izigame.me

Did you grow up in the era of Flash animations? I sure did. In particular I recall the ones that centred around stick characters. One really innovative series I remember is a sequence where the stick character fights the animator using all manner of improvised weaponry, as well as another that was a very well choreographed fight scene between a red stick character and like, a hundred others.
So after all this time, I remembered all this from some dusty wrinkle in my brain and wondered "hey, what if there was a game just like this out there and if so, what would it look and play like?"
Cue developers Landfall West (known for Totally Accurate Battle Simulator among others) with their 2017 release of Stick Fight: The Game.
This is a more casual game, so let's start with the gameplay. Stick Fight's premise is simple: be the last one standing in a 1-4 player arena with fast changing maps with their own themes, gimmicks and pitfalls as well as a healthy roster of weapons ranging from pistols, shotguns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, lasers, energy swords and more. There are a couple of seasonal/special mapsets too which have some special conditions like picking up an item to transform, and so on.
Players have a simple but effective set of actions available to them. They can crouch, run, aim (with the right stick or mouse), jump, parkour up walls, clamber (to a degree) and throw melee weapons or guns. Because your action list is quite short, the combat ends up being frenetic, easy to understand and fun without getting too complicated or clunky. This keeps combat feeling fun but fair as well, meaning there aren't things like buffs, perks or stats to get in the way of smashing your opponent.
Graphically, the game is quite pleasing to look at without being too shiny and bloomy. It's a 2D game that doesn't go over the top with fully 3D backgrounds. The artwork is simple and clean with a well defined foreground and background to help keep your eyes on the action. It does have some post-processing effects going on that you can't turn off, but they rarely got in the way with the exception of explosions, which can be quite large and can sometimes block your view for a moment. Fortunately, you can turn down screen shake to your liking in case it's too much for you at 100%.
Each player is assigned their own colour, and while it works I find it can be a little difficult to track your player when things get really intense, in particular with the blue and green player colours. One thing that could help with this is to give each player a few coloured presets to choose from, in case the default colour isn't bright or clear enough for them.
Paired with the graphics is some beefy sound. The intro theme music is really catchy and bassy, without being too intense to wear you down over time. Player sounds are pretty sparse, there are no callouts from characters and the only sounds you hear are footsteps and weapon impacts. This leaves most of the soundscape up to the music and the gunplay.
The guns, for the most part, sound meaty and are fun to fire, with the exception of one or two guns that are fine, but sound a bit weak like the needlegun. So overall, the sound is pretty well done, with bonus points for being meaty in general.
So, let's cut to the chase, the game is fun right? So, we get the game, we install it, we hop into quick play and... there's no one else to play with. Yeah, it's a bit devoid of players at the moment. I'm not exactly sure why this is the case, perhaps the game just hasn't been updated that much on Steam or maybe the playerbase wanted a few more maps and weapons, and have since moved on to something else. Maybe no one even knows about this game. Either way, you're not completely out of luck.
You have the option to play the entire game in couch coop, so it's a great excuse to get a few friends around, order a pizza and catch up while you duke it out. Alternatively, you can just invite your friends through Steam for an online match. The developers have stated publicly that they don't have any plans to update the game right now, so I don't think we will see bots in the future. As a game to play with your friends though, it hits the mark pretty nicely.
There's also the ability to download content through the Workshop on Steam, so make sure to take advantage of that once you've had your fill of the vanilla maps.
If someone asked me whether this game was worth $7.50AUD, as long as they had a friend to play with I would agree. I'm not sure if the game goes on sale but if it does, maybe consider grabbing the party pack to share with your online friends. If it gets any future updates, even better.