First Cut
A downloadable game for Windows
2021: I have started development on a premium version of the game with improved visuals and features. More info to come.
This prototype version will remain free and available as it always has.
About:
A small fighting game started in 2017.
Face off against a friend or fight the computer.
This game can be played with a gamepad, a mouse and keyboard or just a keyboard.
Multiplayer can be played with either 2 gamepads or 1 keyboard and 1 gamepad.
Controls:
Gamepad (xbox):
X = Attack
A = Dodge
D-pad = Move/Aim Sword
RT + direction = Shove
Gamepad (playstation):
Square = Attack
X = Dodge
D-pad = Move/Aim Sword
R2 + direction = Shove
Mouse and Keyboard:
Left Click = Attack
Right click or C = Dodge
Mouse = Aim Sword
WASD = Move
Middlemouse or V + direction = Shove
Keyboard:
Z = Attack
X = Dodge
Arrow Keys = Move/Aim Sword
C + direction = Shove
How to Play:
Attacking:
Pressing attack will perform a horizontal attack.
Holding up while you attack will perform a high vertical attack.
Holding down while you attack will perform a low vertical attack.
Holding the attack button will let you delay your attack.
Holding your attack will charge your movement speed when you release it.
You can cancel an attack before it begins by dodging.
Blocking:
Incoming attacks can be blocked by holding your sword at the correct height.
If you press attack immediately after blocking you will perform a counter attack.
When two attacks meet in the air they will be parried.
Dodging:
There are two kinds of dodge:
A normal dodge will duck under a horizontal attack, but you will be vulnerable to vertical attacks. You can block while ducking.
Pressing up while you dodge does a sidestep. You will avoid vertical attacks but will be vulnerable to horizontal attacks. You cannot block while sidestepping, but pressing down will change your dodge into a duck.
Holding the dodge button will let you stay down until you release it.
If you press attack while dodging you will attack after getting up.
Shoving:
Hold the shove button and press forward to push your opponent away. Press backwards to pull your opponent towards you.
Counters:
Blocking your opponent and pressing attack as quickly as possible will result in a counter slash that will be faster than normal.
Fatigue:
Blocking attacks, being shoved, and missing swings will build up fatigue which slow your attacks down slightly.
Fatigue recovers very quickly when you're not currently performing an action.
Fatigue can be avoided by dodging instead of blocking, aiming strikes carefully, and using footwork to stay out of range.
The first attack to connect will win the round.
More About:
This game is a prototype and is rough around the edges, especially the menu.
Let me know in the comments if you have any feedback or suggestions about the gameplay.
If you find any bugs or crashes please leave a comment so I can investigate.
Troubleshooting:
If you get this message:
FATAL ERROR in Vertex Shader compilation
ShaderName: shColorReplaceBlend
D3DXCompile failed - result
You need to update DirectX. Try this:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35&44F86079-8679-400C-B...
I've found that occasionally the game will run slowly on certain machines for no reason. If the game is sluggish try opening the options.ini file in notepad and changing the line:
SleepMargin=1
to
SleepMargin=10
This might fix the problem.
^ This should be fixed now.
You can also try running the exe in compatibility mode.
Also try installing Visual C++ 2012 x86 and x64.
^
READ THIS IF IT CRASHES
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- My Return48 days ago
- HotfixNov 02, 2020
- October Update (version... whatever)Oct 31, 2020
- UpdateAug 12, 2019
- Update: Sprites, New StageOct 26, 2018
- Small Update (river, scores,sprites)Oct 13, 2018
- Small Update: CountersAug 24, 2018
- New UpdateAug 21, 2018
Comments
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Among them there are cowards that hide outside the screen... Disgraceful!
great game and has a good complexity to depth ratio, recommend to any fighting games and action arcade fans
this game is really good i reccomend it
I just found this game a few days ago and I'm completely in love with it. It's so "simple" yet it works soooo well. Amazing work, for real, for me this is just perfect
yesss this game is so perfect!
nice game! only thing is i would decrease the range on the horizontal strike. that move plus good footsies seems to be the meta 😂
one of the best games ive played in this website. ıts really fun!
Wow, Really good game!
Really cool game.
