Video Game / Indie Pogo

The pogo stick in the "I" should give you an idea of what's in store.

Created by the Lowe Bros., Indie Pogo is a Massive Multiplayer Crossover Platform Fighter in the same vein as Super Smash Bros. and starring characters and locations from various Indie Games and their respective companies.

But while Smash Bros. mostly takes place on the arena floor, Indie Pogo takes a page out of Divekick's playbook and simplifies things by taking it into the air.

All of the characters jump automatically, and your objective is to either knock your opponent out of the stage like Smash Bros. or to reduce their HP until they shatter and respawn. All attacks are done using one button and a directional input. Not all stages have points you can knock off your enemy, however, and some are enclosed so your only method of victory is to knock their HP down.

It was successfully funded on Kickstarter, and was released on July 10th, 2018.

A massive update known as the Heavy Metal Update was released on May 7th, 2019, which added Bullet Kin and Diogenes, melee attacks, grabs, side specials, many balance changes, and a new mode known as Crown Pogo.

Features playable characters from:

• Characters who are currently in the game:
  • Blockman (The Blocks Cometh)
  • Bullet Kin (Enter the Gungeon)
  • CommanderVideo (BIT.TRIP)
  • Diogenes (Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy)
  • Fishy (Shütshimi)
  • Jack (Jack The Reaper)
  • Kick (Divekick)
  • Lilac (Freedom Planet)
  • Meat Boy (Meat Boy)
  • Orcane (Rivals of Aether)
  • Penelope (The Next Penelope)
  • Shovel Knight (Shovel Knight)
  • Stardrop (Stardrop Blaster)
  • Teslakid (Teslagrad)
  • Velocispider (Velocispider)
  • Viridian (VVVVVV)
  • Welltaro (DownWell)
  • Yolk (Leap Day)
  • Zorbie (Zorbie)
• Characters who are planned to be included in the future:
  • Dust (Dust: An Elysian Tail)
  • Gunvolt (Azure Striker Gunvolt)
  • Octodad (Octodad)
  • Voltar (Awesomenauts)

Features stages from:

• Stages which are currently in the game:
  • Abandoned Hospital (Super Meat Boy)
  • Afterlife Hub (TwoBrothers)
  • Bouncy Castle (Shütshimi)
  • Block World (The Blocks Cometh)
  • Canabalt Skyline (Canabalt)
  • Dragon Valley (Freedom Planet)
  • Flappy Pipeyard (Flappy Bird)
  • INK (Ink)
  • Phantom King's Mansion (Candies 'n Curses)
  • Polar Dimension (VVVVVV)
  • Retro Zone (BIT.TRIP)
  • Runbow Volcano (Runbow)
  • Sovereign Deck (Nefarious)
  • Space Junction (Stardrop Blaster)
  • Well Caverns (Downwell)
• Stages which are planned to be included in the future:
  • Sorona (Awesomenauts)
  • Unnamed Crypt Of The Necrodancer Stage

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This video game provides examples of:

