'Tis the season! From now until Jan 5th, we're running our annual Winter Holiday Event in the Pixel Lobby.

There are new seasonal-themed accessories available, and during the event they'll be the focus of Cap 'n Cash's shop rotation. Afterwards they'll go in with the regular bunch, so get 'em while they're fresh!

In addition, all Pixel Lobbies have been decorated with seasonal flair, a first for Hallowed Grove (Oleander's lobby). It sure is snowy in there; better bundle up.

And of course, we're in Steam's Winter Sale. Them's Fightin' Herds will be 40% off on Steam during the length of the event!

Throughout 2021 we've achieved a number of important milestones in the project. We saw the release of our 2.0 update and Shanty, the HD update, many quality of life changes, our actual first run as an official game in EVO, our first official online tournament circuit (STC/Grand Stampede), the completion of our Velvet statuette, and more.

Though we've been a bit quiet the last few months we've been working on something big, and we can't wait to share the news with you next year. The development team is going on a much-deserved break until we kick things off in 2022 with an appearance at MAGFest, then later in January at Frosty Faustings. If you're attending, we'll see you there.

We at Mane6 would like to thank each and every one of our players for being a part of our slice of the world for however long. Thanks for helping us make 2021 that much brighter, and we'll see you in 2022!

Much Love,

- Mane6 Dev Team

The Zombie Palette Pack DLC is now available for purchase! This pack instantly unlocks Zombie palettes for each character, current and future.

Purchase link:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1839170/Thems_Fightin_Herds__Zombie_Palette_Pack/

This palette set was originally introduced as an unlockable for playing overworld chest matches in the Pixel Lobby during the 2021 Halloween event. The ingame unlock condition is no longer available, but may return in future seasons.

Also in this patch: since rolling back from the Halloween event, there was a bug in the shop where the three eyeball variants stuck around for each rotation, eating all the rare items before anyone could buy them.

Cashmere has banished the pests to the shadow realm, restoring the shop to normal behavior. Sorry about that!

Meanwhile, the holiday event is right around the corner... see you again then!

After nearly four years, our publishing partnership with Humble Games has come to an end.

Since late 2017, Mane6 and Humble have worked together to support the development of Them’s Fightin’ Herds through Early Access into our 1.0 and 2.0 releases. We are grateful to the team at Humble for all their efforts in helping us reach this point, and we wish them all the best going forward.

We at Mane6 retain the rights to the game and we are very excited about the future of Them’s Fightin’ Herds. We’ll have more to share on our upcoming plans soon.

Stay tuned.

Aaron Stavely

President, Mane6

Exciting news! The Mac port beta is now available! In addition, we've got some small Pixel Lobby fixes, hawk adjustments, and proper notes for an intended but undocumented Velvet change that accidently slipped out under the radar in the last update.

Reminder that this year's Halloween event is currently on until Tues Nov 2nd. Be sure to grab the new accessories and zombie palettes while they're hot!

This patch requires Pixel Lobby hosts to update their servers!

The wait is over! Them's Fightin' Herds now runs natively on macOS!

• How Do I Get It? Easy! If you own TFH, just install it like normal. No additional purchase or special download is necessary.
  
• Is Anything Different? Not really! The Mac version is effectively the same as the other PC versions (minus a few very small platform-specific differences, like how and where files are saved).
  
• Crossplay? Yes! All players regardless if they're on Mac, Linux, or Windows can play with each other. Your Pixel Lobby and Story Mode progress is saved to your Steam account.
  
• Can I Host A Pixel Lobby Server? Not at this time. Servers can only be hosted on Windows and Linux.
  
• Does It Work On Apple Silicon? Though Rosetta, yes! We do not have immediate plans to build native for Apple Silicon, since we don't think it will matter for performance and we have concerns about how it would affect the game's determinism (which is very important for online play).
  
• Why Native Ports? Linux and Mac ports were promised as a stretch goal during our crowdfund campaign. Native runs significantly better since there's no need for a compatibility layer (like Wine or Proton) which eats up resources. In addition, the work that went into these ports will make consoles easier to do, should we ever get the opportunity.

NOTE: This initial release is a beta build. It's fully playable and functionally complete, but players may still encounter platform-specific bugs. You can report bugs by emailing https://mane6.com/contact or by posting in our Discord. It's the best way to help us discover and fix these unique issues, as there are many different hardware configurations and operating system versions out there that we simply don't have access to. Thanks in advance for your understanding and help!

• Fixed the unnecessary force field in front of the central tree in Oleander's lobby.
  
• Changed both wolf hood accessories (from the new Halloween batch) from face slot items to hat slot items.

NOTE: The following change was present in version 2.1.6 but was undocumented (we apologize, it was an honest mistake). We've also gone back to those patch notes and edited it in.