I love art style :)
Yes, this kind of game doesn't even need high-quality graphics, its minimalism is very samurai-spirit:)
very cool sword game :)
This game was awesome! I really enjoyed it a lot, I actually ended up playing more after my recording. I can't wait to see where you'll go with this, keep it up!
Here's my video, it would mean a lot if you'd subscribe and like the video :)
Dude i freaking love this game
linux ;(
custom background
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/lxrhlyruywrj4ti/AACE2-OePqhjJqhojc1oSK3la?dl=0
How did you find these or make them
Awesome, thank you!
New update! letsgo!
great game and really realistic the blood and everything this game is a masterpiece and i recommend it also developer if you see this can you add online multiplayer?
Masterpeice
This game is really fun i really recommend it!
I can finally say I'm superior to the Duel bot![]()
Also, I think I found a sorts of a glitch that make beating the Duel bot kinda broken and easy
-first, if you duck close to the enemy right before it does a top down swing attack and defend it while in duck position, you will be able to instantly kill it every time, only condition is that you have to be right in his position and do the attack fast, but other than that it's a piece of cake, I don't know if it's with all difficulties because I only experienced this in the Duel bot.
the speedrun strat is hold top swing, push, middle swing
epic but drasnus need to update this or else i cri
dude this is my third game i played on this website and it is so sick! i love it!
One of the best games here and I hope you read this, I'll make a pros, cons and suggestion list but besides that this is gonna go in my top 5 itch.io games
Pros
-Stunning pixel art animations were it's not to complex but not to simple at the same time which is quite nice.
-Great gameplay with all the attacks and variations you can do.
-Very fluid and not at all buggy in my experience.
Cons
-Lack of a tutorial
-No customizations of controls(I understand there is a large and diverse pool of options but the ability to customize your controls can make a game 5x better and easier to play).
-No online play(I know it's costs money to keep up a server so if you can, start a go fund me and make a server were you can play with friends by entering a 6 digit code. This is a long shot but if you do get funded, first of all I recommend placing a Japanese background with a Sakura and that there's always Sakura flowers falling, second make transitions when choosing an option so it's not so robotic and finally, to expand your market, add the ability for mac and Linux compatibility).
Suggestions
-More character customization like a different sword color or more hats and masks like maybe you could add a traditional so-men or kendo face guard or maybe samurai chest and body armor.
-Add a dummy to train with or at least a tutorial, I had to learn the ropes by myself and the text you had written, it's quite annoying and made me almost lose interest at the beginning but luckily I didn't and here we are.
-The ability to do combos in a quick but not instant(because then you wouldn't be able to block) succession so you could make it a bit more of an ability and not just spamming gameplay.
-This is less important but wouldn't be a bad add, make the maps have variation like platforms on which you can jump on but since this will cost a lot of time and effort it's not that important.
This is one of my most detailed comments and probably one of the only 3 games I have added to my collection and although your probably not going to read this, you have a great game with great potential here so stay safe, do what you love, and have a great day.
Hello. Do you provide the source code of the game, a full project? I would like to see from the inside.
The game is really fun. I played for 1 hour straight and didn't get bored at all. If you add some effects like screen shaking when blocking an attack or more details to animations to make it feel more fast-paced and dynamic, I think the game would greatly benefit from it, but it's already great as it is. It's also pretty satisfying when you get somewhat good at it:
nice edit i guess kek
This is such a hidden gem, really been loving this!
Excited to see more on the premium version.
why are my game speeded up ?
its like i am playing on 1.5x times the normal speed what the hell
Hi, there's a pretty common bug that makes the game run slower than it should (around 30-45fps rather than 60fps). It sounds like your game is now running at the intended speed. Are you on Windows 10?
Tbh i love when the game was speed up it was so intense and fun!!
it gets boring from time to time when the game is in normal slow phrase i wish i can do the bug of speed up again :(
Since you're still having that problem, could you help me test a possible fix?
https://github.com/omicronrex/gms_scheduler_fix/releases/tag/v1.0
Someone has made a .dll that might fix the problem for all games that use the same engine. Just download DGBHELP.dll and place it in the First Cut folder. If I can confirm that this .dll fixes the problem then I will release an update that includes it.
i did not have that problem at all after the first day i commented, thank you for your great work! also I think i liked the bug more than hating it too keep up the good work!
i saw this game got updated,hyped to know what it is
The most recent update was a year and 4 days ago, not 4 days ago.
wait...OH wow i got trolled
wait no,it wasnt a year it says that last update was 30 oct of 2021 on the more info
If I look at "more info" it says the last update was "6 days ago"
If I look at when the downloadable files were last updated, it says "Nov 02, 2020" which is just over a year ago.
