Onikira: Demon Killer full release following successful Early Access campaign.

2D side-scrolling, beat’em-up to launch on Thursday 27th August

Please view our trailer

Friday, August 14, 2015, Manchester, UK - Headup Games and

Merge Games today announce the imminent full release of Onikira: Demon Killer for PC. Onikira will launch across Steam and other digital stores on Thursday 27th August priced $13.99, £10.59 or €13.99.

Developed by Irish-based Digital Furnace Games, Onikira: Demon Killer is a 2D side-scrolling, beat’em-up set in a fantasy feudal Japan. Players assume the role of Yamazaki Jiro, a lone samurai battling to prevent the forces of the Japanese underworld, Yomi, from taking over the world of the living.

Onikira: Demon Killer blends together complex deep fighting mechanics of traditional 3D beat-em’ups and merges them with classic 2D platformer mechanics. Some will prefer to go toe-to toe with heavy weapons and mash some buttons while other players will prefer a ranged game, avoiding heavy melee encounters and the game’s expressive fighting system enables each player to engage in the way that suits them best.

Onikira: Demon Killer will boast seven challenging areas and players will be able to express themselves with over 40 uber-cool moves and using four devastating weapons. Each level is littered with foul demons that players must dispatch back to the underworld. Players must also face two mini-bosses and two epic mega bosses.

Onikira: Demon Killer originally launched on Steam in November 2014 as an Early Access title. The developers, Digital Furnace Games, would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who took time to offer feedback, helping them make Onikira: Demon Killer the best it can be.

Press assets can be found here - https://bit.ly/OnikiraPress

For more information, please contact: Nick Clarkson - nick@mergegames.com

Check out the game’s Steam page here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/310850/

Key Features:

Unique high-level combat – Onikira mixes 2D platform game elements into the combat system to make something special. Moving platforms, wall jumping, wall running and grappling all serve to make for dynamic and emergent combat encounters.

Seven Areas – the narrative unfolds over highly polished and gorgeous hand-painted levels featuring rain drenched villages, destroyed opulent cities, mountaintop locations and an erupting volcano.

Master unique weapons – Each weapon - sword, tetsubo, naginata or arm blades - has multiple unlockable moves which can result in massive combo chains when moves are strung together. Combo chains turn directly into score multipliers.

Responsive and Expressive Combat System – players are rewarded for strategic and skill-based fighting. Play flows naturally from move to move, allowing the player to create new combos that haven’t been designed explicitly by the developers.

Soul Shop – souls are the currency of Onikira. Use them to revive your health and trade them. At certain points inside each level, the player will find rifts into Yomi where benevolent spirits will trade moves for collected souls.

Challenge Arenas – players complete combat related challenges and improve their score and skill to gain achievements. The arenas are fully integrated into Steam’s online leaderboards.

Specific enemy types – with their own unique vulnerabilities, every enemy emphasises a particular fighting style, like a floating, possessed Mempo mask that encourages the use of air game or a monstrously twisted high-ranking samurai, where hit and run tactics are the best way to stay alive.

About Merge Games

Merge Games is an independent video game publisher and distributor based in Manchester, UK. The company publishes and distributes interactive software worldwide for personal computers, video games consoles and mobile devices. Merge Games also specializes in publishing collectable games for retail and worldwide digital distribution for independent developers. More information about Merge Games products can be found at www.mergegames.com.

About Headup Games

We are an independent games publisher located near Cologne in Germany and have recently been awarded Best German Publisher in 2012 and 2013 by the German Developers Association. Together with our partners, we focus on the contentment of our customers and the best gameplay experience delivered at the fairest price-quality ratio. Since our foundation, we have published over 70 SKU's, including many projects from highly talented developers that are known for their potential and creativity. Our portfolio features high-quality games such as Super Meat Boy, The Inner World, The Binding of Isaac, Terraria, Limbo, The Basement Collection, Grotesque Tactics, Q.U.B.E., Frozen Synapse and many more as well as the million sellers #1 iOS Hits The Inner World, Bridge Constructor and Bridge Constructor Playground. Furthermore, we offer internationally growing companies the possibility to enter the German or European market with an honest and experienced partner on location. Fair and transparent relationships with our business partners are the basis of our company's mission statement. More information can be found here

About Digital Furnace Games

Digital Furnace Games is an independant game developer based in Dublin, Ireland. We specialise in independent games that use the latest hardware and state of the art software to create visually stunning experiences. For more information, click here.