Balance

• Metergain from Magic Eruption has been reduced to standard multihit rates. (Previously it was being treated as several individual attacks, giving significant amounts of meter on each use).

NOTE: Undocumented work-in-progress changes to the hawk's attack properties were present in version 2.1.6. The following changes supersede them.

Developer's Notes
Previously hawks had access to many methods of disabling the player (through knockdowns and staggers) no matter which attack it landed. This quickly became a source of frustration at all levels, which was not the intention, especially for such a common enemy.

We've adjusted the hawk's attack properties more towards a focus on counterhits. Now, all attacks done to the player will be counted as regular forms of hitstun, without the ability to combo (and rack up damage) unless the player is counterhit. This way, players still have to play carefully with their anti-air tools, but will spend less time tumbling around the screen from stray hits while doing so.

Cosmetic

• Added swipes, dust clouds, and other visual effects to various moves to improve polish.

General

• Fixed broken/missing counterhit windows on several attacks.
  
• Hurtboxes adjusted to allow more meaningful anti-air vulnerability for all attacks.
  
• Various animation/movement/timing adjustments to bring this predator more in line with the others.

Horizontal Attack

• No longer causes tumble.
  
• No longer (effectively) travels fullscreen.
  
• Damage increased.
  
• Hitboxes adjusted to be slightly easier to crouch underneath.
  
• Now has a proper recovery period on whiff.

Diving Attack

• Damage increased.
  
• Now only causes groundbounce on counterhit.
  
• Now lands on the ground, granting vulnerability window if the attack misses.

Triple Peck Attack

• Damage increased.
  
• No longer causes stagger on normal hit.
  
• Now causes stagger only on counterattack.

Claw Grab Attack

• Now lands on the ground, granting vulnerability window if the attack misses.

Thur Oct 21st - Tues Nov 2nd

• All Pixel Lobby maps have updated appearances and ambience for spooky season!
  
• New Halloween-themed accessories are available at Cap'n'Cash's on rotation during the event, including zombie masks for all characters!
  
  • The new items can also be awarded from chests in the Salt Mines (along with all other accessories), and will go in with the general catalog when the event is over.
• Special infight zombie palettes are available for unlock on all characters!
  
  • Unlock condition: play an overworld chest match (win or lose) during the Halloween event to unlock the zombie palette for the character you played.
    
  • After the event is over, the ingame unlock condition will no longer be available; but the zombie set can still be acquired by purchasing a DLC package on Steam, similar to the shadow palette DLC (though it won't be available during the event!)

• There is now an AFK timer for the "fight slots" on Battle Shrines (spectators are not affected). Players inactive for 2 minutes will be automatically kicked off a shrine. (As always, you can clear your AFK flag with any input).
  
• Salt Mines stage: updated the appearance of Oreo's backer character.
  
• Revised text of the Salt Mines entrance portal (for first activation).
  
• The flavor text for the "Fancy Monocle" accessory has been updated.

• Added a setting under Save State Options to change the Training Utility function from "Reset Position" to "Round Restart", which allows players to practice roundstart situations.

• Fixed character portraits layering on top of each other when moving the cursor quickly.
  
• Added a "Day Only" option for random stage select.
  
• Note: This feature is functional, but will receive UX revisions in a future update.
  
• How it works in this patch: "Random (Day Only)" is its own separate entry in stage select.
  
• How it's going to work: "Day Only" and "All Stages" will be variations of a single "Random" entry (with "Day Only" being the default).

• Revised dialogue in the Prologue.

Bugfixes

• Wallsticks no longer run out of hitstun during the impact and fall portions, allowing all types of attacks to connect properly, particularly grabs that can be used during combos.

Balance

• All non-magic stomps now deal true damage (damage that is never scaled) on the first hit. Previously, this only applied to Stomp A. Due to this change, Stomps B and C do a slight bit more damage overall.

EDIT (10/27/21): The following change was always present in this version but was previously undocumented (our mistake).

Balance

• Metergain from Magic Eruption has been reduced to standard multihit rates. (Previously it was being treated as several individual attacks, giving significant amounts of meter on each use).

Cosmetic

• Paprika's edible gifts now have different shades based on her chosen palette. (Apples will always be a shade of red, Broccoli will always be a shade of green).
  
• All other gifts have also received unique coloring based on palette, with larger variance.
  
• Colors and lines for the bouquet in [4]6B have also been updated.

Bugfixes

• Teleports can no longer be affected by attacks/actions that lift her off the ground. (This was causing strange placements and dangerous floating alpacas).

Cosmetic

• Smoothed out a variety of animation bugs.

Bugfixes

• Fixed an issue causing certain combos involving j22D to not work for player 2.
  
