Post by psisig on Feb 15, 2021 4:39:48 GMT
Hey, we’ve been meaning to make a video guide for Comp for a while, but the drive keeps ebbing, so I’mma be writing up one instead. This guide will assume you know the basic controls and have played through single player on easy or normal. Imo there is nothing harder in comp than normal mode, and single player does provide a decent learning curve going from easy to hard.
The Jargon
We have a bunch of random names for things, because the rule is you find it, you name it. Here's a list of what I feel is the most important to know.
Altered State or Fall Install:
Glitch state caused by cancelling hitstun, that makes you lose the ability to grab the edge of a block the next time it is attempted.
Anakin:
Standing on one block overseeing all other adjacent blocks (having the high ground)
Double Anakin:
When both players are on two separate blocks sharing an adjacent block on a lower level (both players sharing the high ground) always go down
Builds/Openings:
The group of initial moves used to start a game. There are two types, fast builds or openings to gain positioning and threaten stage drop, and slow builds or openings get the item advantage or control over the tower’s structure
Butt Bump:
Pulling out a block to get a full hit on your opponent instead of going for a DK. Can function as an option select depending on the block formation.
Climb Cancel:
pressing X to cancel the climb animation
Combos:
- Pull to Kick: When you pull a block from under a sheep, You can walk over the block and DK them
- Push to Hit: When you push a block from under a sheep, You can get a pillowhit
- Push to Drop: When you push a block from under a sheep and they fall into sidle, you can drop into sidle and hit them
- Walking Down the Staircase: You can repeatedly DK a sheep on a vertical staircase
Create-a-Crush:
If player A attempts a dodge or parry, insteading of hitting them, player B can create a block that will instantly crush player A.
Delayed Hit:
Strange property of hitbox/hurtboxes and animations in the game that lets you hit opponents from one block away
Divekick/Dropkick cancel:
Cancelling your dropkick by grabbing a block.
Dragon Punch (DP):
Cancelling your hitstun by pushing the block out from underneath your opponent that just hit you. Puts you into AS.
Farming:
The act of repeatedly pushing and pulling a block/row in hopes of spawning an item.
Full Hit:
A hit that results in your opponent falling down a level or off of the tower entirely.
Half Hit:
A hit that results in your opponent sideling
Parry:
Avoiding a hit and counter hitting by light pressing to turn around on the same block, then hard pressing into your opponent.
Pin:
Pillow hitting an opponent when they are on a block that they cannot fall off of towards the screen causing them to get knocked down, then moving onto their block so they cannot get up.
Sidle:
Hanging off of (or moving along) the side of a block (referred to as “Spidering” by the in-game tutorials)
Slow Fall:
Glitched state that causes you to fall slower caused by a player moving on the last level of the stage as it is falling out. Slow fall is sustained as long as movement is buffered.
Toilets:
Black hole Blocks found on Spiral Corridor
Walking on sunshine
If player A is creating a block, player B has the frames to walk on the non-existent block and divekick player A. this cancels the creation of the block entirely. Sun-normal block, moon-dark block
X-Factor/cheat juice:
The item that allows players to climb two levels at once
Y-reversal/Snapback:
Player A moves two positions in the z-axis and Player B gets a delayed dropkick on Player A, causing a delayed hit from Player A, leaving Player B where Player A started and Player A one position in the z axis. The y comes from “why does this happen” and the shape of the blocks which can cause this scenario. Snapback comes from the same kind of logic in the game of Go, where a player gives up one stone to gather more stones, as well as more intuitively describing the motion.
Basics of Offense:
- There are two types of hits in Catherine. Half-hits, and Full-hits.
- Priority
- Combos/hit confirms
- There are 3 basic combos in Catherine
- Push to Hit: When you push a block from under someone you can always pillow hit them
- Pull to Kick: When you pull a block from under someone, you have time to walk over the block and dropkick them.
- If you push a block out from under someone and this puts them into sidle, for the most part you can always drop down to knock them off. It’s possible to get out but it's very hard to do.
- Walking on Sunshine
- DP’s - It is good to know that after a pillow hit you can always walk over a DP attempt for free
Sometime you just need to go for a read or preemptive push, even if it means making your climb harder.
