After a playtest the sword sounded wrong: light attacks sounded like putting the sword away. The placeholder sound files had been labelled by ear, and the labels were backwards. This round fixes that properly instead of by ear again.
Sounds driven by the animations
Every animation now carries a small table of sound cues: which sound, on which frame, at which bone. The animation instance watches the playhead each frame and fires any cue it crossed, so a swing whooshes, a foot lands or a goblin grunts exactly when the original does. Footsteps trace the ground under the actual foot to pick the surface, and walking and running use their own step sets.
// Calls Fire for every cue of Clip in (From, To], wrapping round the clip end when To < From.
for (const FDDMotionCue& Cue : *Cues)
{
const bool bCrossed = To >= From ? (Cue.Time > From && Cue.Time <= To) : (Cue.Time > From || Cue.Time <= To);
if (bCrossed)
{
Fire(Cue);
}
}Goblins got the same treatment: steps, swings, war cries, hurt and death sounds and the horn all follow their animations now, and each goblin keeps one voice for the whole fight. Menu clicks were double checked too, and a couple that pointed at a neighbouring sound are fixed.
Options like the original PC version
The Options screen is rebuilt around four tabs: Gameplay, Audio, Video and Controls, with the original wording and help line for every row. Changes are held until you save, leaving with unsaved changes asks first, and the settings that can only be changed from the title screen are greyed out in the pause menu. Modern extras such as upscaling and ray tracing sit at the bottom of the Video tab. Most rows already change the game; key rebinding is next.
More of the Fighter
- Dire Onslaught with the original timing and power.
- Holding the heavy attack flows into the second swing, but only if the button stays down the whole time.
- Air attacks: a jumping slash, and Empale, which dives and stabs on landing.
- Skyward Lash repeats if you mash attack, and Hindsight Slash dodges a blow at the start and then hits twice as hard.
- Four new sword skills: Compass Slash, Downthrust, Tusk Toss and Broad Cut.
Next up is a long playtest of the Tainted Mountain with all of this in, then the remaining Fighter skills and the minimap.
