- CEO Indie Showcase Update - 14 August 2026
This weekend Alan and I are at Community Effort Orlando, a.k.a. CEO! If you're coming too, check out our booth at the Indie Showcase within JebaileyWorld. Whether or not you're coming, we also have an update! Input Shortcuts You can now hold up+back or down+back to do backflip or neutral+block without pressing the block button. You might find this matches your intution on how to input these options. You can now double tap a ground direction to do direction + block, up+up to do an all-new empty neutral jump, or a button to do neutral + button. Ideally, this SHOULD be hard to do on accident but not too hard to do it on purpose. If you use these shortcuts in Arcade, Sensei Bob will explain them in a tooltip. If you hate this feature, you should be able to turn off all shortcuts in Options under Input Shortcuts. Other Input Related Stuff The input buffer is now smaller for block and directi…
- Version 0.985 Update - 5 June 2026
Patch Notes The Combo Breaker Event stage (based on our WIP stage 'The Gig') has been reverted to Paul's old 'mountain' stage... for now. 'The Gig' and its unique stage music will both return once they're fully ready to go in, although it will no longer be set in front of the Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel. Slightly extended the hurtbox of fireballs for the purposes of hit detection. This should fix a rare issue where sometimes a fireball passes by without making contact, which in turn can cause bigger, rarer issues (even a softlock in certain interactions). This should NOT have any gameplay/balance impact. Fixed some misalignments between lineart and "flats" sprite layers in paul's block animation Fixed some artifacts in Lewis' PileDebunker and some color fill issues in his Fist of Euphoria's recovery animation. Added/fixed a few text strings in pt-BR localization (thanks Stealph) Added…
- Compete in the special 4th Anniversary Edition of our online league! - 26 May 2026
The Mega Knockdown League Every month the Mega Knockdown Discord holds an online league where players can test their mettle, get some games in and earn some bragging rights and a small (~$20) cash prize. The next league starts this week, and you can sign up for that here if you like. All of our leagues are free to enter, and there's no region restriction because of the game's excellent netcode. The 4th Anniversary League Once a year we do a special league with a lore-accurate $100 prize, in order to celebrate the anniversary of our Early Access release. That one will be in July! You can sign up for it here: https://challonge.com/MegaKnockdownLeague42 When: League play starts 3PM eastern USA time on July 11. You may play your matches on a flexible schedule over the course of a week, and I will accept late joiners for 24 hours after the event starts. Prize: First place gets a minimum of $…
- Version 0.984 Update (Hotfix) - 21 May 2026
In 16:10 aspect ratios, stages will no longer zoom in as much (1.1x instead of 1.2x). This zoom was originally to let stages completely fit on the screen without any black bars, but this level of scaling was making background characters HUGE on 16:10. We may eventually give up and put black bars in anyway in the future for 16:10 screens, like most fighting games do. Paul temporary new stage theme no longer (incorrectly) plays while in the Paul Zone. Fixed a rare hit detection issue between Noel vine and an invincible reversal. Now when Noel connects with a vine from a very far jump in, Paul (or Nils) will be hit. Otherwise Noel will be hit before the move's invincibility frames end (same as before).
- Combo Breaker Weekend Event - 21 May 2026
We're going to Combo Breaker this weekend! If you're coming too, see here for information on our planned meetup and after-hours tournament. Even if you're staying home, we're putting out a special 'Combo Breaker' version of Paul's in-development stage for this weekend only, together with Billy's updated stage and some improvements to the Paul Zone. New Stages Billy's stage background has been updated. The gym now has an extra grappling fan watching the action. (TIME LIMITED) Until Monday, we're including a preview of Paul's new stage, 'The Gig'... except we have replaced the background with an exterior photo of the Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center Hotel, the venue where Combo Breaker is held. We're still working on a few things for this stage so it will go away again (for now) after CB is over. (TIME LIMITED) A draft of the stage music for 'The Gig' has been added to Paul's stag…
- Version 0.982 Update (Hotfix) - 27 April 2026
This patch mostly tunes up the timing and chroeography of attacks, which is a sensitive system that was changed a lot in the previous update. If you are -10 or -20, but about to avoid the hitbox of an attack, you will appear to delay at the start of the turn for only half the usual frames as you would normally. This should prevent some unclear situations where a player did not get hit, but visually it appears like they should have. This is only cosmetic: because this only affects whiffed attacks, it should not affect any meaningful frame data. Removed some awkward pauses that could sometimes happen when a move is whiffed near a blocking opponent or when preparing to do a throw Fixed an issue where a meaty attack would produce a delayed hitspark and sound effects. Fixed an issue where anti-airing Paul jC at far distances with a fast reversal move would not connect. A lot has changed in t…
- The Cross-Update - 26 April 2026
New and Updated Animations Maria and Noel now have an idle animations. Every character has an idle now! Adjusted a few Maria animations so they transition into/out of idle better. Nils and Marv have new air throw animations. Maria has new air throw, air throw whiff and air throw tech animations. Maria now has proper sprites for her anti air B combo instead of copying Noel's. Nick's air throw now does an extra spin on the way down Noel and Maria have new placeholder win animations (subject to change, these just reuse existing assets for now) Nils jumping C is now more of an inverted lariat than a spinning dive. Save/Load System Added a struct/json based saving/loading system and Continue UI screen for loading/deleting saves. Now when you leave an Arcade, Survival or Paul Zone game, you can resume your progress from the Arcade menu screen, or abandon your progress and start a new game. No…