Basics of Defense:
- Sidle
- You can’t be pillow hit while sidling and are considered half a level higher
- Look for situations where you can block someones climb and force them to take a slower route
- DPs
- You DP grabbing a block while in hitstun and utilizing the invul you get from pushing to break a combo
- This puts you into what we call Altered State, or Fall Install. Where the next time you would sidle you instead just let go. Turning all half-hits into full-hits
- This state is canceled by going into sidle.
- Climb cancels
- You can cancel your climbing animation by hitting grab. Use bait dropkicks
- X-Factor Defense
- X-factor climbs are very slow, when you are ahead look to see where your opponent is going. Look for places to bodyblock and places where you can blockblock.
- Buttbumps and multi-floor drops can also be devastating
Movement in Catherine is thankfully pretty easy. In Catherine, in most instances, once a movement has been started it will need to complete before you can do anything else. If you go to walk to the next block you won’t be able to move until the animation cycle of you getting to that next block completes this means, for the most part, you want to be buffering your movement. The way I tend to think about it is that by the time my sheep is halfway to where they are going I am already buffering the action I want to do.
The exception to this is anything that would put you into Sidle, or Spider, such as: pulling a block or getting hit. Whenever this happens you are going to want to stop buffering and link your next movement input. The visual cue I use for this is the sheep’s feet hitting the block. If you’re ever wondering why someone is just moving faster than you, or if able to get out of some situations that you can’t this is probably why
If you're playing Fullbody keep in mind that the timing on the Link is faster, it's pretty common for players to get stuck in their movement when switching between games.
Climbing The Tower
Some quick climbing tips based on what I see newer players doing.
- When in a three-wide space don’t not pull from the middle, it is almost always slower. Pull from the outside and give yourself space to climb.
- Don’t forget the inazuma
- Learn a slow and fast opening on each stage, especially Cathedral.
- To practice moving and seeing solves, I would play a bunch of Altar, specifically, levels 1 to 5. Once you’re able to get to level 5 in about 1:30 - 2 mins you’re probably seeing what you need to. Also on Babel in general Completing Altar in 5 or 6 mins is a great goal and will really help you see solves, I would also say you should try to do this without looking at speedruns. Also also Menhir is a great stage to play to just work on climbing in small spaces.
- Never give up, especially when you're first starting out. When you don't know what to do farming for items or just trying to collapse something might be what you need
- If you are ever stuck on a single block staircase, climb to the top and pull to try to get an item, then push to get it. Repeat until you hopefully get one
- Dropkick Cancels
- As with Climbing you cancel your dropkicks with grab. A good way to practice this is to go into rapunzel and use the sound effects to gauge when you get it.
- Block Crush kills and unBlockables
- Having a block in hand makes you much more dangerous and turns a lot of situations into a 50-50. Go for it even if you don’t hit the threat of it will get you more pillow hits
- Always go for create-a-crush if someone walks on a spike block, unless they climb down they are dead
- If someone is in X-factor look for places where you have a block over head. They can't hit you as climbing takes priority. This is a free kill
- The rodeo
- The rodeo is what happens when someone is pushing and pulling the block that you are on
- Almost always people will pull then push. So walk towards them then away to avoid getting hit, even if they pull twice, you may have lost the block but avoid the hit
- However don't forget to look at how much space they are working with
- It is possible to walk toward, away, toward fast enough that if they go to pull again you will fall onto them
- The timing isn't to bad with a little practice
- Due to the frame-rate increase on Steam, turning is often difficult/impossible
- This is assuming both sheep go to move at roughly the same time. when on a losing number space you can delay to win the interaction
- also for turning at an even number of spaces away the sheep that doesn't turn will win, and at an odd number of spaces away the turning sheep wins.
- Sketchy state
- This happens when you get knocked off the back of the tower and catch a block
- The next time you are hit you will enter a strange frozen state that functions like pins do
- If you are dropkick canceled in sketchy state you will enter running state and be unable to grab blocks
- You can climb cancel this, but make sure you let go of the direction or you might reclimb and fall anyway.