Best guess I can come up with is that the more info update was an update to the game page, not to the game itself. But you have me very curious now that you've pointed me in the direction you'd been looking!
maybe he changed something not ingame,anyway thanks for telling me!
Hi, sorry for the confusion. I updated the top of the game description with some news about the project. I've got a bit of an overhaul in the works but I'm not ready to show anything yet.
ohhh
Awesome! Nice work, loved the game
Amazing game, I would love to see more!
hey! i got a few ideas for the game if you still work on it!
one of my ideas is larger customization like,we be able to add cosmetic armor and new weapons like naginata (prob not any new weapon but the cosmetics below)
cosmetic armor like samurai and ashigaru!
it would be very nice if this ideas were added to the game
wow those are some neat ideas. Other cool ideas would be adding different types of swords like maybe the odachi for longer range but slower speed. This would probably be pretty difficult but adding an online mode would be really cool.
oh hell yeah,the odachi would be epic but i think it would be more slower the swing since its a long katana,and yea the idea of a online mode is nuts.if he did it it would be also nice to add a friends list yk and be able to message the person etc and maybe even make clans! like imagine also be able to do 2v2's like,the characters of the enemy ally and your ally fighting on the background while you also fight aganist one of the enemies,and once ur done killing one of them you just wait til ur allied kill the other,and if ur allied die you can fight the enemy ally to see who is the great winner
Great, amazing game. I really like it but when I got it I realised to do two player you need numpad and I don't have one on my computer. Still really great anyway against the ai, normal is already really hard for me and the ai is really good. Also I was wondering if you could add a turn off blood option, sorry if this sounds annoying but it's just a suggestion. I will still play even without a turn off blood option.
Edit: After playing the game more I have come to ignore the blood and can now beat most normal opponents and some duels. Great game! Also the mechanics are genius and work really well. I have even made my own strategy with them which lets me beat normal opponents effectively.
Hey! do you got a discord? i wanna know the strategy
Sorry I don't have discord. I have an account on scratch you can contact me there if you already have an account idk. Also I used the strategy a few more times and refined it a bit more, there is basically an easy version of the strategy and a harder version. With the easy version you will beat normal opponents most of the time. With the harder version you can beat normal every time, and if you are really good at it, also beat duel every time and master sometimes.
Oh,i dont have scratch :(
but if u got yt maybe u could do a vid teaching on how to do the technique
I don't have a youtube channel so I just made a scratch project.
You can access this without an account. Just click see inside and there should be a comment box. Also by clicking the green flag it will play the animation. The comment box will probably be small but you can just drag it out with a button at the bottom of it. I cut the video right before the opponent died because I don't want scratch to ban me because of blood since it is a kid friendly website.
https://turbowarp.org/585265260
Drasnus please don't remove the features that make this strategy possible because I worked hard making and refining the strategy. But I guess it's your game and if this makes it broken then I guess it's only right to remove it (not that this strategy breaks the game).
Also I use keyboard and mouse controls so idk if this works for the others
i tested it out your technique and it works perfectly,thank you.
Really good game, although it's a prototype by name, it doesn't feel as such, the pixel art is pretty and very well made, controls are perfect and attuned.
Futhermore the music is very well made, the menu is perfect and well themed, the only thing I could ask would be a way to customize or mod character's appearance, otherwise it's a gorgous game~
how do i update direct x
nvm i found it out,the game is epic!
пожалуйста, сделай это http://forum.hellroom.ru/index.php?topic=21720.0
i JUST RAGED QUIT MY BUTT CRACK OFF
I SWEAR
whenever it says pick a map i cant pick one and ive seen this game it looks really pog but i cant play it because of that bug
i think u need use the arrow keys
This is really solid! Simple, but SO satisfying. Great stuff!
Hey man, this has deeper combat than most AAA games do. It is simple, exciting, and I absolutely love it.