Archarid, the Betrayer of Fate

Archarid is a cheeky spider with a taste for chaos. Master their traps and tricks to overwhelm your opponent, or risk having fate turn against your favour!

The weavers are a high society of spider-like people, known for their ability to spin their fragile threads into whatever they please. Their most prised possession, the threads of fate, is a network of timelines and fates, all intertwined into one, keeping the universe of aether in absolute harmony, and ensuring a happy ending for all.

Unfortunately, one little nuisance had a little too much fun, shattering the core of the threads, setting timelines astray, throwing aether into disarray – now nobody’s fate is certain, the past, present, and future are all tangled, and Archarid, the betrayer of fate itself, has gone missing.

Archarid, much like many of your other friends, has the ability to grip onto the wall. However, when time’s up, and paws begin to slip, Archarid doesn’t abandon the wall immediately, and instead will slowly slide down, giving you a little extra time.

While stuck on the wall, Archarid can climb up and down to adjust their position a little, but the main attraction is Archarid’s unique Wall Attack and Wall Special. Wall Attack is a quick swipe, keeping opponents at bay, and Wall Special is a hasty dash up the wall, right until they reach the top.

Archarid’s down special, the Web Flip, has them lunge forward before putting down one of their iconic Web Points. Web points will always stay latched to something, and if Archarid hits you with down special, that something’s gonna be you. While you’re attached to a web point, you’ll bounce back immediately if you let the string get too tense. Go too fast, too far, and you’ll make the string snap. (Teleports are a great way of doing this!). While you’re tethered, ONLY YOU can hit the web point – attacking it with any move will break it immediately.

If Archarid misses the web flip, they’ll attach the web point to themselves instead! They have all the same rules as the opponent when attached – they’ll bounce back, need to hit it to break it, and can get trapped in devious combos. If you can catch them out of a flip, it’ll spell trouble.

While tethered, Archarid can do another web flip. If they create a web with one already out, this will create the Web Trampoline! Web trampolines will bounce back any players while they’re in hitstun, allowing you to setup some deadly traps. While you’re near a trampoline, you can press Jump to bounce off the trampoline to your heart’s content. It’ll even restore your double jump, and you don’t need to be Archarid to bounce off! Holding Down on the stick while jumping will let you bounce downward instead, and pressing Parry while jumping will cancel the bounce. When webs are linked together with no player, anyone can hit them to break them immediately. Be sure to swipe them out of the air if you see anything threatening.

One extra little edge Archarid has over you – If you’re attached to a web point, they can break it at anytime with a strong attack. Be careful, as this will let them cap off their deadly combos with a powerful finishing move.

Archarid’s neutral special is the Web Flick. This lets them toss out a little web projectile to keep opponents at bay. It’s got a long cooldown, and doesn’t do too much damage, so what’s the catch? If Archarid throws this at a trampoline, it’ll catch in the trampoline and ricochet off at a much more rapid speed. This ricocheted projectile is a LOT more deadly, so keep an eye out for any fancy shots they might be setting up. Even if it’s not a straight shot, fate may even turn in their favour just a tiny bit…

Archarid’s side special, the Web Splay, shares some resemblance to a familiar poison frog. Unlike him, however, Archarid isn’t trained in any combat arts, and will hastily blaat out a ton of webs in the hopes they’ll land a hit. Even if they get a hit, the most they’ll do is pull you in their vague direction, with no real precision. If they’re attached to a web point, however, instead of pulling you in, they’ll attach you instead! And, if you’re already attached to a web point, they’ll get even more precise, pulling you until you’re juuust in front of them, regardless of the strain it puts on your web point!

On top of this, Archarid can use side special to attach to walls, lunging themselves towards them – and they can even do this with trampolines! Thankfully, they’re not an expert. Throwing out a splay of webs willy nilly will throw off their balance if they’re mid-air, and their lack of any real training means they can only splay out webs in front of them. No angled shenanigans here.

For Up Special, Archarid pulls out the Slingshot – throwing a web point above them before pulling themselves towards it for a hasty recovery, snapping the web point on the way. Doing this on its own will throw off Archarid’s balance, leaving them super vulnerable. However, they’ve got one more nasty trick up their sleeve. If Archarid is already attached to a web point, they can fling themselves towards it MUCH faster, MUCH more precisely, and it leaves them free immediately afterwards! With enough control, Archarid will be ducking and weaving around the stage like a truly chaotic spider, jumping to high heights, flinging across platforms, and chasing down anything worth playing with.

(Also, rumors have spread through aether that Archarid can combine some "Falling Hit" with their slingshot to do some kind of "Secret Technique", people have been given it many names, some calling it the "Sling-not"? More experimenting may be needed to learn about the true secrets of this deadly move.)

Archarid was designed, programmed, animated, and balanced by Me – Barney! – Archarid has a few moving parts to them to get them behind the scenes, including a special in-game sound effects engine used to pitch shift and tweak the base game’s sounds in real time, as well as a fully customisable string physics system making all the web points work! Archarid also features over 30 original animations, with over 300 seperate frames of pixel art holding them all together. All this together took about 4 whole months to put together, with several years of rivals experience and design study going into every little facet of gameplay.

The portrait art was drawn by the lovely EdenBean! She really brought Archarid’s cheeky personality to life, as well as tolerating my criticism gauntlet during the commission process. She can always be counted on to produce some high quality work, and her style fits the character perfectly. Please go show her some support.

The victory theme is an original composition by the wacky and wonderful Hoodwink[on.soundcloud.com]! He’s been my right hand man during all the balancing and playtesting stages of development, helping me catch anything overtuned. His understanding of the character truly shined through his little tune, and we do plan on building Archarid’s home stage, bringing this character to life.

I’d also like to give a massive thanks to all the playtesters that offered their time to give a bunch of necessary feedback, making sure the vision for this character was as complete as we could get them before release.