(This guide written June 14, 2017 for Exanima version 0.6.5.4)

The default settings aren't bad, but there are a few things I like to change early on for key mappings.

From the title screen go into Settings > Controls. Remap the following:



Run/Sprint: C
Crouch: Shift
Alternate Attack: Space
Interact (Combat): Ctrl

The first and the last you won't need right away. The middle two you'll want better access to than the defaults allow very soon as you're learning how to fight. Try this setup out for now.

Don't make the same mistake I did and just click New Game!

Clicking New Game takes you to the story mode but story mode involves combat and you don't know how to fight yet. We're going to learn how to fight in the Arena. However there are consequences to doing poorly in the Arena early on that can make for a rough start.

Instead, click Arena > Practice > Novice.

The arena practice matches are a no consequence way to learn how to fight that gets you started right at it. I don't suggest trying to complete the whole practice match from start to finish but you can go in right away and start fighting here.

Give your guy a name, change his physique to whatever looks good (this has no major impact on gameplay), and make him as tall as possible to get a little more reach. Tall isn't the only effective choice in the game but it's best when you're new.



So here we have Gob, a tall guy in his Jockies. Click Next to go to the equipment screen. Drag some clothes onto your character's paper doll (one piece for each body part) and then the two handed sword which is what we'll be learning with.



Get ready, because when you click Create you're going to get thrown right into combat!

The combat screen looks like this:




The red circle is your cursor. For now just keep it on top of your opponent.

Defending

If you don't do anything your character will block most incoming attacks unless they come in at an angle he can't defend against or if he's trying to attack himself. Try just standing for a minute and keeping your cursor on your foe. If he moves to your side keeping your cursor on him will turn you toward him automatically. Your character will block his single clumsy swings all on his own, with only the occasional odd angled attack getting in.

Attacking

When you want to attack the most important things are timing and distance. You really want to hit your foe with the tip of your sword, not the part near the handle, and you want to time your swings so you don't get hit coming in.

There are lots of ways to be successful at combat but you have a longer and faster weapon than your foe. Use S to move back out of the range of his swing, then left click and hold and your character will wind up and make a cut at your foe. While you're swining tap W to get a little closer if you need to for your swing to connect.

Moving effectively

You'll probably find that tapping S to just get out of the way then tapping W to move foreward a tiny bit with your swing will do the best for you. If you're holding S or W down for a long time your character will make large leaping steps in that direction and often put himself out of range. Dodge, but just enough. When you attack you want the tip of the sword to pass through him. Try to imagine the radius of your swing and keep him right on the edge of that circle all the time.

If he gets too close to you your two handed weapon won't hit very hard. The best thing to do when crowded is often to move toward him rather than away. This will cause a clinch. After the clinch step foreward again and you will be behind him. Use your cursor to turn around. Moving backward should be to slip an attack so your character doesn't try to block it so you can attack right away, not for defense, and not to get out of trouble.

Character oriented movement

When your character is facing down instead of up you'll have trouble at first because A will move him to his left and D to his right. This takes getting used to but is essential for fluid gameplay, especially out of arena mode as combat and movement in the zone you're in have to be perfectly integrated. Use Mouse 3 (press down on the mouse wheel) to rotate the camera behind your guy if you have to but don't do this right away all the time. Really try to get used to the controls being "reversed" in certain siutations and you'll soon be able to do great things in combat you wouldn't under any other control scheme.

Try, try again

Your opponent's weapon is actually a fairly dangerous one and he'll likely win your first contest. Just go back to Arena > Practice > Novice and try again. The game even remembers your gear setup so there's very little needless menu stuff before you can get back to the fight.

After you KO your opponent he'll scream and fall over dead. At this point you have a few options.



Obviously clicking Next Fight will take you straight to your next opponent. But if you want take a minute first. Hit Tab to toggle to Interact mode then hold down Right Click to walk toward your cursor (which you can do during combat as well if you wanted to sprint a certain distance instead of hopping there with WASD). Double click on your fallen foe and then press I to open your Inventory. This lets you loot stuff on his body.

Unfortunately this guy doesn't have anything we don't already. If you wanted to switch to his weapon you could drag it from the ground onto your paper doll in your inventory just like you would clothes from his inventory onto you. Stick with the sword for now, it's better than what you'll find for quite a while.

Take a second to look at the bottom of the screen. The yellow bar is your health. Any of it that's greyed out is healable damage you've taken. Anything that's red is injury damage. Weapons that slice or stab will do a lot of injury damage very easily and this doesn't heal very well between fights. At the start of your next fight all of the greyed out yellow damage will be healed but the red damage will only go away very slightly.

You can come back and try to beat the Novice practice arena all the way later, but doing so means avoiding Injury damage as much as possible so you can enter the next round with a good fighting chance. To get through one fight you can just go ham, but to win the tourney you need to be careful!

Click Next Fight when you're ready to move on. See how well you can do. If you get killed just click Restart. Your guy will keep any gear you've managed to scrounge up along the way so it'll get easier each time even if you don't improve your fighting skills at all, which you will.

After you beat the guy with the club your next opponent will have a pole arm. His weapon is as long and as fast as yours (but fortunately your sword hits harder). You can beat him the same way as the first one, just by being careful with distance and timing. Note that when you kill him he has a tunic you can wear over your shirt for a little more protection, plus some leather boots you should put on as they cover you better than your old shoes did.


The third opponent is a guy with a mace and a shield. Shields can be a real headache to fight against when you're new.

Swinigng blindly at where the shield is is not likely to get you very far, even if you time your swings well. Instead you want to attack somwhere the shield is not. Your third opponent in the Novice Arena is only using a small buckler for a shield and that means that simply using better timing with your attacks will eventually be enough to get past it. If you're having a lot of trouble with him however I've written a longer guide just on how to fight against shields.

http://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=947948289


Here's Gob after downing a few more foes. He's picked up a cap, some better armor, and even a better sword.


Once you can reliably beat the first three guys in Arena Practice Novice mode you're ready to go for real. Don't jump into New Game yet though! Instead let's move to Arena > New Game to do it for real with customizeable characters with their own gear, techniques, and progression.

Want a little help with that? Here's a link to my guide for the arena.

http://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=947830535


Thanks for reading! Rating the guide makes it easier for others to find. Come back and let me know about anything important I missed please!