Bruisers - 2d retro styled boxing game

[TheJevDev]

Hey, I've just signed up here to share a boxing game I'm working on. It's not competing with Fight Night or ESBC or anything like that. It's going to have a career mode with create a character, where you can work as an amateur to pro, hire a promoter each with their own pros and cons and the possibility to be banned and end up in the underground bare knuckle scene. If anyone has any suggestions for things they'd enjoy or like to see in a game like this, then I'd love to hear your ideas. However crazy they might be.

[Combat Talk Radio]

Hey, I've just signed up here to share a boxing game I'm working on. It's not competing with Fight Night or ESBC or anything like that. It's going to have a career mode with create a character, where you can work as an amateur to pro, hire a promoter each with their own pros and cons and the possibility to be banned and end up in the underground bare knuckle scene. If anyone has any suggestions for things they'd enjoy or like to see in a game like this, then I'd love to hear your ideas. However crazy they might be.

My only feedback is, see if you can figure out how to get it into Unity or another engine that is so-called "mainstream" - I say that because mechanically it looks good, you pair that with decently good 2D graphics and you could have a sleeper hit on your hands.

[Marchegiano]

It would be nice if every basic form of boxing was viable.

In my experience boxing video games center 100% around hit and don't be hit back boxing regardless of stats. You can't make a real puncher, you can't make a real cheater, you can't make a real anything but a slick counter puncher really.

I'd like to play a video game that lets me hit like Marciano or Foreman if I want to, lets me cheat like B-Hop or Ward if I want to, and let's me be Ali or Locche when I want to.

If the ref can't see because he's stage blocked by the offending boxer then that boxer is a good cheater and earned getting away with a headbutt or whatever he did. I'd like to do that, and, your whole banned and force to fight underground BK deal works right into it. If I get caught too much I get banned. Cool.

PEDs would be cool too. Not just in ring cheating, out of ring cheating is **** too.

Back to punching, like no one pays any attention to the difference between a puncher's trap and a boxer's trap. Punchers often fake an inability. For example, Marciano's overhead was so destructive even though you can see it coming from forever away because he prefaced it with hooks. He'd take a posture, wing a hook, and watch his opponent's reaction, and did that for rounds until he felt like the opponent was reacting without thinking, getting into a rhythm, then Marciano would do the same posture, throw a punch that starts the same as every hook he's thrown in the fight, then change trajectory mid-punch to sail over his own head and back down onto the opponent. Because of line of sight this punch can't be seen if you reacted to the hook. So from the outside we see an obvious and slow punch coming from across the ring but from the opponent perspective he saw a hook start then he was just hit and doesn't know where from.

I want to set my toughness high enough to lose rounds without being worried the game's going to KO me, set baits that take rounds to achieve, then end the fight with one perfect punch.

No clue how do-able any of that is, but, it'd be big bouncy **** if you could do it.

[Clegg]

Just going by the clip above, I'd say add in a ducking straight right to the body, so that if an opponent gets too aggressive, you can make them miss and stop them in their tracks with that.

[TheJevDev]

Awesome feedback guys, much appreciated and this is why I wanted to post on a boxing site to get some proper feedback. I've working hard getting the career mode in, but I've since put in body jab, straight, hooks and uppercuts, parry and counter shots. I've also got the skills hand speed, power, dodging agility, stamina per punch, heart for how determined a boxer is from getting up after a knockdown and chin, which lets a fighter eat up punches. I've been simming a load of matches between random skilled opponents and it's been fun seeing how they're fighting each other.

I love all the stuff to do with out of matches stuff like PEDs and betting on fights or maybe throwing fights for some dodgy people too. Gonna start putting stuff like that in soon. Anyway here's some update pics

[Marchegiano]

Awesome feedback guys, much appreciated and this is why I wanted to post on a boxing site to get some proper feedback. I've working hard getting the career mode in, but I've since put in body jab, straight, hooks and uppercuts, parry and counter shots. I've also got the skills hand speed, power, dodging agility, stamina per punch, heart for how determined a boxer is from getting up after a knockdown and chin, which lets a fighter eat up punches. I've been simming a load of matches between random skilled opponents and it's been fun seeing how they're fighting each other.

I love all the stuff to do with out of matches stuff like PEDs and betting on fights or maybe throwing fights for some dodgy people too. Gonna start putting stuff like that in soon. Anyway here's some update pics

Looks fun bud. If you get it on Steam or Gamejolt or some such you've got a buy here.

[TheJevDev]

Thank you mate! That's awesome to hear and I appreciate the support. Just wanted to make something immersive, well as immersive as a 2d boxing game can be. I got ref stoppages in today if you do too many punches in succession without an answer also clinching and pushing for moving the fight back to the centre of the ring, or to slow it down if your stamina is running low.

[TheJevDev]

Still working on this. Got a ton of stuff put in like bareknuckle fights, amateur fight arenas, items to use during or before fights for stat boosts, PEDs/Ice buckets/cotton swabs/ glove tampering etc. Betting on your own fights with the mob, with consequences. Training games to level up skills outside of fights. Need to get to work on the infighting/clinch game next.

[Marchegiano]

Thank you mate! That's awesome to hear and I appreciate the support. Just wanted to make something immersive, well as immersive as a 2d boxing game can be. I got ref stoppages in today if you do too many punches in succession without an answer also clinching and pushing for moving the fight back to the centre of the ring, or to slow it down if your stamina is running low.

When I first clicked on the thread I was expecting just a run of the mill MUGEN or OpenBOR game in a boxing theme.

This has a lot more depth and a lot of heart. I can appreciate that and I sincerely hope you do well.


I'm not a great coder. To be honest, what code I do know or understand I've picked up by dissecting other people's finished games. So, I can't hardly look at your animations and guess what engine you're using. That said, If you can get it ported to Dreamcast you can sell publishing rights to JoshProd/PixelHeart pretty easily. It might seem like a waste of time to port a new game to an old console, but Dreamcast games sell on principle alone. Most of the community is anti-piracy and buys every game that comes out for dreamcast just because they're new games for dreamcast. Might be useful to know, might be absolutely useless information, but since it's a potential money source for you I figured I'd let you know and make that call. There's been one 3d game for dreamcast in 20 years, 2d is the norm.

If it sounds like something you would be potentially interested in you should probably scoot over to dreamcast-talk forum and head over to the homebrew section. Plenty of indie developers and publishers post there so I don't doubt they could help you.

To be clear, this is not a request, I'm going to play this on PC myself. I'm just letting you know about a potential revenue source.

[TheJevDev]

Thanks bro, I appreciate the comments! My aim has been to try and make a boxing game that I would’ve loved to get addicted to playing on the genesis/mega drive back in the day, with as much depth as possible outside and inside of the ring, within the limitations of 2d. I’m currently programming and developing in gamemaker studio 2, so all the new consoles are feasible to port too but anything older like Dreamcast I would have no idea how to port to, but that would be absolutely amazing. I’m a huge fan of the Dreamcast, still rocking mine to this day! Something to look into once development is completed I think. Hopefully I can get a playable build over to you to test asap bro, would love to get your feedback- once again I appreciate all your input! More soon.