Our first Lunar New Year event has come to a close. All Pixel Lobby maps have been reverted to their normal appearance, and the new seasonal items catalog has gone in with the regular shop rotation.

Thanks to everyone who played during the event! We've got some additional fixes shipping with this patch. Here goes:

• Added some cosmetic improvements.
  
• Added additional background characters!
  
• Is now no longer Tian's default stage.
  
• Now has a proper 2D version.

• Fixed "Random (Day Only)" giving night stages (broke in version 2.3.0).

Introducing our first Lunar New Year celebration update! In this patch we're releasing a variant of Tianhuo's stage called Spring Festival. For the Pixel Lobby, new seasonal accessories are available and each map has been decorated.

Because we focused most of our efforts on the stage, there's a lighter set of accessories and decorations compared to previous events.

The new accessory set will be available at Cap 'n Cash's until the event ends on Feb 3rd. Aftwards, the items go in with the regular rotation. The stage variant is unlocked for everyone forever!

In our recent new publisher announcement we said we'd be introducing new character palettes (including Amaron's custom palette earned from Grand Stampede) along with some codefixes, but we decided it would be safer to postpone their release until after we're back from Frosty Faustings this weekend.

Here's what is included in this release:

• The Modus logo has been added to the opening credits. Say hello to our new publisher! Check out their website here.

• Lunar New Year 2022 accessory set is now available.
  
• Fixed getting the Shanty image when unlocking a shadow palette for Paprika.
  
• Refixed a previously fixed but then broken secret room in Velvet's lobby.

• New Tianhuo Stage Variant: Spring Festival. This stage variant is added as a free update and is instantly unlocked for all. For the duration of the event it will be the default Tianhuo stage, afterwards it can be found by scrolling down from Huoshan Capital on stage select.
  
  • Known Issue: The Spring Festival variant for Tianhuo's stage currently doesn't work with the 2D stages option enabled. This will be rectified in a future patch.

Developer Notes
For the longest time, Tianhuo was the only member of the original roster that did not have a stage variant (example: night or raining) so we've wanted to do something special for her for a while.

Originally it was just going to be a lighting adjustment and decorating spree on Huoshan, but we decided to take advantage of our new production capacity right away and build an entirely new stage from scratch!

Though Spring Festival has a new appearance, it uses the same Dynamic Music System collection as Tianhuo's regular stage.[/list]

Mane6 (that's us), the development team behind Them's Fightin' Herds, has been acquired by publisher Modus Games!

It means that our team is growing. We're still us, but now we have "real jobs". Being a part of Modus makes it possible for us to fulfill our complete uncompromised vision for TFH and continue to projects beyond.

Practically speaking, it takes a lot of resources to make a successful video game. With all the additional help we're getting, we'll be filling out the roster, releasing Story Mode chapters faster, at looking at ways to expand to more platforms. TFH is about to reach new heights.


We're expanding the roster, and now that we have more than one combat dev we can develop new characters and Story Mode chapters simultaneously. Who are the new characters? What species? When are they releasing? How to get them? We'll be sharing more information about specifics in the coming months.

Barring any unfortunate circumstances we are confident that we can finish all main chapters (starring each member of the base roster plus a “final” chapter) before the end of 2022, still released as free updates.

Console ports are something we're still very interested in doing, and with the help of our new partners at Modus it's more likely to happen than ever. We'll be evaluating the possibility of extending to other platforms and will announce any developments.

We are making arrangements to localize TFH so we can expand to a truly international playerbase. The translations will be text only (we currently do not have plans to localize the voice acting). Subtitles will eventually be added to infight dialogue so the English voice acting can be understood by a global audience.


We’ve kept certain reward tiers (like physical rewards) in limbo for a long time. Now that we’re a part of Modus, we finally have the logistical power to get the rest of the crowdfund rewards fulfilled. The wait is coming to an end.

Physical reward earners, if you need to change your mailing address, head over to our BackerKit ASAP! It'll still be a few weeks at least before anything ships, but the wheels are turning!

To celebrate the new year, we’ll be releasing an alternate version of Tianhuo’s stage (called Spring Festival) at the start of Steam's Lunar New Year event, from Jan 27 to Feb 3. The alternate stage will be instantly unlocked as a free update.

As for the Pixel Lobby, Cap 'n Cash have cooked up a mini set of seasonal accessories which will be stocked in the shop until the Lunar New Year event ends. Afterwards, they'll go in with the regular rotation.

The Lunar New Year update will also contain a few new character palettes and some small codefixes. Please enjoy!

Level 3's have been a long-awaited feature and our new talent will be helping us across the finish line. We've shown off (much) earlier versions of them before and they've come a long way since. The wait will be worth it. Then, we start working on new characters.

Level 3's and a new set of balance adjustments will arrive in game version 3.0, release date to be announced.

Chapter 2 (starring Velvet) is in production and the extra Modus resources will help us accelerate development. We’re also working on improvements to Story Mode in general such as smoother difficulty curves, a HUD update, more enemy variation, and reworked health mechanics.

Chapter 2 will be released in the next major update after version 3.0.

Pandemic notwithstanding, Mane6 wants to attend more offline events in 2022. The circumstances are always changing and we're playing it by ear right now, but however things shake out we want to make the competitive scene bigger this year.

Reminder that Mane6 will be attending Frosty Faustings from Jan 28-29. Top 8 will be streamed on Saturday at 11am CST on Twitch (we'll provide the link when we're closer to the date).


It’s been a wild ride, and we're looking forward to great things in 2022. Thank you all for believing in us! The stampede cometh!

Aaron Stavely, Mane6 Dev Team

'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.