Thursday 10th July, Dueren, Germany - Headup Games and Merge Games today announce the imminent full release of Onikira: Demon Killer for PC. Onikira will launch across Steam and other digital stores on Thursday 30th July priced $12.99, £10.59 or €13.99.

Developed by Irish-based Digital Furnace Games, Onikira: Demon Killer is a 2D side-scrolling, beat’em-up set in a fantasy feudal Japan. Players assume role of Yamazaki Jiro, a lone samurai battling to prevent the forces of the Japanese underworld, Yomi, from taking over the world of the living.

Onikira: Demon Killer blends together complex deep fighting mechanics of traditional 3D beat-em’ups and merges them with classic 2D platformer mechanics. Some will prefer to go toe-to toe with heavy weapons and mash some buttons while other players will prefer a ranged game, avoiding heavy melee encounters and the game’s expressive fighting system enables each player to engage in the way that suits them best.

Onikira: Demon Killer will boast seven challenging levels and players will be able to express themselves with over 40 uber-cool moves and using four devastating weapons. Each level is littered with foul demons that players must dispatch back to the underworld. Players must also face two mini-bosses and two epic mega bosses.

Onikira: Demon Killer originally launched on Steam in November 2014 as an Early Access title. The developers, Digital Furnace Games, would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who took time to offer feedback, helping them make Onikira: Demon Killer the best it can be.

Key Features:

Unique high-level combat – Onikira mixes 2D platform game elements into the combat system to make something special. Moving platforms, wall jumping, wall running and grappling all serve to make for dynamic and emergent combat encounters.

Seven Areas – the narrative unfolds over seven highly polished and gorgeous hand-painted areas featuring rain drenched villages, destroyed opulent cities, mountaintop locations and an erupting volcano.

Unique weapons – Each weapon - katana, tetsubo, naginata or arm blades - has multiple unlockable moves which can result in massive combo chains when moves are strung together. Combo chains turn directly into score multipliers.

Responsive and Expressive Combat System – players are rewarded for strategic and skill-based fighting. Play flows naturally from move to move, allowing the player to create new combos that haven’t been designed explicitly by the developers.

Soul Shop – souls are the currency of Onikira. Use them to revive your health and trade them. At certain points inside each level, the player will find rifts into Yomi where benevolent spirits will trade moves for collected souls.

Challenge Arenas – players complete combat related challenges and improve their score and skill to gain achievements. The arenas are fully integrated into Steam’s online leaderboards.

Specific enemy types – with their own unique vulnerabilities, every enemy emphasises a particular fighting style, like a floating, possessed Mempo mask that encourages the use of air game or a monstrously twisted high-ranking samurai, where hit and run tactics are the best way to stay alive.

 Title   Onikira: Demon Killer
Genre   Side-scrolling 2D-Beat 'em-up
Release date July 30th, 2015
Developer   Digital Furnace Games 
Publisher   Merge Games & Headup Games
Available for   PC
Language    English
Price   $12.99 / €13.99 / £10.59
Steam page  https://store.steampowered.com/app/310850
Trailer (Early Access)  https://j.mp/Onikira_EarlyAccessTrailer
Press Kit   https://bit.ly/OnikiraPress
Any requests to     press@headupgames.com

About Digital Furnace Games

Digital Furnace Games are an independant game developer based in Dublin, Ireland. We specialise in independent games that use the latest hardware and state of the art software to create visually stunning experiences. Please find more information at digitalfurnacegames.com.
Über Merge Games

About Merge Games

Merge Games is an independent publisher based in Manchester, UK. We specialise in publishing collectable games for retail and worldwide digital distribution for independent developers. Our back catalogue includes Monaco: What’s Yours Is Mine, The Inner World, Limbo Collector’s Edition, Binding of Issac, Terraria Collector’s Edition and many more. For more information please click mergegames.com or watch our trailer.
About Headup Games

About Head Up

We are an independent games publisher located near Cologne in Germany awarded as Best German Publisher in 2012 and 2013 by the German Developers Association. Together with our partners, we focus on the contentment of our customers and the best gameplay experience delivered at the fairest price-quality ratio. Since our foundation, we have published over 100 games, including many projects from highly talented developers that are known for their potential and creativity. Our portfolio features high-quality games such as Super Meat Boy, The Inner World, The Binding of Isaac, Terraria, Limbo, The Basement Collection, Grotesque Tactics, Q.U.B.E., Frozen Synapse and many more as well as the million sellers #1 iOS hits The Inner World, Bridge Constructor and Bridge Constructor Playground. More information can be found at www.headupgames.com

A prize??