• Adaptational Badass:
  • Viridian was only able to change his gravity in his home game, but is armed with the obstacles from his game here, a deadly Spin Attack, and can even increase everyone else's gravity with his super.
  • Fishy was able to take down hordes of enemies in his home game, but here he is a very strong physical powerhouse and Mighty Glacier.
  • Blockman mostly dodged and occasionally fired bullets to break blocks in his home game, but is no slouch in combat.
  • Diogenes, who was nothing more than a man who had to climb a mountain in his game, can deal large amounts of damage with his hammer and is a perfectly capable fighter.
  • Penelope primarily was in her ship in her home game, but here she fights in person, using the power-ups from her home game to fight.
  • Upcoming character Octodad is.... not a fighter in his home game, to say the least.
• All There in the Manual:
  • This game happens to be the first time the name of Downwell's protagonist was ever given.
  • Likewise to the protagonist of Getting Over It, now named Diogenes.
• Batman Can Breathe in Space: The Space Junction stage takes place in space, and the Bouncy House stage takes place underwater. The characters can breathe just fine.
• Bouncing Battler: The entire gimmick of the game; your character is constantly jumping with only certain charged attacks keeping you on the ground. Taken further in the Bouncy House stage if hazards are on, in which everyone is constantly bouncing off the ground with no landing lag.
  • This is averted if the Heavy Metal augment is active, which turns the gameplay into a regular Platform Fighter, though this is only available for Blockman, Velocispider, Bullet-Kin, and Viridian at the moment.
• Boss Arena Urgency: Crow has a Ground Pound attack he'll periodically use that leaves him vulnerable but cracks and then breaks floor tiles. The exposed electric wires under them only hurt the player character, and if you take too long to defeat him you won't be able to fight properly.
• Boss Rush: The Pogo Pantheon challenge requires you to fight every single member of the original roster sequentially.
• Combos: While traditional ones are possible, there also exists "Pogo Combos", which are scored by landing attacks multiple times (and at least one Goomba Stomp) before hitting the ground. These are important since they let you use your Limit Break.
• Combo Breaker: Teching can let you do this. By pressing Parkour as you hit the ground, you can immediately act and get yourself free from a combo.
• The Cameo: And lots of them.
  • The ref from Expert Wrassling scolds the player when someone loses all their lives.
  • Crow from Nefarious appears as the Final Boss of Arcade Mode.
  • The Resourceful Rat from Enter the Gungeon will show up to steal any gun dropped by Bullet Kin.
  • The "Coin" bonus game in Arcade Mode has the background of Cookie Clicker.
  • The Shop is based on Samurai Blitz. Once you unlock Randy Ronin's trophy via the Gachapon, he hangs out in front of the shop. After an update, Tamako from Rising Dusk and Flappy Fighter received the same treatment.
  • In addition to the examples above, along with all the series represented as playable characters and stages, characters from several other games were implemented as collectible trophies, mid-match cheerleaders, and seat-fillers in the battle arena. See the Characters page for a full list.
• Character Customization: Introduced in Heavy Metal Part 2, Augments can be equipped to different characters, either giving them passive effects, such as an extra air jump or a farther dodge distance, or for new abilities, such as a glide or temporary flight.
• Continuing is Painful: The more times you retry Arcade mode after losing, the more coins each attempt will cost.
• Double Jump: Everyone can do this, except for Welltaro (who uses a Recoil Boost instead) and Viridian (who temporarily reverses his gravity).
• Endless Game: In Endless Pogo, you get 99 HP to fight against as many enemies as you can endure and every replacement will come with more health. A good place for grinding coins.
• Face Plant: If the match has four players, the player who came in fourth will fall from the sky and faceplant instead of landing on the victory podium.
• Final Boss: Crow is the final boss of the single-player classic mode.
• Fluffy Cloud Heaven: The Afterlife Hub stage takes place in one.
• Goomba Stomp: One of your main methods of attack is simply jumping on your opponents head to push them down and knock a few points off their HP.
• Hollywood Magnetism: Teslakid's attacks can magnetize enemies, allowing him to bring them to him with his Neutral Special.
• Invisible Block: The INK stage mimics the mechanics of its home game. Players spawn inside of a dark blue void, and by jumping around and striking their opponents, ink splatters out and gradually fills in the invisible platforms.
• I Shall Taunt You: There is a taunt button, but instead of each character having different taunts, you can equip purchased taunts from the shop.
• Last Lousy Point: Good luck getting all trophies from the gacha machine, as even spending the cap of 20 coins to boost your chances hardly helps.
• Lethal Lava Land: The Runbow Volcano stage consists of several platforms (some of which disappear depending on the color of the stage's background) and a couple cliffs, all over a giant pool of lava that gradually rises and falls.
• Limit Break: Everyone has a super move that can be unleashed when enough gems are earned.
• Perfect Play A.I.: In harder difficulties the CPU will repeatedly bounce over the player and avoid direct attacks with high accuracy at any chance it gets.
• Pipe Maze: The Flappy Pipeyard stage.
• Platform Fighter: With a twist: by default, everyone automatically jumps. Becomes closer to one if you use the Heavy Metal augment.
• SNK Boss: Crow is very mobile and is able to fly around the field. He deals high damage on most of his moves, which are designed to track and combo the player, and is Immune to Flinching against most attacks. However, he follows patterns and has weaknesses for the player to figure out, making him one very tough but not outright unfair opponent. Exaggerated in the "Defeat Crow!" challenge, where he has much more health than he does in classic mode.
• Temporary Platform: Just like in Runbow, Runbow Volcano's platforms disappear whenever the background changes to match its color.
• Under the Sea: The Bouncy House stage takes place underwater.
• Unnecessary Combat Roll: Holding the "Parkour" button while on the ground lets you do this. It can be useful for moving on the ground due to the auto-jump mechanic. Jumping while doing so will let you do a jumping kick.
• Wall Jump: Available via holding the Parkour button while against a wall. While it won't let you climb walls normally, dodging into a wall after jumping off of it and then doing another wall jump lets you scale walls.

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