Duelists

Duelists is a 2D arena brawler for two to four players, on one couch or online, where losing is the fastest way to become dangerous.

Run, jump, dash, shoot. One screen, no split, no scrolling, and nothing at the edges to stop you. Sprint off the left side of the arena and you come back in on the right at full speed, usually into somebody who was still aiming at where you used to be. A round is over in seconds. Then the cat opens the shop.

THE SHOP TAKES SIDES

It reads the scoreboard before it decides what you deserve.

In last place, it gets generous. Wings. A diamond. A die that puts a random element on every shot you fire. A script that quietly says you cannot die this round.

In first place, it offers you a clown nose, a rotten banana, and a glass of whiskey that scrambles your controls, and it is very pleased with itself.

PLACES TO DO IT

Forests where the platforms move and the treeline gives you nothing to hide behind. Volcanoes built around a pit of lava that will not kill you outright. It sets you on fire and throws you back into the fight, which is worse.

Every arena wraps at the edges. Every arena has something in it that wants you dead. Neither of those is going to change as we add more.

NOBODY CHECKED IF THESE WORK TOGETHER

Attack cards rebuild your gun mid match. Buckshot, homing, piercing, ricochet, and nine elements that burn, freeze, poison, chain and drain whoever you hit.

They stack. All of them. By the last round somebody is firing flaming homing buckshot and throwing themselves halfway across the arena with their own recoil, and it is almost always the player who was dead last four rounds ago.