BattleCon gets in for a good Kickstarter

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logo600[1]Kickstarter is helping a lot of small publisher and games designers get off the ground to a good start. Now is the time for BattleCon, a new arcade style fighting game from Level 99 Games.

BattleCON (short for Battle Connection) a head to head fighting game where two players take on different characters and attempt to defeat one another in single combat. It mirrors the strategy and tactics of a console fighting game like Street Fighter, BlazBlue, Guilty Gear, or Virtua Fighter. You may have seen other games like that before. The idea isn’t revolutionary, but the gameplay is. Here’s a breakdown.

  • Simple Mechanics – While the basics of the game are simple enough that it can be taught in just ten minutes, each character brings a unique combat system and strategy to play that takes many games to master.
  • Huge Variety – Each character has 35 different attacks that they combine by creating pairs of cards from their hands. Even though there are tons of options for every situation, a player only needs to manage 8 cards at a time in his hand, making gameplay quick.
  • Deep customization – Every character utilizes a different combat mechanic. These unique abilities aren’t just special effects that come into play now and then–they are different game mechanics that make every character’s experience completely different than the others. One character has custom ammunition that you must use to match the situation; another can set traps to control terrain; yet another can gain levels over the course of combat to become unstoppable, given enough time.
  • Low Learning Curve, High Mastery Curve – Each character utilizes the same foundational attacks, but mixes them up with their own personal styles to create unique strategic maneuvers. Because of this, it is easy to pick up and play a new character right away, but you will still be discovering new tactics and strategies for them with every game you play.
  • Quick to Play – A single duel can take between 5 and 15 minutes, and can be set up and put away in almost no time at all.
  • Inexpensive – With an expected MSRP of $30, it’s the cheapest game of its kind on the market, and comes with a full 12 characters–more than you can get with any other such game out of the box.
  • Non-Collectible, Non-Constructable – Each character comes as a complete set of seven cards and some tokens. There’s no way to buy your character up to a higher power level, no rares to collect, and no obscure combinations of cards to find and assemble. You get the whole package right up front, and never need to buy extra cards or characters.
  • Tons of Variants – Play tag teams, two and three man teams, tournaments, and even a 2 or 3 vs. 1 Boss mode! The rulebook contains everything you need to play five different ways!
  • Expandable – Any future BattleCON characters will be balanced and built against those in the base game, so you can mix and match freely. Plus, the game includes blank cards to make your own characters!

The Base Mechanic

I’ve been talking about the ‘simple base mechanic’ quite a bit in the features above. What is this simple base mechanic that gives BattleCON so much variety while preserving its simplicity? The answer is Attack Pairs.

combination[1]

A player’s hand will (almost) always contain eight cards. Three of these are called styles. Five are called Bases. An attack pair is formed by combining a style and a base together. The resulting attack has all the properties of both the style and the base, combined together into one! Since each character uses the same six bases, their tactics are similar enough that you can pick up and play anyone in just a moment. However, the characters each bring their own styles and unique mechanics to the table, so they each play very differently, and have many different strategies that can be exploited to achieve victory.

Check out the Kicstarted page and donate some money to get your hands on this amazing game!

 

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