#Adalia En Garde!

[pianta]

“no challenge can stand up to Adalia de Volador!” ⚔ en garde! is out now on steam!! 🤺💕

[ilikedetectives]

[virtualfotodivision]

Adalia de Volador | 08.17.2023 | En Garde!

Camera by Frans Bouma. Captured using ReShade.

[alexissara]

Probably The Top 10 Characters of 2023

It's time for the hardest top 10 list of the year, deciding who my top 10 characters of the year are. I am a very character focused writer and GM and that translates to my enjoyment of art too. I love characters and it's so hard to pick between the amazing swath of fantastic characters I read this year. Lowering the list down after eliminating stuff I had the list at like over 20 characters so getting this down to 10 was an exercise in self doubt. Of all of these lists this really is the list that I want to thin about next year and see what characters I am still thinking about in one years time. Unlike my other lists this is not even roughly in any order it simply is the 10 characters that at the moment I was writing this I managed to cut a list down to. My 45th character at this moment might be number 2 tomorrow and you can't see my 45th character, you can only see 10.

Mary Satome [Kaguri Twins]

I watched this early in the year but Mary stuck with me. She's funny, she's clever, she is messy, she's an asshole, she's sweet, she's passionate and determined and I just want the best for her and her girlfriends. It's rare to see a woman be as messy as her and remain the main character but she gets to both be kinda noble and heroic while also clearly being self motivated.

Prospera Mercury [gwitch]

Easily mother of the year, Prospera Mercury is a litness test for me on someone's taste and makes for an easy read on if someone will have utterly trash politics or not. If Prospera was a man she would probably be one of the most beloved characters in anime as a passionate loving mom who tries to teach her child hard lessons and is willing to do anything to give her child freedom and get her revenge. However, she is not a guy so from the start everyone suspected she was awful and abusive and terrible when the text never not even at the end supports it, she is mean to Sulleta exactly once and that is so she is not an accomplice to her crimes in case she ends up getting stopped.

Tilty Claret  [MagiRevo]

My favorite "side" character of the year has to be Tilty, this little freak. Tilty is sweet, she's kind, she deserves a girlfriend, two girlfriends, she should be dating Anise and Euphy. She is funny, she's well used, she does great emotional support and understands Anise so well, I love her so much and I love how loyal and great she is to the people she loves. I love her sciencey freaky attitude too she's just great.

Honey Trap [Super Women In Love]

Villain to Hero Honey Trap is utterly endearing. She starts as simply simping for Rapid Rabbit but it's fun to watch her evolve as a character and as a person over the course of the manga. She's sweet, endearing and brutal at all the right times. She's so gay and really funny, and she is really a perfect protagonist for this romantic comedy action yuri series. She's such a perfectly crafted character who can really command a range from serious threat to tragic damsel to Hero to gay little goof ball all while feeling like the same consistent character.

Satya [Pink Sugar]

Satya comes in with an air of mystery but this trans lesbian swiftly shows how quickly someone can go from sexy mystery to beloved dork. Satya gets a lot of the most soft and sweet moments with her future girlfriends getting to be someone to listen to them, to ask questions as an outsider to the trio and to be the inciting incident to get them to go on their wild road trip to begin with. I am really curious where her story will go but it would be lying to say she hasn't already endeared herself to the top of my list despite being probably the least focused on girl of the quad so far.

Shadowheart [BG3]

BG3 has a lot of good characters, great characters even and that is in spite of it being attached to one of the worst IPs around D&D. Shadowheart stood out to me among the many characters of a character who had queerness as part of her character done well despite being a player sexual character and I think she has the most dramatic character arc of the batch on her good path. Shadowheart starts as a catty Mormon girl and evolves into this kind heroic adventurer who you could see saving the world many more times.

Adalia [En Garde!] 

While En Garde! might be a short 3 hour romp all three hours with Adalia are perfectly used. She's funny, charming, cute, and heroic. She's fitting a very classic archtype but is a spin on it by having it both be a woman but also be queer. These two factors do add to Adalia's charm, the gay side lets us see her enter dork mode where she is very gay for a sexy pirate woman and her animations change and she makes worse decisions then snap out of it when it's what needs to happen to help people. She's utterly lovely and a true delight.