• Fred's inputs now have a buffer window.

Bugfixes

• Fixed Momma dog not being able to counter Arizona's Magic Stomp (and other unblockable attacks).
  
• Throwing a CC'ing opponent no longer causes Pom's dogs to slow-mo forever.

Cosmetic

• Tianhuo has a new victory animation. (Known: her fire still freezes when she speaks. That's a more in-depth fix.)
  
• Tianhuo's neck scales have been filled in (as originally intended, though they are still not perfect in every animation).
  
• Improved the appearance of Tianhuo's mouth symbols (in the 3/4ths view).
  
• Smoothed out a variety of animation bugs.

Cosmetic

• Shanty no longer becomes a cow during certain animations performed as a round ends.

This small update adds Steam Cloud support and fixes a few minor issues.

NOTICE: Private server hosts should update their servers!

• TFH now supports Steam Cloud! If enabled, it will save your Gameplay options, Training Mode options, and Story Mode checkpoint. It will not save Sound options, Video options, or button configuration.

• Took down the redundant lamp post in Arizona's lobby.

• Fixed an issue where joining and playing in a Classic Lobby with more than 2 people, then leaving and creating a lobby, would populate the lobby slots with fake users without usernames.

• Fixed an issue that caused the Dummy action to reset to "manual" after setting a recovery recording.

Grand Stampede, the summit international online tournament event for Them's Fightin' Herds, will take place on Aug 28, starting at 11am PDT.

Registration is free and open until Wednesdat, Aug 25. Add your name to the bracket on smash.gg here.

Everyone within an eligible region (see smash.gg for details) may register. There is no entry fee and no participant cap.

Grand Stampede is NOT an invitational! Circuit Points are being used to determine seeding, by total number, in ranking order, according to the number of points each player has.

We'll be streaming the whole thing on Twitch. Hope to see you there! We'll have raffles! Get ready to see some of the best TFH this year!

Earnings from the Matcherino prize pool will be distributed to top 8 at this ratio:

• 50% for 1st
  
• 20% for 2nd
  
• 10% for 3rd
  
• 8% for 4th
  
• 4% for 5th (x2)
  
• 2% for 7th (x2)

Top 8 will each receive a physical Stampede Tournament Circuit medal denoting the player's place in Grand Stampede.

Top 3 will each receive a unique in-game trophy to wear in the Pixel Lobby according to their place: bronze for 3rd, silver for 2nd, and gold for 1st. They will be distributed in an award ceremony after the grand final.

The grand champion will work with Mane6 to develop a custom palette (for the character of their choice) to be added to the game, credited to them.

The grand champion will receive a custom art Hit Box from one of the following options.

Contribute $5 or more to the Matcherino for a chance to win one! No region restrictions. The winner will be selected Monday after the tournament.

This update contains a few small bugfixes here and there, just some stuff we're working on in the background while progress on level 3 supers continues!

• The game now displays a message during the post-match experience screen if it failed to connect to the stats server.
  
• Fixed Pixel Lobby passcodes only checking relevant "slots". Example: previously, inputting 86862482 would work if the server passcode was 8686. Now, only the exact passcode will work.

• The wave progress bar on the HUD now works as originally intended: the color for the next level expands over the previous level instead of shrinks (this has been incorrect since the launch of Salt Mines 2.0).

• Fixed a strange issue with dummy recording where pressing select to gain control would instead make a recording if the dummy was in the middle of an air tech.

• When entering the Save Combo menu, the cursor position now resets to the top of the list, to prevent accidental overwriting of files.
  
• In the Save Combo menu, fixed an incorrect hintstripe while hovering over an already saved combo. It now correctly says "Save Trial" instead of "Start Trial".
  
• Fixed Shanty's short hops not being listed in combo trial recipes.
  
• Fixed a phantom confirm button input showing up on the input history list after starting a recording (even though it wouldn't actually show up in the combo anywhere).

• Fixed a crash when pausing very early after entering replay playback.
  
• Fixed a rare issue with replays failing to enter playback, causing a softlock.

• Fixed a "phantom" meter gain issue on minimal combat HUD.
  
• Fixed the post-match timer showing up in Arcade Mode sometimes.

• TFH on Windows has been upgraded to a 64-bit application (the Linux version already enjoys 64-bit goodness). As a result, the game should now be more stable.
  
  Developer's Notes:
  The primary reason for this upgrade is stability. With the 1080p update, we were running into issues related to memory limits that could not be resolved any other way. We'll be keeping a close eye on things as we roll into the last few STC events this month.
  
  NOTICE: As of this patch, the game is no longer compatible with 32-bit versions of Windows (which are very uncommon). According to Steam's June hardware survey, only 0.31% of Steam users are still running some form of 32-bit. If this does affect you, please contact us.

