Impact without confusion
Blood, bruising, hit-stop, and finishers create weight while clear silhouettes and effects preserve competitive readability.
ENTER THE RING
Playable prototype · Full game in pre-productionA brutal, readable 1v1 fighter where accessible controls open into deep decisions about spacing, pressure, defense, and resource use.
The creative promise
Pugilistic Duality is being designed as a fair duel first: powerful spectacle without visual confusion, approachable controls without shallow combat, and customization that never buys an advantage.
Blood, bruising, hit-stop, and finishers create weight while clear silhouettes and effects preserve competitive readability.
New players can fight immediately. Timing, positioning, matchup knowledge, and meter decisions create the long-term skill ceiling.
Ranked outcomes come from player decisions. Purchases never alter damage, health, frame data, matchmaking, or progression speed.
Preview the developing roster in unlimited CPU fights, free. This prototype demonstrates the foundation—not the finished combat system.
Keyboard: ←/→ Move · A Kick · S Punch · D Special · E Duality · Q Throw · R Reversal · W Block · F Dodge · G Parry · P Pause
Throw is unblockable and beats turtling, but whiffs up close and can be teched (press Throw when grabbed). Duality spends 1 segment for EX / all 3 for Super, Repulse while blocking, or — when you're being combo'd — Breaker (2 segments, once a round) to escape, or Clash (all remaining segments, once a round, below 25% health) to escape AND heal. Reversal (2 segments) is an invincible get-off-me that's punishable if it whiffs. Dodge is a free evasive step (on a cooldown) that beats strikes AND throws, but doesn't hit back. Parry is a precise-timing read that fully punishes an incoming strike (not throws) - whiff it and you're locked up wide open.
Motion inputs (every fighter, no meter): Down,Back+Punch = Uppercut (launcher) · Down,Forward+Kick = Rocket Kick · Forward,Forward+Punch = Fist Launch · Back,Forward+Punch = Weapon Slash (strikes with your held weapon) · Forward,Back+Kick = Spin Kick. On a joystick, a fluid quarter or half-circle roll works too - the exact diagonal you roll through, not just the two end positions, is what's read.
Signature moves belong to one fighter only (marked with a dot on the roster). Phantom - Shadow Step: Back,Back+Special to vanish backward out of pressure, Forward,Forward+Special to reappear point-blank. Costs 1 segment, invincible on startup but not through the recovery, and it's on its own cooldown. Ronin - Stance Change: Down,Down+Special swaps between Swift (fast, safe, short) and Long (huge reach and damage, slow, brutal recovery). Free, but the switch itself locks you up with no invincibility, so changing stance in range is a free punish for your opponent. Your current stance shows in the HUD and as a colored ring at your feet. Goliath - Wall Carry: no input, it's passive. Every strike he lands drives you toward your corner (blocking softens it but doesn't stop it), and once your back is against the wall the shove you can't take turns into bonus damage and extra hitstun - a WALL SLAM. Iron Maiden - Bruiser Frames: also passive. Blocking her normals doesn't give you the turn back - she recovers almost immediately and keeps pressing - and her counter hits do 1.95x where everyone else does 1.5x. Contest her instead of blocking. Viper - Venom: passive. Her clean hits stack poison (up to 5) that keeps damaging for four seconds after the hit, shown as a green counter in the HUD. Blocking her avoids it completely - blocked hits apply no poison. Shadow Striker - Relentless: her normals rechain into each other (capped at 4 links) instead of ending on special, and Forward,Forward+Special is Blitz, a free dash that closes up to 210px - cancel into it off any normal that connects to stay on top of them. No invincibility on it, and she has the lowest health on the roster.
Gamepad: D-pad/Stick Move · A Punch · B Kick · X Special · Y Duality · Triggers Throw · Sticks Reversal · LB/RB Block · Select Dodge · D-pad Up Parry
Player 2 (Local, set OPPONENT to "Player 2"): J/L Move · I Punch · K Kick · O Special · U Duality · H Throw · Y Reversal · M Block · N Dodge · B Parry
Men, women, aliens, and cyborgs - each with their own moves and story.
Planned deterministic rollback, ranked matchmaking, private lobbies, replays, and cross-play.
Blood effects, visible damage, and cinematic finishing moves.
Desktop comes first. Web, macOS, and mobile follow only after their performance gates pass.
Best-of-three, 90-second rounds against the CPU or another player.
Optional cosmetics personalize your fighter without affecting combat.
Development path
The current browser build is an early prototype. Each stage below has a quality gate; later scope does not begin until the combat foundation is proven.
Test movement, attacks, defense, hit feedback, CPU behavior, controls, and roster identity.
Prove deterministic simulation, the Duality Gauge, complete move sets, training tools, and rollback networking.
Validate matchmaking, lobbies, rankings, moderation, replays, connection quality, and server services.
Expand to twelve polished fighters, eight arenas, arcade content, accessibility, and release certification.
Not for sale on this page. The 11-fighter, 5-arena game below is a finished build headed to the Apple App Store and Google Play Store as a one-time $9.99 purchase. This page does not process payments.