Hello Itch community! I'm working on a new game called Double Turn, which is a party fighting game inspired by professional wrestling. Here's a bit of details on the game to get the ball rolling. I'll start posting here more regularly too!
A bit of background on Double Turn: I started working on the current version of this game back in February of this year. A few scrappy prototypes preceded that, but that’s the one what actually led into the game’s full development.
I set out with one broad goal: to make a game inspired by professional wrestling. I had tossed around a lot of ideas. Everything from a one button suplex game to a highly detailed fight simulator to a dialog tree filled gimmick and promo builder. All the ideas seemed cool in their own right, but had either already been done well or just didn’t really interest me personally. What I eventually landed after a lot of testing and prototyping was an arena fighting game with simple combat and a dynamic crowd.
The core of Double Turn’s combat is strikes, blocks, and throws. I’m making the fighting system to be straightforward to allow new players to easily grasp it, but with enough variation and strategy for advanced players. There will be no combo button chains to memorize, just a core move set to experiment with and combine however you want to fight.
The goal is to make an accessible and fun fighting game with a cast of characters who have unique gimmicks and diverse moves that cover as many of the wrestling styles as we can. We’re streamlining what the wrestling experience is to make it an enjoyable arcade-like experience you can play on your couch with some friends. We aim to launch with 2–4 player local multiplayer and a single-player survival mode.
The other important half of the game which is very closely tied to combat is the crowd. I’ve found that the crowd in wrestling has a major influence on on wrestling and how people perceive a match. The crowd in Double Turn is like a character of its own. Fighting well will cause the crowd to boo or cheer. They are either on your side or against you. The more “Heat” you get from the crowd, the better, whether it’s positive or negative. Gaining enough Heat gives you an opportunity to use a Signature move. I’ll talk about this system more in a future post. For now, here’s a juicy slow-mo DDT gif, floaty mustache and all:
Kenny (thats me!) is handling general production as well as design and programming. Phil recently joined on to do the art and animations.
I know some people like to hear what games are made with so: I’m developing the game in Haxe, OpenFL, and HaxeFlixel. We’re also using Itch & butler to distribute and manage builds during development and play-testing.
We’re working really hard to get this game out to you to play. However since we’re still quite far from release, talking about release dates will be a little silly. When we know, you’ll know. I can say we will be releasing for Windows, Mac, and Linux on both Itch and Steam.
You can follow Double Turn on Twitter at @doubleturngame, where we post more often and will be sharing fun gifs and more granular updates. I originally posted this on Medium where I have a publication you can follow, if you'd prefer to read weekly posts there! I'm more than happy to answer questions if you have any!