This covers all the important stuff I can think of. Some things you can do from here
- Play as much as you can, record when able, and take notes.
- Notice you’re dying to same thing over and over, jot it down and try to never die that way again
- I keep my notes public on the forums: competitivecatherine.boards.net/thread/61/interactions-notes
- Watch as much as can
- Learn from other folks mistakes, execution-wise there is little that separates a new player from an experienced one, pick a sheep and try to map out their decision making and looks for way they can improve
- Link to the vods, slightly out of date, but I would consider pretty much anything after 2016 useful to watch docs.google.com/document/d/1z3Q-Rzw83Y5DLl6KSYZlwMLJuNuG2AyQp3756zWI4ZU/
- Play some babel
- Babel is hard when you're starting out, but I do feel struggling thru will help you see solves a lot more quickly
- Obelisk especially is great one to play just learn how to deal with randomness
The Jargon
We have a bunch of random names for things, because the rule is you find it, you name it. Here's a list of what I feel is the most important to know.
Altered State or Fall Install:
Glitch state caused by cancelling hitstun, that makes you lose the ability to grab the edge of a block the next time it is attempted.
Anakin:
Standing on one block overseeing all other adjacent blocks (having the high ground)
Double Anakin:
When both players are on two separate blocks sharing an adjacent block on a lower level (both players sharing the high ground) always go down
Builds/Openings:
The group of initial moves used to start a game. There are two types, fast builds or openings to gain positioning and threaten stage drop, and slow builds or openings get the item advantage or control over the tower’s structure
Butt Bump:
Pulling out a block to get a full hit on your opponent instead of going for a DK. Can function as an option select depending on the block formation.
Climb Cancel:
pressing X to cancel the climb animation
Combos:
- Pull to Kick: When you pull a block from under a sheep, You can walk over the block and DK them
- Push to Hit: When you push a block from under a sheep, You can get a pillowhit
- Push to Drop: When you push a block from under a sheep and they fall into sidle, you can drop into sidle and hit them
- Walking Down the Staircase: You can repeatedly DK a sheep on a vertical staircase
Create-a-Crush:
If player A attempts a dodge or parry, insteading of hitting them, player B can create a block that will instantly crush player A.
Delayed Hit:
Strange property of hitbox/hurtboxes and animations in the game that lets you hit opponents from one block away
Divekick/Dropkick cancel:
Cancelling your dropkick by grabbing a block.
Dragon Punch (DP):
Cancelling your hitstun by pushing the block out from underneath your opponent that just hit you. Puts you into AS.
Farming:
The act of repeatedly pushing and pulling a block/row in hopes of spawning an item.
Full Hit:
A hit that results in your opponent falling down a level or off of the tower entirely.
Half Hit:
A hit that results in your opponent sideling
Parry:
Avoiding a hit and counter hitting by light pressing to turn around on the same block, then hard pressing into your opponent.
Pin:
Pillow hitting an opponent when they are on a block that they cannot fall off of towards the screen causing them to get knocked down, then moving onto their block so they cannot get up.
Sidle:
Hanging off of (or moving along) the side of a block (referred to as “Spidering” by the in-game tutorials)
Slow Fall:
Glitched state that causes you to fall slower caused by a player moving on the last level of the stage as it is falling out. Slow fall is sustained as long as movement is buffered.
Toilets:
Black hole Blocks found on Spiral Corridor
Walking on sunshine
If player A is creating a block, player B has the frames to walk on the non-existent block and divekick player A. this cancels the creation of the block entirely. Sun-normal block, moon-dark block
X-Factor/cheat juice:
The item that allows players to climb two levels at once
Y-reversal/Snapback:
Player A moves two positions in the z-axis and Player B gets a delayed dropkick on Player A, causing a delayed hit from Player A, leaving Player B where Player A started and Player A one position in the z axis. The y comes from “why does this happen” and the shape of the blocks which can cause this scenario. Snapback comes from the same kind of logic in the game of Go, where a player gives up one stone to gather more stones, as well as more intuitively describing the motion.
Fighting on The Tower
- There are two types of hits in Catherine. Half-hits, and Full-hits.
