FIGHT TAPES PLAYTEST

FIFTEEN BOUTS — THREE STRIKES — ONE RING LEADER

Somebody left a tape in the deck. Press play and you're watching footage nobody was supposed to keep: an underground fight ring, torchlit and half-legal, run by a Ring Leader who owns the venue and deals the cards.

You're the promoter. You sign whatever misfit fighters you can afford, a goblin sapper standing next to a paladin, a blood mage propping up a living cactus, and pit six of them against the Ring Leader's crews. Three nights, five bouts a night, each night harder than the last withj fifteen bouts to the title. Three strikes and the your out.

This game is an autobattler, the formation is the game. You don't drive the fight. You look at who you're up against, you arrange your ring, and you press FIGHT. Every fighter carries a targeting rule that belongs to them and who they swing at is their identity; where they stand is your only decision, and it's the whole decision.

A run is one tape, do you think you have what it takes to take down the Ring Leader?

What's in it

• 56 fighters, sized 1–3 slots, from paladins to cave trolls to a sentient sword
• Deterministic combat — every fight is reproducible from a crew code
• CUTMAN is in your corner, whether or not you want him there

This is a playtest build

This is a real, unfinished game, and the mechanics and balance are still moving under your feet. Right now the circuit is harder than I want it, and I know. If you get walked over on bout six, that's information, not a failure on your part. Numbers will change between builds; your save survives updates, but a run you're halfway through may play differently after a patch.

What I actually want to know

The rough edges above are already on my list. What I can't see from in here is whether the game is any good.

• Did you understand why you lost?
• Was there a moment you felt clever?
• Where did you get bored, and where did you get stuck?
• When the tape ended, did you want to start another one?

SUBMIT FEEDBACK and REPORT BUG are in the corner of the title screen; both open a short form. The version stamp sits in the corner of every screen so please quote it in a bug report and I'll know exactly which build you were on.

Go easy on it. Don't go easy on the feedback.

This is a solo project and this build is a checkpoint, not a pitch. Judge it as an unfinished thing trying to become something, rather than as a finished thing that didn't make it.

That said, please be blunt in the form. "It was fine" tells me nothing I can use :)

Install instructions

• macOS: first launch, right-click the app → Open → Open. Double-clicking says the app is damaged; it isn't, it just isn't notarized.
• Windows — SmartScreen will warn about an unknown publisher: More info → Run anyway.
• Linux — chmod +x FightTapes.x86_64, run it.
• Browser: ez setup