Collector devlog
In development

Fixing the ready stance

Making every Sword & Shield action settle into the same planted guard.

Three close views of the Collector fighter’s legs comparing the old rear boot with the smaller corrected boot facing right and left.
The old rear boot beside the smaller corrected boot in both facings. Art and reference animation: Vit

After adding the Sword & Shield kit, the fighter still had a small but obvious problem: the moves ended in a wide planted guard, then the idle pose pulled the feet inward. The knee and rear boot snapped at exactly the moment the fighter was supposed to look settled.

I changed the ready stance to match the move endings. Neutral, Top, Crouch, and a missed parry now return through the same planted guard instead of popping to a different idle. The phone pass then exposed two art problems the tests couldn’t decide: the rear boot pointed away from the opponent and looked too large. I corrected its pivot and scale without moving the ankle or changing combat contact.

This sounds like foot polish, but it matters to the bigger goal. If Collector is about learning a weapon, attacks and recovery need to read as one continuous body, not a stack of poses.

The still shows the boot correction in both facings. The clip is a 2× slowed frame-sequence export of Top Attack settling back into guard. The corrected build is merged into the game code and was installed and running on my iPhone. I still need the hands-on feel verdict.

Top Attack settling into the ready stance at 2× slow from a local Godot frame-sequence export. Art and reference animation: Vit