- Version 0.981 Update - 25 March 2026
Lewis' HP has increased from 1350 to 1400. Although his small HP pool emphasized his allergy to blocking, Lewis has seen some nerfs in the past year or two and might be better off with a more 'normal' HP value. If there are other players online, the "HOP IN!" or "QUEUE UP!" message next to the Online mode will now appear even if you haven't started the tutorial yet. This might make it just a little bit easier to find organic matches with other players. (Or you can hop in our Discord and challenge players like our reigning league champion MegaS.) You can no longer open up the pause menu when a round is ending. This should solve some a rare softlock caused by pausing at the exact wrong time at the end of a match. Thanks to Rip Torn for finding this. The sprite art for Lewis' slide and sweep has been cleaned up, reducing the appearance of stray pixels on some frames and in some specific pa…
- Version 0.9805 Update - 12 March 2026
Tutorial Improvements When you clear a lesson, Paul now does his win pose. Likewise, if you lose a mission, Nick will do his win pose. After beating a mission, the stage no longer darkens as much so you can see the win/lose poses more clearly. If you manage to KO nick in the tutorial without finishing the current lesson, it's no longer treated as clearing the lesson. Other Changes and Fixes All "timeout" animations (the animations that play when the stage timer expires and you didn't win) now loop less frequently. Nick's "timeout" animation is now more subtle Nick now has a new low block animation and win animation. Fixed an issue where if certain moves (such as: certain air throw whiff animations) are anti-aired from very far away, a combo didn't trigger. The Demo has been updated to the current version.
- Win Poses Update - 27 February 2026
Win animations Characters now do a special animation when they win the round. Only a couple of characters (Nils, Paul) have bespoke win pose animations, the rest are mostly reusing sprites from other animations. This will change--our artist is working on it. Characters now do a special 'frustrated' animation when they lose a round by timeout. Basically all of these have reused sprites from other animations, currently, so they may change in the future. The end of round timing (before the dip to black) has not yet been adjusted, we might extend it a bit later. Lobby Improvements When the host selects to close the lobby, it now puts the lobby into a "closing" state where it's not possible to ready up, the lobby becomes unlisted and players will visually see that the lobby is closing. The chat stays open so players can say gg's or whatever before leaving. During the "closing" state, the hos…
- Lobbies Revamp - 21 January 2026
A lot of our recent development efforts have gone toward something that will release alongside the 1.0 release of the game later this year, but in the meantime, we made the lobbies better and fixed a couple small things. Hope you enjoy. Bigger & Better Lobbies Online lobbies have expanded to fit 6 players (2 active players and 4 spectators). Each player now gets a nameplate displaying their currently chosen character, their current Bravery score (earned by playing and watching matches), and their ready status. Lobbies now have a new illustrated background. Other changes Nils Void Cutter now does 300 damage (was 400 due to a bug where a single hit was being counted twice). Nils charged A combo, which ends in a Void Cutter, now knocks down airborne opponents, same as with a raw Void Cutter. Paul has new palettes for his Color 8 and Color 9. Fixed a bug causing a massive shower of sparks i…
- Year in Review & 2026 Dev Goals - 1 January 2026
In 2025, our small team continued to put a bunch of time and effort into improving Mega Knockdown. Let's recap a few of last year's updates, and our goals for 2026. 2025 Recap First of all, in 2025 we expanded the game's roster for the first time ever, adding Nils, our first 'charge' archetype character, and Maria, who has been carving out her own niche as an oppressive rushdown character. For a long time we stuck with the game's original 6 characters while we focused on art and system improvements, but with those goals getting to a more "stable" state, we can finally add more characters--and we're not done yet! As of this year, all characters now have a full set of "finished" quality sprites. That doesn't mean we're not still polishing sprites and improving animations, but we've been able to replace all the sketch-like "draft" sprites. One new element of polish from last year is that m…
- November Update: THE RUSH - 27 November 2025
Nick Beardguy - New Moves and Rebalance Nick's Faith Smasher is now a command throw with a unique animation. It does 350 damage, pushes 1 square, and can't be teched except by another Faith Smasher. It will still lose to the Big Billy Buster. Nick already had a good back throw, but this will give him an option to open up opponents up close, which is where he wants to be. There's now a little interesting tension here between options, where he might have to make a choice between screen position and an untechable throw attempt. Nick's forward throw now pushes one space. In general I have been trying to get rid of the oki situation where a player can repeatedly threaten N+Throw. Nick was the last character to have this option, but I think the change to Faith Smasher was good compensation. Nick has a new passive ability called Dew Rush. Dew Rush moves him forward during his A and B combos. D…
- Version 0.9791 update (Hotfix) - 13 October 2025
Fixed an issue in the Arcade mode where clicking to advance would skip dialogue instead of first advancing to the end of the current dialogue. Found a bug, or have feedback to share? You can press F8 at any time during gameplay to send the developers a direct message. We read everything we receive.
