HOW TO PLAY
A few ideas decide how this game plays. Every mechanic was built against them, so knowing them tells you how to win. They also happen to be a decent way to survive an office.
01
Skill here is pressing one thing at the right moment because you saw what the other player committed to. It's never how many buttons you can hit in a second. Nobody wins on fast, simple input, and nothing in the game asks for a reflex younger than you are.
02
Like tai chi and aikido: wait for the other player to commit, then use their own force. The harder someone swings, the harder they fall when you read it. Every option has an answer, and every answer costs something when it's guessed wrong.
It's the meeting where you let the loudest person talk themselves into a corner.
03
A press thrown where it doesn't belong botches: you overbalance, spin out or trip over your own feet. Every swing costs stamina, and the last point leaves you fainted and open. No defense comes out of a held direction or a repeated button, and nothing lets you mash your way out of trouble.
Reply-all in a panic and everyone sees it.
04
The fighters are stick figures and the controls are a direction plus one button. Strings have a rhythm, not a speed. The depth is in how the bodies move: the same physics that tangles a mistimed press rewards one timed exactly right. A few mistakes, made at just the right moment, turn into something much better.
05
A timing window can be generous when missing it costs you. The parry gives you about a tenth of a second, but a tap that guesses wrong walks you straight into the hit. A tight window that's free to try is a reflex test. A wider one that commits you is a read.