator pixel sprite gifs to show off our work on Salt Mines 2.0.

Don't worry, we're still doing a post-patch #13 stream with our QA team the Monday after the next patch goes live. More details on that next week.

So... here's an update on the two features we've been focusing on most in addition to Story Mode:

This is incredibly important, since it's the backbone of our single-player/co-op content. We're well aware that even on the easiest difficulty settings, the current AI is still giving people a hard time. That's why we're tuning it up. Soon the rebuilt herdmind will be ready to test your might, or be your sandbag (your choice, it's a robot, it exists to serve).

Also part of the new AI update is the option to choose your preferred level of AI intensity before you begin Arcade Mode. You won't have to set it in the options menu beforehand anymore!

The current salt mines is a solid proof-of-concept, but it certainly needs more. On the road to 1.0, we'll be fleshing it out with goal of increasing replay value. That update will include:

• More tightly-tuned progression so accessory rewards are unlocked at a more reasonable pace.​
  
• Predators will spawn in the dark places of the overworld (caves, and such), not just explicitly in the salt mines. Fight against them to win introductory levels of salt for an alternative entry method into the actual mines.​
  
• Temporary power-ups that enhance your stats and capabilities.​
  
• Ending "boss" event that triggers at a specific time, ending your run and dishing out salt rewards based on how far you got.​
  
• "Hat" merchant with a rotating stock with whom to spend your hard-earned salt (and only salt).​

There will be unique sprites for all four predators and all six shadow versions of the champions. Now you know what you'll be up against when you see something charging towards you. Here's a preview!!!



I hope you're ready, cuz predators will gain the ability to teleport around the map. NOWHERE IS SAFE.


Early Access Patch #13 will be released within two weeks (approximately April 11th), and will contain bugfixes, more Velvet FX updates, the new AI system, and the return of Arizona's pixel lobby! We needed to close it down for awhile to upgrade it to the new tileset. Not much will be different about the layout, but now it will match the assets we're using for Story Mode.

Salt Mines 2.0 will be released later, in Early Access Patch #14, which will be sometime in the first half of May.

That's all I have for tonight. There's still some ultra-awesome news coming down the pipe which we will be allowed to share soon. Stay tuned, my friends.


Aaron Stavely
Production Manager, Mane6

Early Access Hotpatch 03/15/19 is now live on steam so if you haven't yet, restart your games to receive it. Verify your files to get the update instantly.

Just a bit of general dusting off of some issues that popped up with the last update, particularly involving the recent backdash + blocking change. Things should be much more consistent now!

• Instant blocking should now properly reduce maximum knockback while midscreen
  
• Fixed an issue causing inconsistencies with blocking during jump startup after backdashing
  
• Fixed invalid combo counter inaccuracy when throwing an opponent directly out of rolls

• 214(atk)+(atk) (Frostbite)'s frost slowdown effect no longer affects the opponent's throws

• Fixed Cross Canter not costing the correct amount of meter

• Fixed being unable to do 236A (Volcanic Ash) during Ran Shao Feng