Nova [Spellastra]

While almost every character here has a bit of a silly side, I can appreciate a more dramatic character. Nova is a character covered in tragedies, of angst, of wanting to love but feeling unable, she's rough and prickly and messy and makes bad choices but they all make a lot of sense for where she is at in any given moment. Nova is at once the older mentor who knows what to do but also the love interest who's fucked up plenty of times and blames herself even more than she ever should. Nova's a testament to the depth and layers you can really give a character while having her be lovable and desirable and still fit in for more fun moments while having these hard edges.

Jala [Thirsty Suitors]

Speaking of messy queers we have the disaster bisexual herself Jala. She's a character I really wanna dive deeper into because I think there is so much to Jala and the game does a pretty good job at leaving a lot of space for my brain to get cooking about why Jala is like this while also explaining a lot of why Jala is like this. Jala has hurt a lot of people, like most of the people in her life and her path to make it right with everyone is great. We get to see where other people fucked up, what complicated situations, where she grows and where she stands firm. Jala is a really perfectly envisioned character with a cast weaved so perfectly around her that every interaction is splendor to behold.

Astra [Grand Slam Romance]

Astra's on a quest to fuck every woman on the planet and more power to her. Astra is kinda the villain of the first book but she's also the romantic lead which places her in an interesting position in the story where we see her at her worst, we get to understand how she got there and we are cheering for her to tone it down like 10%. I am fully biased in my love for her and I make no excuses for it. Astra is designed exactly like many of my OCs with a personality similar to a lot of my OCs, I love everything about her, I want her great success and I look forward to people telling me I ripped her off even if I made characters like her like 10 years ago and have a record of it. I love her and I just wanna see more of her.

If you want to help me enjoy more art then consider checking out my Patreon or Ko-fi .and giving me a little bit of cash so I can do more of this kind of writing but also like make lots of my own art, art is hard to make and costs money and like maintain my chronically ill and trans body also takes money so anything helps, thank you.

[fleetingmotivation]

So en garde is really good congrats to lesbians

[insanityisthecure]

Endless list of games I love: En Garde! (2023)

"You should call the guards to help you."

"For the hundredth time - we ARE the guards!"

[hardcore-gaming-101]

En Garde!

Student projects are not usually the sort of thing that one expects to see turned into released games, but lest we forget, Portal started out that way, in the form of the student project Narbacular Drop. En Garde! is a similar kind of story, having originated as a student project in France, which ended up being nominated for three “best student game” awards and winning two of them. Five years after its 2018 debut, the full game was released, in a form that is significantly different from the form originally created by eight students, but with far more polish and touched up gameplay. So what is this game that impressed judges? En Garde! is a sword fighting comedy game set in 17th century Spain, in which you assume the role of Adalia da Volador, an acrobatic swordswoman with a quick wit who is even quicker with a rapier. Very quick, in fact, as the game moves at a very fast pace.

Read more...

[satoshi-mochida]

‘Swashbuckler action game’ En Garde! announced for PC

Gematsu Source

Fireplace Games has announced “swashbuckler action game” En Garde! for PC. It will launch via Steam in August. A demo is available now.

En Garde! began as a student project back in 2018. The reception from the community led the team to establish itself as Fireplace Games and recreate En Garde! from the ground up as a full game experience.

Here is an overview of the game, via its Steam page:

About

From the forgotten pages of history, comes Adalia de Volador! Legendary swashbuckler. Dashing adventurer. Hero of the people.

Play as Adalia in her daring escapades full of sword-fighting, satire and shenanigans. Challenge the cruel Count-Duke and oppose tyranny with panache!

Beautifully painted locations, charismatic characters, and an astounding amount of battle banter will transport you to the golden age of swashbuckling comedy!

So, sharpen your sword, grab your boots and hat, and embark on a hilarious, action-packed spectacle!

Key Features

Fencing With Flair – Parry, riposte and lunge your way to victory! Fight with style to fill your Panache Meter and unlock special skills! But you’ll need more than your sword to win the day…

Adapt and Improvise – Challenging, ever-changing fights push you to rely on your cunning and acrobatics to disturb your enemies. Learn their weaknesses to toy with them and express your fighting style.

Experiment with the Environment – Combat areas are playgrounds full of opportunities to create mischief and gain the upper hand. Surprise, stun, or evade enemies with a variety of objects – from rolling barrels to falling chandeliers.

Arena Mode – Unlock zany game-changing modifiers and new fight situations in the arena mode. Play and replay randomized scenarios to test your skill against waves of enemies!

Theatrical Characters – A flamboyant cast dazzles the screen! Adalia and her rivals react to each of your actions, exchanging witty one-liners during the flow of the fight.