Yes, we will select our 3 favourite works of art and send the creators a copy of the game and a t-shirt. (if we have the correct size )

Ok, I am feeling all artistic, how do I send you my art?

Post your amazing art creation before the 15th of August 2015 12:00 (GMT) to our facebook, twitter or our steam forums page, (use the thread with the "Art competition" subject)

Looking forward to your submissions :D

About the game

Onikira: Demon Killer takes the deep fighting mechanics of some of the most amazing 3D beat ‘em ups, like Ninja Gaiden or Bayonetta, and merges them with classic 2D platformer mechanics in a way that has never been done before. For example, launch an enemy into the air, wall jump to position yourself above them, then Katana Slam them into the ground. Switch to the Naginata and use the Naginata Lift and air dash moves to stay in the air and off crumbling platforms, while pulling enemies up to you to be dispatched in mid-air. Whip out your grappling hook to grapple between platforms, across chasms or fiery pits, all the while fending off enemies.

Every level is crammed full of environmental aids to help the player in combat encounters. Slice the support pillars off a building and watch it crush your enemies as it collapses, or use your moves to fling enemies into spikes, pits, or the path of moving deadly objects. Be careful though, as dropping a building on your own head is known to cause sadness!

Please read our post on changing the name of the game

Onikira: Demon Killer is available in Steam Early Access

COMING SOON TO CONSOLE

News

14th August 2015 - New press release with dates

Hi friends: We are announcing our release date in this wonderfully writen press release check it out.

13th August 2015 - New Trailer

Hi there, the trailer you see above is the new trailer!!! Getting ready for release of the game.

29th July 2015 - Work in progress

Hey fine gamers

In the months since early access we've been working our collective butt off to finish this game. Our final deadline for release was to be July 30th and while we've fixed countless bugs, and added 3 times the content, we feel that if we release tomorrow, the game will be missing that final layer of polish that will take it from being a fun game to being an amazing one. We know that the game in it’s current state far exceeds the early access version in every possible way, so we’re anxious to get it out there, but obviously everything needs to be running as smoothly as possible before that can happen.

So, we have decided to hold off on release for just a few more weeks while we put our final marks on the game. We hope you understand and that this doesn’t come as too much of a disappointment. We promise it will be worth the wait! All of us here are so excited for Onikra’s full release, and we’ve been working like crazy to get there. Thank you for all your reviews both good and bad. We read every one to help us push harder to make the game as good as it can be.

July 2015 - Full release time :D

Hi, so the time has come to release the full game, the date is marked as the 30th of July... we are both incredibly happy and terrified to do this.
Our publishers Head Up Games and Merge Games have been super helpful Thanks.

Also everyone involved in making this game and supporting the making of this game, thanks so much :) [the list is long you know who you are].

I am sure you are wondering how the game is looking these days, some screenshots here:

If you have been playing the game via Early Access, Thanks so much!! we couldn't have done this without you. (cat tax as a thanks :D)

If you are a member of the press looking to review the game please use this link to request it.

• Press release
• Press Kit
• Screenshots

The awesome Marlow Wiebe is currently working on our trailer, and we'll update this post with it as soon as it's ready.

We are also running an FanArt Competition join! :D

Thanks again.

April 2015 - T-Shirts for the cool people

Look! Its Onikira. Distilled into cloth form. Drape your torso in one of these awesome tees and be the scourge of demons everywhere!

Buy awesome tee

Limited pre-ordering for Tokyo Game Show

OMG amazing!! Our little Samurai-based hack 'n beat 'em up n' slash thingy got a spot on the Indie show floor at the upcoming Tokyo Game Show 2014(if you are looking for us we are under Andrew O'Connor because forms are confusing), courtesy of Sony. Thanks Sony. THIS IS JUST SIMPLY AWESOME:)

Turns out though, it costs a lot of money to get to Japan,so you can pre-order the game for a limited time. Follow this link for the pre-order page.