- Half-hits will either send you into sidle or down to the level below. Half-hits happen when you get pillow hit, hit by a late butt-bump, or someone falling onto you
- Full-hits will never put you into sidle. Full-hits happen you are Dropkicked or hit by an early butt-bump
- For the most part whoever hit forward first will get the hit. In same frame situations Blue (1p) has priority on getting the hit or climbing.
- There Three ways to go about aggressing on your opponent.
- The very straight forward going at it with pillow hits and body blocking with sidles.
- Climbing, leveraging the camera away from your opponent and making their climb more difficult.
- And staying low, to get the item advantage and attacking the structure of the tower
- Always keep an eye out for the checkmate. It is pretty common for someone to have the win but lose it because they moved.
- There are 3 basic combos in Catherine
- Push to Hit: When you push a block from under someone you can always pillow hit them
- Pull to Kick: When you pull a block from under someone, you have time to walk over the block and dropkick them.
- Staircase: If there’s staircase you can dropkick them all the way down, However, this can be broken by a DP. If you think your opponent will DP you can either stop the combo, or if you can insta-snap to the block behind you, you can go for a butt-bump
- If you cause the block your opponent is standing on, you can push the block out from under them. - If you push a block out from under someone and this puts them into sidle, for the most part you can always drop down to knock them off. It’s possible to get out but it's very hard to do.
- If you are in Altered State you need to delay dropping down or you will fall off and tie instead of win.
- Throwing a block has a very slow animation, and is there physically before it is visually. While on offense you want to be looking places where your opponent has to throw a block and try to capitalize with a dropkick. The Sheep whistle at the start of the animation if you need a audio cue
- Pin Timing: On console it is 9.5-ish head bobs, but it is slightly faster on steam at 8.5-ish
Sometime you just need to go for a read or preemptive push, even if it means making your climb harder.
Basics of Defense:
Getting hit - The most important thing to remember is that there's no super long combos in this game, and often after you get hit once, you are immediately back in neutral.
- You can’t be pillow hit while sidling and are considered half a level higher
- Look for situations where you can block someones climb and force them to take a slower route
- You can get dropkicked while in sidle, however you are completely invulnerable while moving. For example you can move back and forth in a corner and be completely safe. In Classic this can be buffered, in Fullbody this needs to be linked.
- You DP grabbing a block while in hitstun and utilizing the invul you get from pushing to break a combo
- This puts you into what we call Altered State, or Fall Install. Where the next time you would sidle you instead just let go. Turning all half-hits into full-hits
- This state is canceled by going into sidle.
- Climb cancels
- You can cancel your climbing animation by hitting grab. Use bait dropkicks
- X-Factor Defense
- X-factor climbs are very slow, when you are ahead look to see where your opponent is going. Look for places to bodyblock and places where you can blockblock.
- Buttbumps and multi-floor drops can also be devastating
Moving on The Tower
Movement in Catherine is thankfully pretty easy. In Catherine, in most instances, once a movement has been started it will need to complete before you can do anything else. If you go to walk to the next block you won’t be able to move until the animation cycle of you getting to that next block completes this means, for the most part, you want to be buffering your movement. The way I tend to think about it is that by the time my sheep is halfway to where they are going I am already buffering the action I want to do.
The exception to this is anything that would put you into Sidle, or Spider, such as: pulling a block or getting hit. Whenever this happens you are going to want to stop buffering and link your next movement input. The visual cue I use for this is the sheep’s feet hitting the block. If you’re ever wondering why someone is just moving faster than you, or if able to get out of some situations that you can’t this is probably why
If you're playing Fullbody keep in mind that the timing on the Link is faster, it's pretty common for players to get stuck in their movement when switching between games.
Climbing The Tower
Some quick climbing tips based on what I see newer players doing.
- When in a three-wide space don’t not pull from the middle, it is almost always slower. Pull from the outside and give yourself space to climb.
- Don’t forget the inazuma
- Learn a slow and fast opening on each stage, especially Cathedral.