Story Episodes – Discover the tales of Adalia, with unique challenges to complete and secrets to uncover. Fight through marketplaces, dungeons and palaces: the world’s a stage for your epic duels!

Award-Winning Passion Project – The game was first prototyped as an award-winning and much-loved student project. The original team has reformed and expanded as Fireplace Games to increase the scope, sweep and grandeur of En Garde!

Watch the reveal trailer below.

Reveal Trailer

[overbringer]

I beat En Garde!

En Garde! is a third person action game about Adalia de Volador, an acrobatic swordmaster and fencer who spends her time thwarting the schemes of the evil Count-Duke who wishes to rob from the poor to give to himself. Zorro is a VERY clear inspiration

The whole thing has the feel of a saturday morning cartoon. You're sword fighting guys but when you beat them they don't get stabbed and die, they run out of hit points and collapse in a defeated heap, complaining about how you cheated and that they'll definitely get you next time. Adalia has a pompous brother who pretends to be a super hero despite being half the fencer she is, and a pirate queen for a girlfriend that she regularly has romantic moonlight duels with.

The main draw of the game, though, is the combat. It's not doing anything we haven't seen before. Enemies circle around you and make attacks that all have to be countered in different ways. It feels just a bit like Arkham Asylum or Assassin's Creed. But it's just...

...it's just FUN. It's really really fun. I haven't had that much fun in a video game in a long time. The controls are super responsive so it's not hard to make Adalia do what you want her to and it feels good to run and jump around, parrying sword slashes and dodging grenades. Fighting many enemies at once in a straight fight is an extremely difficult proposition but the environment is full of improvised weapons you can use to stun and separate them enough to take them out one at a time. Cannons you can set off to send guys flying, chandeliers you can drop on them, lutes you can throw at their heads, barrels you can kick at them, stairs you can knock them down, containers of oil you can knock over to create slippery spots, precariously balanced vases you can knock over onto guys' heads...The list goes on.

It's not easy. I played on the middle of three difficulties and I had to work at it to win. The game gives you a lot of tools to fight with but it expects you to use them all. I lost to the first boss at LEAST a dozen times. But as you get further into the game and start to internalize all the systems within, you just hit that flow state and you feel like...well. Like a legendary swordmaster making fools of a bunch of bumbling henchmen.

Excellent game. Rather short, but there's an arena mode you can play with some light roguelike elements if you want more. Hearty recommend.

[armaina]

A birthday half-page sketch comm by Ambutt__ of skybugs_stuff's (twitter) character Vale, dressed as Adalia de Volador from the game En Garde!

[ilikedetectives]

Adalia de Volador

[virtualfotodivision]

Adalia de Volador | 08.17.2023 | En Garde!

Camera by Frans Bouma. Captured using ReShade.

[alexissara]

En Garde! Quick Review

En Garde! gives us Adalia the sword swinging bisexual icon as the protagonist for a rather short but well condensed sword fighting game. It is a perfect swashbuckler game with rapid fire jokes, banter and fun paired with amazing voice acting from the cast. It is really a brilliant display of how great a small cast, amount of original models, and run time can do with really amazing presentation, soundtrack, animation, voice acting and gameplay.

Adalia and Zaida are really really cute and adorable and I love them and to me it's very explicitly gay but there is no kiss, no decoration of them being in a relationship even if it's heavily implied that they have at least dated in the past if not in the present. Like for me, I would have liked a kiss, just one little kiss in the end. Zoro gets to kiss the girl in the end, why not Adalia and her hot pirate GF. Still Adalia got a unique animation just for being gay for Zaida and for me that worked for the run time and fun of this game.

The gameplay is smooth with it feeling amazing on a gamepad, I played with auto perry on because my brain is bad and I have terrible reaction times but trying to manual perry it still felt good it just felt like I was being taken out of the fantasy of the game and more into I am playing a game trying to overcome my physical limits so switching on auto perry felt like I was the amazing swashbuckler the game wanted me to feel like and I still sometimes wiped out and lost a fight so it did not remove the challenge or even reaction times all together with how the mechanics go by the end of the game.

The mechanics do a nice job of adding a little more and more as you go on and applying things in fun ways all the way into the end thanks to that short length and fun loop. I could defiantly see myself picking this game back up to just play the arena mode or replaying trying to find all the hidden bits of content or get a better run time.