• We've done substantial changes to the backend of Story Mode (on Windows) to improve stability. There should not be any noticeable difference, but if there is please let us know!

• In Text Chat, fixed text shadows showing up on lines they don't belong on.

This update addresses a few bugs introduced in the last update and adds some small but important Pixel Lobby quality of life changes we've been meaning to get to for awhile!

Servers hosts will be required to update, and despite there not being any gameplay changes there may be some compatibly issues between replays in this version and last.

Remember that STC Event #3 takes place this Saturday! For details on how to watch or sign up, go here.

• We're aware that some players are occasionally seeing scrambled character palettes, which look as if one character has copied the colors of the opponent and applied it to their own color zones, which don't match up.
  
• We don't know exactly what's causing it yet, but in this update we've added some diagnostics to help us smoke out a solution.
  
• These palette errors will now look VERY ugly and obviously broken, but contain coded information for us. Please report these horrifying palettes mixups when you see them! They'll help a lot!

• Button Config (infight only): Fixed the Button Display Type option not having arrows (to show it can be toggled).
  
• Fixed players showing a 4K resolution in Video Options despite not having a 4K display.
  
• Fixed a variety of rare crash situations.

• V-Sync (in Video Options).
  
  • Leaving V-Sync ON is recommended for all players to prevent screen tearing. Disable only if FPS is capping at 30 or if G-Sync/FreeSync options are available.
    
  • Previously, we had been advising players experiencing the 30fps cap to enable exclusive fullscreen to fix the problem, but now we encourage players to try disabling V-Sync instead.
• Controller Deadzone (Gameplay Options). Previously this was locked to 30%.
  
  • This option allows the player to adjust the amount of force required to input directions using an analog stick. Does not affect menus. Applies to both players, currently.

• More Controllers. The game now officially recognizes up to 8 controllers plugged in at once. Previously, the game only saw 2.
  
  • This was causing players using controller emulators like vjoy to not be able to make it past the initial controller select screen. Now, it shouldn't be a problem.
• The controller select screen has a new look.
  
• In this UI revision we had to remove the "controller type" artwork (a casualty of the 1080 update), but we plan to put in proper artwork in a future update.

• Fixed slow-mo playback causing slow pause menu unpausing.

• There is now a launch parameter to disable the onscreen recording status icon during dummy recordings: -disable-record-status-symbols.
  
• Combo Training: Fixed short hop input displays not adapting to side.

• The Classic Lobby now provides more detailed error messages when connections fail. Previously it would say "version mismatch" for everything no matter what.

• The names of server mods are now colored yellow on the overworld like they are in Text Chat.
  
• Fixed Arizona having a small line through her neck in the Wardrobe preview.
  
• Refixed a wall/pot layering issue in Paprika's Lobby.
  
• Online Training: The bottom hintstripe has a new look.

• New Feature: Spam Protection. Sending 3 messages in Text Chat or Quick Chat (emotes) within 3.5 seconds locks a player out from chatting for 6 seconds. Mane6 staff and server mods are exempt from this restriction.
  
• Muting players now extends to Text Chat, Quick Chat, and status popups. Previously, it only affected Voice Chat.
  
• The Text Chat now displays twice the amount of lines when open.
  
• The Text Chat UI now shows a button glyph nearby that conveys how to open it.
  
• Fixed not being able to use the mouse to open and scroll through Text Chat (we had broken this in the last update, sorry).
  
• Fixed Text Chat not respecting international characters that were previously supported (Hiragana/Katakana and Cyrillic.)
  
• Fixed the outer stroke of Text Chat characters layering over other letters.
  
• Fixed a strange Text Chat appearance when position is set to "Right".
  
• Fixed not being able to Quick Chat during certain phases of matchmaking.

• Fixed the wave progress bar not being reset on subsequent entry.
  
• Known issue: It is still not displaying the correct colors exactly. It should be showing the color from the next level underneath, but currently it's showing the previous. Should be fixed in a near-future update.
  
• Remodeled the Salt Mines exit room in Oleander's lobby, primarily to fix a strange issue causing the player sprite to disappear mysteriously when positioned in certain sections of the room.
  
• Fixed doors in the Salt Mines triggering too early.

• Fixed a color zone error on Arizona's leg (for gradient palettes) during her low gethit animation.

• Fixed various minor, miscellaneous defects across a few animations.

*(Edit 7/16/21)
• Paprika now more accurately and consistently emerges from the center of the basket, regardless of stage or screen position. This should make the opponent's required blocking direction more consistent.

• Fixed missing underbelly color zone on jC animation.
  
• Fixed misaligned leg piece on outro animation.
  
• Fixed misplaced color zone on intro transition animation.