This updates involves a lot! So get ready.

Level updates
Several updates received complete overhauls, increasing their size, and overall look at feel. For now lets just look at specific additions.

• The only two levels that remain the same are Fields of Fate, and the train level.
  
• Waterfall now includes a periodic waterfall in the middle of the level that pushes you down
  
• Tree tops now includes obscuring leaves periodically.

Items
There is no longer the ability to pick items on character select. Instead....

• You can no longer hold 3 items.
  
• Items now spawn randomly in a level, in chests.
  
• Chests appear randomly, at random locations
  
• You can only hold 1 item, which is the most recent item you pick up from a chest

Character Select

• The character select has essentially been entirely refactored behind the scenes.
  
• This should fix all previous bugs in the character select screen.
  
• You no longer select items in the character select screen (see above)

Flow
The one thing to mention here is that the game no longer ends after a single round, instead, because of how fast game flow should be after the most recent updates, we instead decided to make it more of a round based system. So now it's a first to 5, instead of a one n' done.

That's it for now! please stay tuned for more. Updates with the Jutsu system, including changing up the jutsu, changes to the online system (steam integration here we come) and more are planned in the future.

Combat received a few updates. Primary updates include that of jutsu updates.

• Removed double fire shield (square triangle triangle)
  
• Removed triple fire shield (square triangle circle)
  
• added two new jutsu
  
  • Double fire shield was replaced with will o' wisps. It's a single fire ball that circles you at a set radius (64) for a period of time. The jutsu has the following parameters to it.
    
    • Time alive = 500;
      
    • Push strength= 1.25;
      
    • Damage on hit = 5;
  • Triple fire shield was replaced with a lob of a spark. On hitting land, the spark ignites into a small pit of laval/fire. This is a trap that effects all players slowly damaging them over time if they stand in it, or are slightly above it. It has the following parameters to it. The damage done on hit is not like a normal jutsu, instead providing no hit stun, or knock back, it simply act like a traditional DoT.
    
    • Time alive = 1000;
      
    • Push strength= 0;
      
    • Damage on hit = 1;
• Jumping on an opponent is now a one hit KO. After a few small play tests with myself (I'm a lonely game dev) I've noticed it's relatively hard to actually land a jump attack like that. So lets just make it the ultimate move.
  
• Added environmental hazards, the first of which are spikes. Spikes are on secret warfield, and touching spikes is an instant KO
  
• Minor bug fixes caught.

The continuation of last months update is happening once again. Addressing speed. Along side that comes some changes to fire jutsu offensive spells.

Once again as part of an ongoing effort to make the game faster, changes were made to the game to address parts of it that are particularly slow.

The following update were made to NinjaFall in this patch.

• Removed double fireball (square square triangle)
  
• Removed triple fireball (square square circle)
  
• added two new jutsu
  
  • Double fire ball was replaced with fire lob. Which is a slower fire ball that is effected by gravity, but does more damage if hit.
    
  • Triple fire ball was replaced with a giant fire breath attack. This is a short range, short lived jutsu like it's replacement, but is no longer effected by walls. Good for digging defensive opponents out from their shell.
• Increased the damage done across the board. All jutsu now does significantly more damage. Two fireballs is all it takes for most characters to go down. I want the games to be faster and this is one of the most important ways to do that.
  
• Increased the default run speed from 2, to 3.5
  
• Fixed a few bugs, including one where some gamepads weren't registering the dash button properly and the game would get a fatal error.

There is an underlying issue with the gameplay in NinjaFall that needs to be addressed.

Speed.

As part of an ongoing effort to make the game much, much faster. We will be making several updates along side typical bug fixes and improvements to increase the speed and flow of the game. This update specifically addresses using a kunai.

The following updates were made to NinjaFall in this patch.

• added gravity to kunai
  
• added the ability to throw kunai on angles
  
• kunai travels speed increased from 5 to 10
  
• kunai damage increased from 10 to 40
  
• added a flight time to kunai which does the following thing
  
  • the initial 20 frames, the kunai travel is linear
    
  • after 20 frames, the kunai then begins to be effected by gravity
    
  • after 20 frames, the kunai begins to slow down horizontally to simulate a little bit of air resistance
    
    • The initial speed is 10;
      
    • the minimum speed is 5;
  
  
• added two new settings to the settings page
  
  • You can now set sound effects to be globally on or off
    
  • You can now set music to be globally on or off

The following updates were made to NinjaFall in this patch.

• Updates to the cpu model has been made. The computer controlled characters have been made to be less likely to be just running off into pits. They still have the capacity to do so, but will be slightly less likely now to do so.
  
• A settings page now exists, accessible from the main menu. Currently you can only set the FPS counter to display or not, but efforts have been made for this page to be massively expanded.
  
• As to the above, data saving/ and reading has been introduced into the game. NinjaFall now reads/writes from it's installation directory.
  
• 10 new arcade levels have been added. The player now is required to run through 20 Arcade levels to reach then end instead of the initial 10.

The following updates were made to NinjaFall in this patch.

• The resolution of the game was scaled down. Code behind resolution changes adjusted in preperation for resolution settings in a future patch.
  
• Added a quit to desktop menu button on the top menu. Now ends the game when selected.
  
• A bug was fixed where if a player was dead and they still had a shuriken moving in the world and pressed the use-item button, the game would crash looking for a dead player
  
• A bug was fixed where if an opponent didn't have any jutsu loaded, and you attempted to steal nothing with the red eye jutsu, the game would crash looking for a jutsu.
  
• A bug was fixed where a non existing sprite was attempting to be drawn to the screen.
  
• Multiple bugs were caught when transitioning from different game states. Moving from arcade to vs mode for example was causing an issue with character selection on the character selection screen. An attempt has been made to capture all those bugs.
  
• Crashing now happens in a nicer manner. The output to the screen was adjusted to be custom handled instead of the default game maker crashes. This should also help with error reporting.
  
• Arrows on the menu weren't aligned properly. Adjusted alignment.
  
• A bug with gamepads looking for a bad index in an array was fixed. small adjustment to handling input was made to improve stability.
  
• Previously an FPS counter was always visible. This is removed. You can now press "T" or "select" on your keyboard/gamepad respectively to toggle this back on/off