Rivalry

Please Buy Rivalry On Steam!

As the result of a successful Kickstarter for the marketing on his game at PAX, 14 year old Kew McParlane is presenting 'Rivalry', playable wire-frame of his turn based two player sword fighting game of deep strategy and hilarious fun.

Quotes from alpha testers

• "It's basically sword chess"
• "This game is made to be YouTubed."
• "This game had our office in stitches, great fun! "
• "It's the 'Octodad' of swordfighting games"
• "It's like QWOP with knives"

In Rivalry two players take turns at moving their rag-doll character's limbs and weapons until one is victorious. While the beginning stages of each game captures the strategic essence of swordplay, as damage and limbs are taken, the endgame turns rather Pythonesque.

Imagine a game that's a turn based strategy game, mixed with a side scrolling fighter and then add some rag-dolls and you've got Rivalry.

It Looks Unfinished?

At this point it's a playable wireframe but the core game mechanic is there and the game is playable and fun. It just needs a visual style applied.

He is following the advice given by most Indy game developers of "Crowdfund your marketing", "Market your game early" and "The best crowdfunding is sales".

He wants to get on Steam (Early Access) to fund further development to pay for an artist to style the game and for servers to host a tournament mode and weapon combo high score tables.

if you attended PAX Australia in 2015 (Oct 31 to Nov 1), Kew and his dad were there demonstrating Rivary to all comers at Stand 48 in the PAX Rising section. Check out https://instagram.com/RivalryGame/ for photos and videos of this event. His dad and he were simply blown away by the response of the crowd at PAX.

Why Steam?

He is hoping to get it into Steam to fund artists for the visual style and servers for an online tournament mode. Despite its unfinished look it's deceptively complex and fun to play. Based on how much time people seem to spend crowding around it when we show it, highly addictive too.

At this point it's a single box arena but he plans to add different/larger areas. Fights on steps etc.

He is also trying to get interesting weapons in there that each have unique strategic advantages/disadvantages. I've had lots of fun chatting to him about these.

Current weapon list

• Broad Sword (Double Edged Blade, heavy, some impact damage with pommel)
• Rapier (Long but only tip sharp)
• Dagger (Fast, Sharp but very short)
• Katana (One side very sharp, the other side impact damage only).
• Shield (Protection, some impact damage)
• Axe (Deadly, but unwieldy).
• Hammer (Unwieldy but high impact damage)
• Scythe (Can hook players and drag them in - only inside sharp).

Rivalry is being published by My64K, a startup indie game company consisting of Kew and his father.

Kew Kickstarted his way to PAX by running a successful campaign to fund his travel and accommodation, but the game itself the result of his dedication to indie gaming and a lot of extra homework! At PAX Australia on the 30th of October he launched the official Steam Greenlight campaign and demoed the latest playable wireframe. Further announcements will be made at https://twitter.com/RivalryGame

A big thank you to everyone who supported the Steam Greenlight Concept Campaign. Not a single 'No' vote!!!

In December the game was Green Lit by Steam!

On January 23rd it was released onto the Steam Store under Early Access