- October Update: SUPLEX - 3 October 2025
New Animations, Visual Improvements & Fixes Billy has an all-new back throw animation. New reaction animations have been added to Billy and Paul's back throws. Billy now has a proper idle animation. Several of Billy's sprites have been updated to fix pixelation/edge effects. Compression has been turned off for some sprites to improve quality (at the cost of a little disk space/possibly performance). Fixed an issue where an attacker's sprite would be flipped in the wrong direction for a single frame after landing a back throw. Fixed an issue where the fling at the end of the Bily Buster would display a hitspark if it beat another throw. Fixed the sort ordering of Maria ground throw/Noel back throw/paul back throw so the grabbed opponent is properly drawn behind the grabbing player. New Time Setting: Rapid The "Rapid" time setting may now be chosen in character select. Currently this give…
- Version 0.9776 Update (Hotfix) - 30 August 2025
Fixed a rare issue causing Maria's Cruel Intentions to trigger the punish state too early after a certain (frame perfect) series of events. Found a bug, or have feedback to share? You can press F8 at any time during gameplay to send the developers a direct message. We read everything we receive.
- Impact Update II: Bigger Hits! - 25 August 2025
This update adds a lot more "juice" to hit impacts. By that I mean I've put in more effects and adjusted some animations to enhance the visceral feel you get from hitting and getting hit. Our artist Alan has been asking for some of these changes for a long time, and after EVO I got some good feedback from noted juice enthusiast Adam Heart on how to improve impacts and animation pacing. New Hit Effects https://i.imgur.com/Z9A0jrf.jpeg Particle systems have been fully overhauled, they're no longer blocky and now more translucent (thanks to "additive" shaders). Certain really big hits have screen filling particle effects. Hits now have a bit of screenshake. Moves with more damage, push or knockdown properties will shake the screen more. You can turn this off in the options if it makes you motion sick. Big hits now have 2f more hitstop than before Strife mode has even dumber and more distra…
- Compete in the special 3rd Anniversary Edition of our online league! - 8 August 2025
Sign up here: https://challonge.com/tournaments/signup/33jXN7snmR#/signup/rsrg89zd8 The Mega Knockdown League is a friendly online competition that can be played at your own pace. Free to enter. No region restriction. Players must be on the Mega Knockdown Discord to receive communciations. League play starts 7PM eastern USA time on August 8. You may play your matches on a flexible schedule over the course of a week, and I will accept late joiners for 24 hours after the event starts. Prize: First place gets a minimum of $100 USD via Matcherino. The total prize is split 60/30/10, meaning there is a minimum prize of $50/$17 for 2nd and 3rd place. Format: Round Robin. Participants will be divided into groups. Once the tournament begins, you will have roughly 1 week to play a match with everyone else in their group. Matches will be played over the in game Lobbies. The top 2 players of each g…
- Version 0.9751 Update (Hotfix) - 1 August 2025
Fixed a rare hit detection issue involving Maria's jumping C vs Nils' Paulcano or Paul's Void Cutter at a specific spacing and timing. Thanks to MegaS for reporting this. Fixed a couple small typos in the most recent draft of the story mode. Thanks to SuperHC for reporting this. Found a bug, or have feedback to share? You can press F8 at any time during gameplay to send the developers a direct message. We read everything we receive.
- New Challengers Update - 27 July 2025
Mega Knockdown's roster is finally expanding! Maria is an oppressive rushdown character, and Nils is a zoner for the true "Charge Character Sickos." We're hoping to add even more in the future. In addition, this update has a bunch of visual improvements and quality of life changes... including Mac support! New Character: Maria https://i.imgur.com/FYL9ZC7.png Dr. Maria Flaskin is an aggressive midrange character with tools to quickly close the distance with an opponent. She's also Noel's estranged sister. Make Me Beautiful is a spin move that sends her flying toward the opponent, creating a big hitbox that can knock down. It does a lot of chip damage, but is somewhat unsafe on block unless spaced or used meaty. Cruel Intentions lets Maria pull the opponent in with her whip for a guaranteed follow-up of your choice. Get over here! Heart Breaker blasts the opponent back if they're in a pun…