- To practice moving and seeing solves, I would play a bunch of Altar, specifically, levels 1 to 5. Once you’re able to get to level 5 in about 1:30 - 2 mins you’re probably seeing what you need to. Also on Babel in general Completing Altar in 5 or 6 mins is a great goal and will really help you see solves, I would also say you should try to do this without looking at speedruns. Also also Menhir is a great stage to play to just work on climbing in small spaces.
- Never give up, especially when you're first starting out. When you don't know what to do farming for items or just trying to collapse something might be what you need
- If you are ever stuck on a single block staircase, climb to the top and pull to try to get an item, then push to get it. Repeat until you hopefully get one
ADV Offense/Defense
- Snapback/Y reversal
- Trying to DK in a place where someone can climb up twice will result in a delay hit ending with them DKing you in return. Look for this shape both on offense and defense, it is very important to utilize this
- As with Climbing you cancel your dropkicks with grab. A good way to practice this is to go into rapunzel and use the sound effects to gauge when you get it.
- Some notes: be aware of your surroundings, do they have room to P2K? will it kill you if they do? a P2H isn't that bad and if that's all they can get I would go for it.
- Having a block in hand makes you much more dangerous and turns a lot of situations into a 50-50. Go for it even if you don’t hit the threat of it will get you more pillow hits
- Always go for create-a-crush if someone walks on a spike block, unless they climb down they are dead
- If someone is in X-factor look for places where you have a block over head. They can't hit you as climbing takes priority. This is a free kill
- If you are on the blockless end of this and are worried, don't be afraid to take the pillowhit
- The rodeo is what happens when someone is pushing and pulling the block that you are on
- Almost always people will pull then push. So walk towards them then away to avoid getting hit, even if they pull twice, you may have lost the block but avoid the hit
- However don't forget to look at how much space they are working with
- It is possible to walk toward, away, toward fast enough that if they go to pull again you will fall onto them
- Parries
- You have a few frames of invul in your turning animation, so a well timed turn will make pillowhits phase through you. Making it so they don't have time to dodge- The timing isn't to bad with a little practice
- Due to the frame-rate increase on Steam, turning is often difficult/impossible
- Utilizing insta-snaps
- Whenever you press grab you instantly snap to the closest block. This is faster than turning and grabbing and should be used as often as possible. It is also important to note that if two blocks are the same distance away you will not insta-snap- Double Anakin
- Now, we always say always go down on anakin, this is what we are referring to. The first person that goes down, as long as they are buffering, will always get the push. So either go down or walk away.- Adv priority
- At >1 Block Space Priority alternates between the sheep that doesn't change levels and the sheep that does. Odd numbered spaces going to the Same Sheep, Even going to the Change Sheep. this shifts if one sheep has to transition more than once- This is assuming both sheep go to move at roughly the same time. when on a losing number space you can delay to win the interaction
- also for turning at an even number of spaces away the sheep that doesn't turn will win, and at an odd number of spaces away the turning sheep wins.
- Sketchy state
- This happens when you get knocked off the back of the tower and catch a block
- The next time you are hit you will enter a strange frozen state that functions like pins do
- If you are dropkick canceled in sketchy state you will enter running state and be unable to grab blocks
- Tug of war
- Often there will be times where you and your opponent are pushing on the same block, waiting for someone to climb it. It is important to remember that if the block you are pushing is pulled you will climb it then immediately fall. - You can climb cancel this, but make sure you let go of the direction or you might reclimb and fall anyway.
Going forward
- Play as much as you can, record when able, and take notes.
- Notice you’re dying to same thing over and over, jot it down and try to never die that way again
- I keep my notes public on the forums: competitivecatherine.boards.net/thread/61/interactions-notes
- Watch as much as can
- Learn from other folks mistakes, execution-wise there is little that separates a new player from an experienced one, pick a sheep and try to map out their decision making and looks for way they can improve
- Link to the vods, slightly out of date, but I would consider pretty much anything after 2016 useful to watch docs.google.com/document/d/1z3Q-Rzw83Y5DLl6KSYZlwMLJuNuG2AyQp3756zWI4ZU/
- Play some babel
- Babel is hard when you're starting out, but I do feel struggling thru will help you see solves a lot more quickly
- Obelisk especially is great one to play just learn how to deal with randomness