Hello everybody! I hope this message finds you all well and preparing for a great end of the year with your loved ones.

First of all, I want to thank you all for the huge patience you’ve all displayed towards this game and the respect and appreciation from the team behind it!

Secondly, I want to provide you with updates on the development of the game!
I want to list everything we did since the end of June, so you all can understand well what we’ve been up to!

NEW ASSASSINS!

So, in the last update we said we were working on 4 brand new characters and now I’m ready to introduce them to you:

• The fifth character is Ayai, a feral and dangerous fighter. Her fighting style is erratic and she puts her life behind every attack. She’s the fastest character in the game, but this comes with a lot of punishment if you don’t connect your attacks. Ayai doesn’t have strong attacks. All of her attacks are fast, with a lot of movement and the players have to use a lot of cancel moves to make sure they are connecting attacks and not being defended. She won’t be a very easy character to play with. She’s 100% finished, with menu arts, in-game illustrations, and AI coding.
• The sixth character is Yasuke, a very defensive character. His fighting style is the opposite of Ayai's. He will stay behind, waiting carefully for the moment to strike. He doesn’t have a dash forward movement. Instead, he has a counter-movement, that if well timed, opens the opponent’s guard, granting him enough time to weak attack the vulnerable opponent, but as you can imagine, it won't be easy to achieve it since the counter window is small and missing it means becoming vulnerable. Also, not a very easy character to play with, but once the players master him, he will be a force to be reckoned with. He’s also 100% finished, with menu arts, in-game illustrations, and AI coding.
• The 7th character is the master swordswoman Miyo. She is the proud owner of three swords, each one with a different range and attack movement. Every movement she does starts with the same motion (all the attacks and dashes), making it very difficult to predict what her next move is. She’s fast, accurate, and has 3 attacks. Two weak attacks and one strong. Even though she doesn’t have a dash forward movement, you’ll learn that this doesn’t make her less aggressive. She’s a lot easier to play compared to the first two in the list but is still considered to be a medium-difficult character to play. The key to playing her well is to get all the distances and timing from all her different attacks. She is 85% completed, with some art for "Fierce Duel" to be finished and her scenario.
• The eighth and last character is the master of the Sheng Biao or Rope Dart. His name is Shinran and he’s a very mobile character, with fast and wide dashes, a quick weak attack, and a full-screen range strong attack that can have different activation times, making it difficult for the opponents to know when to commit to a defensive move or a full out attack. Easy to transition from attack to cancels and follow-up attacks, Shinran will be a force to be feared in Two Strikes. Probably one of the easiest ones to play, alongside Kenji. He is 70% completed, with no menu art, or scenario and I’m currently working on the AI coding for him.

NEW GAME MODES!

Besides that, we completed many other smaller tasks at this time. The main one is the creation of a brand new game mode that opens great possibilities for Two Strikes players.

• 1 versus 2: In this mode you have to beat two fighters at the same time, using just your character. All the characters are on the same screen and this will be a great challenge for experienced players. This mode started as a fun idea and after testing it, I knew I had something interesting and different in my hands, so I decided to move forward with it, which created the possibility of a brand new party game mode which is…
• 2 versus 2: In this mode, 4-players can fight at the same time, with four controllers in frenetic battles that will probably only last 10 seconds. Plan with your friend, coordinate defenses and attack, and may the best win!

These game modes are in development and will become available later this year.

NEW VISUAL CLUES

• A lot of players suggested visual clues to be added once a fighter gets its first hit, now we’ve added the blood spurts that stay on the floor indicating an injury.
• Fierce Battle: For casual modes, we will add the fierce battle mode, which gets triggered once a tie would happen in a duel, which means when two players hit each other at the same time. This will trigger a button-mashing mini-game that will break the defense of the loser for a small period, enough to connect with a weak attack.
• New dash effects were also added to give more juice to the movement.

NEW GAME DIFFICULTIES

I’m working on at least two more game difficulties with very different behaviours. The current game difficulty will be available as well, as the easy difficulty.

WHEN THE GAME WILL BE UPDATED?

Ok! Now that you know what we’ve been up to in these last months, I’m pretty sure you are crazy to know when these updates will be released on Steam.

The first big update after this long long hiatus will take place in the end of January 2023. I won’t reveal the date yet, because it will be revealed around mid January with the exact content that will be ready, but I can guarantee you, the 5th character Ayai will be in this release.

Some of you might ask, why not release more content now and when the game will be finally released to completion I will be as always very open with you all: Because I can't release the game without it will a publisher deal. Why is it important to get one? A good publisher can make the dream of adding the multiplayer online to the game come true. As you all know, I don't have the skills to add it myself and without a publisher, this will not be happening. Also, the reach of the game will be increased, getting more people playing the game and creating the better chance that we to work on new content, like new characters.
So I will do my best to keep releasing new content while pursuing a good deal with a publisher. I keep you all posted.