Overall, I really loved this game and I recommend it. It really feels like a game that wants you to replay it, it wants to be a cotton candy game that just gives you fun for a few hours whenever you just wanna take your mind off shit. Check it out.

[gertlushgaming]

En Garde Review (Steam)

For this En Garde Review, where we play a swashbuckling action game! Battle graceless guards and nefarious noblemen in fast-paced fights full of spectacle. Use the environment, your wit, and your blade to teach them all a lesson! Play as Adalia in her daring escapades full of sword-fighting, satire, and shenanigans. Challenge the cruel Count-Duke and oppose tyranny with panache!

En Garde Review Pros:

- Decent graphics. - 8.08GB download size. - Steam achievements. - Full controller support. - Boot-up options - play the game or play the DX12 version. - Graphics settings - resolution, window mode, v-sync, framerate cap, gamma, sharpness, 3D resolution scale, anti-aliasing, textures, global illumination, bloom, reflections, fog, shadows, object detail, motion blur, and motion blur intensity. - Controller settings - Invert axis and sensitivity sliders, sprint mode toggle, Xbox or Playstation buttons, and rebind controls. - Can rebind controls for the keyboard controls. - 3 difficulties - Easy, medium, and hard. - Accessibility options - Hud scaling slider, enemy ui scaling, subtitles, subtitles scaling, and accessible font. - Assist mode options - invincibility, automatic parries, camera autofocus, and camera auto turn. - Cutscenes are a mix of in-game and still art. - Opening and ongoing tutorial prompts and video pop-ups. - A 3D world with full 360 camera control. - Combat is based on fencing so it's a case of countering and learning patterns, you can riposte and parry. - The environment can be used like swinging on poles for traversal or kicking boxes and crates into enemies to stun them. - Clear parry marker. - A lot of parkour and platforming. - Excellent voice work. - The game feels like a good comedy film. - You can kick enemies into the water, into walls/racks, or off balconies. - Lore and little tidbits can be found and read. - Auto lock on for combat. - Pick up and throw pots at enemies to stun them or throw them off guard. - Each enemy has a fatigue meter and depleting, leaving them open to massive damage. - Combat arenas can trigger which locks you into a location with many enemies. - Enemies can fall down stairs, into fountains, and all sorts. - The game feels like a Men in Tights or Princess Bride we never got. - Panache is where you build it up with fancy moves and combos, allowing you to pull off special skills for kills. - Throw buckets on enemies' heads to distract them. - Good looking locations. - The combat is very fluid and fun once you get to grips with it. - Big boss encounters. - A lot of funny one-liners and quips as you fight. - You still earn achievements even with invincibility on. - End of episode breakdown. - When the parkour is flowing then it really makes the game feel and look cool. - Slight puzzle elements throughout. - New enemy types bring new strategies needed to kill them. - Challenges and secrets can be found as you play and explore. - You can pet a chicken! - Captains are stronger enemies and act like elites with Shields. - You get told the secrets and challenges after you finish the episode. - Has some replay value. - The arena mode is a run-based mode where you choose a difficulty, how many arenas, and the boss. What happens next is all randomised and at the end of every encounter you pick one good and one bad modifier. En Garde Review Cons: - Groups of stronger enemies are a steep learning curve. - The kicking of people and boxes is not great, The tutorial just says press a but that's jump so it's actually double tap a, and make sure you are a kick's distance away beforehand. - Weaker enemies can be just button-mashed to death. - The markings are not always clear. - The areas are pretty narrow and this causes the camera to be a bit clunky in terms of dodging enemy attacks. - A lot of loading screens that breaks the flow. - Whenever the parkour flow breaks the game just stops dead and is usually followed by a long walk back to start the parkour run again. - Challenges seem to be hidden until you have done them which is a bit of an odd choice. - Never sure when you have hit a checkpoint. Related Post: Neko Journey Review (PlayStation 5) En Garde: Official website. Developer: Fireplace Games Publisher: Fireplace Games Store Links - Steam Read the full article

[idratherlivefreetofail]

Screenshots from WHY IS THIS SO FUNNY!? | En Garde! :D

Oh my god this game was hilarious! I had so many moments when I laughed out loud because the bad guys kept talking even though they were dead and also tripping over each other. xD Plus it was nice seeing Seán smile and laugh so much throughout this video. He seemed like he was having a ton of fun playing this game. :)  Also this is random but am I the only one who thinks that Adalia’s voice sounds like Brigitte from Overwatch? :P