Speed Brawl (out now) places a sporty speedrun spin on arcade fisticuffs

Punching stuff is enjoyable, and Speed Brawl proves that punching all the pieces quick whereas bouncing across the display like a loon is even higher. Released on Tuesday, Double Stallion’s Speed Brawl is a platform beat ’em up set in vibrant steampunk 1880s Britain after an alien invasion. The nation is rebuilding, and Speed Brawling (what it appears like, actually) is the brand new nationwide sport.

There’s six playable characters (three scrappy women, two lads and a giant robotic in a prime hat), some mild RPG components and a ticking clock to race towards. Hurry and verify the launch trailer under.

Speed Brawl is about stream. To get one of the best rank on any given stage, you’ve received to optimise motion in addition to fight. You can’t scroll ahead whereas baddies are on display, so that you’ll wish to construct up combos on simpler teams whereas saving your screen-clearing tremendous strikes for extra spread-out swarms. There’s additionally a tag-team facet (plus on-line and native co-op) – you get to deliver two characters into any given degree, ideally one for operating quick, and one for punching greater enemies arduous, together with some huge aliens and robots. You can specialise character builds afterward, too.

I’ve but to dig into Speed Brawl myself (it’s on my weekend to-play listing, although), however have been watching quite a lot of it streamed and gushed over by Games Done Quick common, brawler aficionado and customarily cool dude Clint “Halfcoordinated” Lexa. Take a peek at this stream recording from yesterday if you wish to see a great scrappy lad hammering his means via it. Just don’t skip too far forward if you wish to keep away from story spoilers – he performs via the latter half of the game over the course of that six-hour marathon session. It seems to be like a great time, and with some actual depth, too.

Speed Brawl is out now on Steam and GOG for £15.49/€16.79/$20, and is printed by Kongregate.