Hey, is this game still being made? I imagine after so many years it would probably not be active, but I figured I'd ask

Currently I have quite a few bits, even level hazards, that make you wait in some places. I'll have to contemplate on those choices later on. Maybe gradually move towards the NG direction, so in the final third of the game you can just push forward.

Speedrunning has been on my mind, but not a focus currently. I've attempted to keep it as a possibility at least, so I don't make choices that hinder the speedrunning aspect.

Yeah, I also think it shouldn't be a focus. Speedrunners will run a game if it's great, regardless of having to wait for some hazards. Heck, speedrunners tend to dislike RNG and autoscrollers, yet they still play several games that feature them. If it's a part of the awesome game that they love, so be it

There are some things I've left "funky" in the name of speedrunning, like if you touch an enemy your back towards them, you can go through them, kinda like how you do it in NG.

Yeah, this was actually one of the things that made me ask this, since I already saw one screenshot where I could potentially use this

Jumping has a little feature in the name of speedrunning I dubbed the "shadow jump". Basically if you press and hold jump 1 or 2 frames before landing, you jump again without touching the ground (you know you nailed it if it doesn't make the landing sound effect)

Another jumping related feature that doesn't quite work perfect yet, is the "edge jump". If you are 1-2 pixels too early or too late when jumping from an edge, the game will snap you to the corner of the edge so you can perform perfect jumps easier. (You know if it worked by an extra smoke effect left at the jumping spot)

That's an interesting feature. . With Ninja Gaiden it also feels like it has these features, although I suspect that it has more to do with Ryu's positioning box(being able to stand very far on the edge) and his jumping animation making it seem like he hasn't touched ground yet. And I'm not sure if this just happened to be a happy accident or something intentional the developers did for daredevils, but most "frame perfect" tricks in Ninja Gaiden actually have a 2 frame window, doubling a player's odds 

The latest skill "lightning strike" has a tiny upwards push when you start it. It's something that was used as an exploit on Ninja Gaiden Black on Xbox, but I added it as a sort of intentional feature. I'll try to figure out a spot where it can be used to sequence break the game and finish it faster 

That looks great. Again, I like how you're not making speedrunning your main focus, since I believe that making a fun game should go ahead of making a game ideal for a subset of players. But thanks for taking speedrunners into account

Just found out about this. Made an account just to comment on how well it looks.

Having read the comments, it's nice to see that you know of the "Ninja Gaiden-clones" Shadow of the Ninja and Shatterhand. I think you only need to add Vice: Project Doom and you've got all three of them! (Although Shatterhand and VPD also took some clear inspiration from Batman) 

From what I've seen it sorta reminds me of them, more so than Ninja Gaiden, actually(like how all enemies, besides bosses, in NG1 and NG2 die in 1 hit). I'm interested in seeing how this changes the flow of the game. But that might just be because of the lack of 3-damage outputting birds.

I imagine this isn't your focus, but speedrunning wise I'm really looking forward to how getting hit works, since that's one of the big changes in how the three games in the NES trilogy are played. For example in the first one, if you get hit, you lose time(since when getting hit forward, you still move slower). But sometimes it's used intentionally. Meanwhile in the 2nd game, when you get hit, you keep your momentum, so it's used more frequently(I don't speedrun NG2, so I just shamelessly took that from the WR video).

Having said that, congratulations on the 30% milestone! It looks great so far