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Aleira: Another Workshop Jam Edition

Aleira, the Elemental Dancer is a capoeira fighting owl with an ever-changing elemental attenuation.

This is the release build for Another Workshop Jam and the files will not be modified after May 31, 2021 at 11:59 PM EDT.

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Overview:

Mechanically, Aleira is a stance dancer with four stances: fire, air, water, and earth. Each stance has a different focus and style.

• Fire: With an above-average ground speed and quick moves, Aleira’s Fire stance is an all-rounder with a leaning towards rushdown. Some of fire’s hitboxes can ignite the opponent.
  
• Air: Aleira’s Air stance is a glass canon that gets an extra jump, moves quickly in the air and slowly on the ground. Its grounded attacks send upwards while the aerial attacks focus on multi-hits.
  
• Water: The Water stance’s low friction allows her to flow about the battlefield like a river. Her attacks are a bit slower than Fire’s, but linger for longer.
  
• Earth: Solid and strong, the Earth stance moves slow and hits slow, but hits hard. Her increased fall speed are a blessing and a curse, as it helps her juggle opponents, but makes it easier for her opponents to do the same.

Stance System:
Aleira’s stance system is based on a cycle, visualized with the stance clock above Aleira’s stocks. When Aleira starts an attack, the minute hand on the clock ticks forward. If the minute hand hits the border of a quadrant while she uses a stance changing move (see below), she will change stances during the endlag of the move, rotating the hour hand to the appropriate position in the process.



What stance Aleira changes to depends on what move she uses to change stances. The stance change moves come in three classes: Forward, Reverse, and Skip. Forward moves rotate the hour hand 90° clockwise, reverse moves rotate the hour hand 90° counter-clockwise, and skip moves rotate the hour hand 180°. The moves for each class are as follows:

• Forward: dTilt, dStrong, dAir
  
• Reverse: uTilt, uStrong, uAir
  
• Skip: dAttack, fStrong, bAir

The stance system’s intended feeling is that of a flowing river; its flow is inevitable and you are but its humble guide. To master Aleira is to understand this and be able to adapt to an ever-changing game state.

Specials:

• uSpecial: Aleira jolts straight up with a flurry of kicks, the finisher of which is a strong launcher. This move is unaffected by stance.
  
• nSpecial: A command grab whose throw depends on stance. Fire throws upwards with low knockback growth. Air pulls both characters up and releases the opponent with low knockback, setting up for another hit. Water causes both characters to fall down, then throws the opponent downwards. Earth powerfully flings the opponent backwards.
  
• fSpecial: Aleira pauses, then dashes forward invincibly. There is no hitbox, but it has low endlag; it’s effectively a command roll with reversed frame data. This move is not directly affected by stance, but the distance it moves on the ground will vary by stance due to ground friction.
  
• dSpecial: Aleira drops a berimbau charged with the elemental power of her stance at her feet. It creates a field around it with effects based on its element.

Berimbau:

The berimbau projects a elementally charged magical aura, but its the primitive construction can only withstand the magic being used so much. When a berimbau is dropped, it has four charges, and once all the charges are used up, the berimbau is destroyed. Aleira may drop a new berimbau at any time, but doing so destroys the old one in the process.

• Fire: The berimbau plays a metronome sound in sync with the the animation. If a player is within the field and presses attack or the c-stick during the up beat, an explosive hitbox is created at the center of the berimbau owned by the player that pressed the attack button. This can be done during an attack and burns one charge. Mistiming the press disables the berimbau for a short time, stopping the metronome. When the metronome starts playing again, it may be used.
  
• Air: All players within the berimbau’s field fall slowly (10% fall speed), but they can still fast fall as normal. If a move is used in the air within the field, a charge is burned.
  
• Water: Players in hitstun are rapidly slowed, though their hitstun is shortened based on their current percent. Entering the field in hitstun or entering hitpause burns a charge.
  
• Earth: Only useful to Aleira, the stable Earth field locks the stance of those within it. If Aleria is in the field when she would normally initiate a stance change, she instead remains her current stance and burns a charge.