I'm surprised no one made a thread for this when I woke up. So here I go. Divekick is an Indie Fighting game with quite a few quirks and gimmicks. Divekick only utilizes two buttons, dive and kick. And to add to the ridiculousness of it, every attack is a one hit kill. Divekick has 13 characters, but each of them are very unique. While there are some standard characters, some characters have hilarious special abilities. For example, the character Jefailey (reference to Alex Jebailey) has his head inflate every match win. This becomes a double edged sword because his hitbox becomes huge, but it lessens the force of gravity too! This game also has tons of references to and parodies of fighting games (Street Fighter, Tekken, & Marvel) and eSports. And to top it all off, the game is only $9.99 on Steam or PSN.
*Giantbomb's Article is a great overview of the game with all of the characters, references/parodies, and an overview of gameplay. I'll be quoting it a lot.
Gameplay
Controls
Divekick is played by using only two buttons: Dive and Kick. The only way to strike your opponent is to divekick into them, which will instantly K.O. if it connects. Movement is handled by using the trajectory of your jump, the descent of your divekicks, and hopping backwards (known as "kickbacks"). This in conjunction with the fact there is no way to block or duck in the game makes the positioning of your character and the anticipation of the opponent's character paramount.
You can also divekick off of the small air time you get from a Kickback. This is useful to counter overly aggressive opponents, and faster characters can punish very effectively doing this.
Match Conditions
Matches are first to five rounds, with each round lasting 20 seconds. If there is no winner at the end of the round, the winner is judged to be the player who is closest to the middle of the screen, as indicated by a red line that appears during the final 5 seconds. Only if the players distance to the line is equal will a drawn round occur (in the form of a giant foot stomping on both players). Double knock outs are not beneficial in Divekick as neither players are awarded a round.
What happens when the game is a draw from the timer ticking down
Kick Factor Gauge Any divekick will increase your Kick Factor gauge. You can either partially fill the gauge to use a special move or full fill the gauge to activate Kick Factor which dramatically increases your speed for a limited time. If you're KO'd or Draw, you'll lose your Kick Factor next round, but if you lose by the timer, you'll keep it.
Each character has one ground move and one air move each, activated by pressing dive and kick at the same time. They cost varying amounts of Kick Factor meter, prolonging Kick Factor activation. Special moves can be used during Kick Factor but will shorten the amount of time that Kick Factor is activated for, as Kick Factor drains the gauge by nature.
Headshots If you get kicked in the head, you'll be concussed for a few seconds next round. It drains all of your Kick Factor Gauge, prevents charging of it, and drastically reduces speed and jump height. If you get multiple headshots in a row, the announcer will reference Unreal Tournament (Double Kill, Triple Kill, ect.).
Gems After you select your character, you can select a gem. There are 4 gems. The three standard ones are Dive, Kick, and Style. Dive increases your max jump height, Kick increases your Kick speed, and Style increases your Kick Factor Gauge gain. Then you have the YOLO gem (yes, it's actually called that), where you get the bonuses from the other 3 gems, but your enemy starts off 4 rounds ahead. So while you'll be significantly advantaged versus the enemy, he'll only need to win one time to win the match.
Characters I haven't played the game enough to add my own insight on each character, so I'll just link you to the GiantBomb article that I've been quoting. Otherwise, I'd literally be quoting them word for word for each character.
Multiplayer There is an online game search in place. (Not sure if it's an actual matchmaking or just a match finder) You can also set up private lobbies to play with your friends, although there is no multi-person lobby available yet. Something that is amazing is that you can easily use this game as a "party game." There is an option for versus, and since there is only two buttons for controls, you can easily 1v1 your friends with only using one keyboard! Just set one set of buttons to the left side and the other set to the right side (arrow keys or numpad), and you instantly have a fun game on your PC to play with friends without the need for extra controllers and most importantly, no extra PC.
Closing So even though this game seems like a joke, it's pretty amazing and actually strategic. You can play this game with an aim to improve competitively, or you can play this game for fun with friends. Either way, it's really fun. Considering its cheap price and how easy it is to get into, I definitely recommend this game. And you need absolutely zero experience with fighting games as there is no combos or difficult inputs, just positioning and strategy
One button each hand (e.g. left ctrl + right ctrl) feels just right for this game, way better than 2 buttons i'm used to pushing with a single hand. Anyone having a similar experience?
I was wondering why there wasn't a Sports and Games page for this yet earlier today. Too bad, should have spent the day writing it. I'm looking forward to the day I am crowned champion of the TDL (Team Liquid Divekick League)
On August 22 2013 07:37 LatscherGnu wrote: Where did my evening go?
One button each hand (e.g. left ctrl + right ctrl) feels just right for this game, way better than 2 buttons i'm used to pushing with a single hand. Anyone having a similar experience?
I do the same. I have my Dive on "D" and Kick on "Numpad 1". The weird buttons are to mimic my Super Street Fighter 4 keyboard controls, but the point is that I use two different hands instead of one.
Yeah, one button on each hand seems best. For a bit I was using A and B on an Xbox controller, but that seems subpar.
I wish people wouldn't scoff at this game so much. Yes it's simple, but just because it's simple doesn't mean it's strategically shallow. It's a really good distillation of basic fighting game concepts, without a lot of gimmicky game mechanics that distract can often distract from the strategy and mind games.
