Unity Fighting / Arena Game

Status: in active development — a playable prototype, not yet released. The source is on GitHub (linked above); there is no public build yet.

A fast-paced top-down PvP arena fighter built in Unity around momentum, risk, and explosive knockback rather than long, execution-heavy combos. Players duel with cursed techniques inspired by supernatural anime combat, managing a shared economy of Cursed Energy, Overdrive, and Domain Expansions.

The design goal is calculated aggression: the game rewards resource management and high-risk decisions that swing momentum, instead of passive play or memorized strings.

Each character has a deliberately small moveset — a default attack, a signature cursed technique, and a Domain Expansion. Depth comes from how those interact with positioning, knockback, and resources, not from complex inputs.

Cursed Energy (CE) is both an ability resource and a combo resource. Spending it on roll cancels cuts recovery short to extend pressure, but longer combos cost exponentially more CE — so every extension is a choice between damage now and resources for the next engagement.

Holding Shift enters Overdrive: faster movement and more aggressive attack variants, draining CE the whole time. Once CE is gone, Overdrive eats health instead, creating all-in situations where survivability is traded for offence.

Fights are decided by knockback and positioning rather than long hitstun. Wall pressure is strong on purpose, but wall hitstun diminishes so the exciting extensions survive while infinite loops and touch-of-death combos do not.

A Domain Expansion temporarily overwrites the arena with a themed alternate reality — same layout, different atmosphere, visual identity, and combat rules. Reality reasserts itself as it expires, which doubles as the timer.

The project targets low-latency peer-to-peer style arena combat, prioritising responsive movement and accurate hit registration.

The combat design is itself the latency strategy: leaning on knockback, positioning, and momentum instead of frame-perfect links means small amounts of lag degrade the match gracefully. Resource-driven combo extensions keep competitive depth without strict execution windows.

Controls are built around WASD movement and mouse aiming on PC, with a scheme that could adapt to twin-stick mobile controls in a later prototype. The aim throughout is minimum input complexity for maximum strategic depth — the skill ceiling should come from movement, positioning, and decision-making, not hard command inputs.

A large share of development goes into making each interaction land. Hitstop punctuates heavy attacks, directional knockback turns every exchange into a positioning battle, and screen shake, particles, and audio cues sell impact without hurting readability.

Movement is tuned for fast acceleration, responsive dashes, and preserved momentum. Input buffering and generous input windows keep it responsive at speed while staying precise.

VFX are designed for multiplayer clarity: Domain Expansions change how the arena looks without touching its geometry, so players keep their spatial awareness while still reading the change in combat state. The target is matches remembered for momentum swings and clutch recoveries rather than long combo sequences.