How to play
Two ink stick fighters face off on a notebook page that floats in the dark. Empty your rival’s health bar or knock them off the edge of the page to win the round. Matches are best of five rounds by default; the menu also offers best of three and best of seven.
- Blue moves with A and D, jumps with W, blocks with S, punches with Space (or F) and kicks with E (or G).
- Red moves with the arrow keys (up jumps, down blocks), punches with Enter (or Numpad 0 or the full stop key) and kicks with Right Shift (or the slash key or Numpad 1).
- Gamepads: the stick or d-pad moves, A, B or the right trigger punches, X or the left trigger kicks.
- On a phone, hold it sideways. Each player gets a stick on their half of the screen and a fist button on the outer edge. Push the stick up to jump and down to block; hold it down and tap the fist to kick.
- Playing alone? Choose vs Bot and pick Easy, Normal or Hard.
- P or Esc pauses.
Moves
- Punch: fast and short. Eight damage and a little push.
- Kick: slower, but it reaches further, does eleven damage and shoves harder. Press punch in mid-air for a flying kick.
- Block: hold down while on the ground. A hit from the front only scratches you, and you are not stunned. A hit from behind still lands.
- Grab and toss: walk into your rival and press punch while still holding towards them. If they are close and on their feet, you grab them and throw them a couple of metres up and away for twelve damage. From the middle of the page a toss will not throw anyone off, but near an edge it can. Blocking does not stop a grab, but a rival whose punch or kick is just landing when the grab closes cannot be caught. A missed grab leaves you open for a moment.
Hits to the head count one and a half times. Every clean hit stuns for a moment and freezes the action for a few frames, so you can feel it land.
The tearing page
After twenty seconds of a round, the page starts to give way. Every two seconds a strip tears off each edge, and a red dashed line flashes just before it goes. The page stops shrinking at about a third of its width, so late in a round a single good kick can decide everything. Fall off and you lose the round at once, whatever your health.
If neither fighter is out after sixty seconds, the one with more health at that moment takes the round. Equal health is a draw.
Pencil weapons
With Weapons on, a pencil sketches a dashed outline above the page about every nine seconds, and a second later the weapon drops onto that spot. Walk over it with empty hands to pick it up.
- Club: your punch becomes a long swing for fourteen damage. It snaps after five hits.
- Shield: your punch becomes a shield shove. Blocking with it stops all damage and leaves the attacker reeling, and even when you are not blocking it softens every hit from the front. Shoving does not wear it down; it breaks after five blocks.
You drop your weapon if you are knocked out or tossed.
Strategy
Block, then grab. A blocking rival is safe from punches and kicks but not from a grab. If they turtle up, walk in and toss them.
Punch the grabber. A grab takes a moment to close, and nobody can be grabbed in the middle of a punch or kick. If your rival walks straight at you, swing first.
Fight for the middle. Once the page starts tearing, the edges are where rounds are lost. Jump over your rival if they corner you.
Watch the sketch. You can see where the next weapon will land a second before it falls. Be standing there.
If you would rather wrestle with one button, the same kind of floppy bodies flail in Flop Wrestle, and for a duel with bouncing shells in a maze, try Bounce Tanks.
If you enjoy Stick Brawl, try Stunt Duel or Sumo Bump next.