On August 22 2013 21:02 imallinson wrote: So glad this game is out now. Been wanting to play it for a while and so far has been super fun. We should get a TL tournament going for this.
This game is the perfect example to show to your friends that fighting games aren't about combos, or mashing, but that they have a real strategic part. It can be as easy as having two button, but believe me, a pro at this game will kick your ass. Hard.
I'm pretty happy with my winning Jefailey record online so far, though I doubt it'll last all that long. Game is fun, playing in the Giantbomb tournament this weekend that I'm pretty excited about.
Totalbiscuit did a "WTF is..." on this game. He was pretty critical. I didn't really agree with a lot of his criticisms, and a lot of others seem inherent to fighting games, but it's still a good introduction to the game, I suppose.
-The menu is controlled with 2 buttons like the rest of the game, which TB finds obnoxious. -The resolution option in the menu just scales up the assets, it doesn't improve the actual resolution. -Buttons on the main screen aren't perfectly responsive (I think just because he chose left and right shift as buttons) -The art isn't that good, compared to say, Skullgirls -Story mode is boring because you can't play mind games with an AI -The target audience is unclear, since the game mechanics are so simple it seems aimed at people that are new to fighting games, but the jokes of the game are clearly geared towards people familiar with the fighting game community -There's no tutorial to explain how characters' moves work, although the game is simple enough it might not need it -The game is only really fun if you're playing with other people in the same room; online is better than story mode, but still not great -Microphones in online mode are obnoxious
It was a situational criticism, he was complaining that he doesn't even know what Kung Pao's specials do. They form a portal from the air special to the ground special, I believe, but if you were just trying one of them I could see how you would be confused.
I vaguely remember someone tweeting at the developers asking where they could find more in-depth information about the game, and the developers sent them to the giantbomb wiki. So yeah, there hasn't really been any official dev information on the game, which is maybe not great, although I'm perfectly happy to get my information from giantbomb
Or you just could read the description in the How To Play part of the game (the speciasl of all characters are described there) and try it out ingame ^^ It feels more awesome like that, if I want a game that leads me through every important part of the game, I would go back playing CoD.
On August 27 2013 16:53 Confuse wrote: kind of have to agree with one of the youtube comments. where is dr doom, possibly the most famous dive kicker of all time?
funny game, hope one day they make a "serious" rendition of it :D
On August 27 2013 16:53 Confuse wrote: kind of have to agree with one of the youtube comments. where is dr doom, possibly the most famous dive kicker of all time?
funny game, hope one day they make a "serious" rendition of it :D
I think this iteration is as "serious" as you're gonna get. My understanding is there used to be a simpler, more jokey version of the game that was free, but then a developer decided to take the concept and flesh it out into a full fighting game with interesting character matchups and proper strategy, while keeping a light-hearted kind of parody tone. There's never going to be a triple A title with a name like "Super Divekick 2 Remix" that takes itself totally seriously.
And, as commenter above me notes, Shoals is the Dr. Doom reference just like Redacted is Wolverine
On August 27 2013 16:53 Confuse wrote: kind of have to agree with one of the youtube comments. where is dr doom, possibly the most famous dive kicker of all time?
funny game, hope one day they make a "serious" rendition of it :D
Dr Shoals?
but dr shoals...! okay okay i guess that works. :'( Just as the poster above me pointed out I was expecting something more direct like wolverine, haha.
This game is amazing. Its all of the fun parts of fighting games (mind games, understanding spacing and stuff) without any of the bullshit that casuals like me have no interest in (massive amounts of button combinations to do anything cool, pausing every game to look at the moveset)
TB's review seems really nitpicky to me. Menu interface and lack of a tutorial, to me this would only count against like 2% of a game's score. He doesn't spend much time talking about the game itself, or giving any insight into how it plays. Then again, maybe that's beyond the scope of a 20-minute review from someone who doesn't play fighting games seriously.
But yeah, I like the game a lot. I don't want to practice it too much, though, as I'll probably end up stashing it as something to do when my non-FGC friends come over to get drunk.
On August 27 2013 16:53 Confuse wrote: kind of have to agree with one of the youtube comments. where is dr doom, possibly the most famous dive kicker of all time?
funny game, hope one day they make a "serious" rendition of it :D
Dr Shoals?
but dr shoals...! okay okay i guess that works. :'( Just as the poster above me pointed out I was expecting something more direct like wolverine, haha.
On August 27 2013 16:53 Confuse wrote: kind of have to agree with one of the youtube comments. where is dr doom, possibly the most famous dive kicker of all time?
funny game, hope one day they make a "serious" rendition of it :D
Dr Shoals?
but dr shoals...! okay okay i guess that works. :'( Just as the poster above me pointed out I was expecting something more direct like wolverine, haha.
Wolverine? You mean REDACTED?
Any resemblance to real or fictional wolverines is purely coincidental.
On August 28 2013 00:39 Cel.erity wrote: But yeah, I like the game a lot. I don't want to practice it too much, though, as I'll probably end up stashing it as something to do when my non-FGC friends come over to get drunk.
This is definitely gonna be one of the greatest uses of this game. I already usually toss my friends in with Super Smash Brothers Brawl when they're drunk, but they still have a bit of trouble with all the big stages trying to kill you and all the moves every character has
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/hLLHTiw.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/2w8qjy6.png)
