Them's Fightin' Herds (f.k.a. Fighting is Magic)

They dialed it back to "Early Access" at least.

I would play this but I need to fight in a DBFZ tourney tomorrow...

edited 22nd Feb '18 6:28:36 PM by Malco

Yeah, I don't think there's any avoiding that. Either way, due to timing and whatnot, there was going to be some damage. I think they made the choice that will cause the least damage, though.

Anyway, I'm finally in a position to stream tonight. Probably just gonna hop lobby to lobby fighting whoever. Might do Salt Mines once or twice, too.

Fun game but so far I've actually spent more time figuring out the palette references than actually playing. My favorite so far is Not Prepared for Tianhuo.

Dumb question. How do I actually download this from Steam with my backer key?

Get your key from Backer-kit (look for the new Retail Key on the page), then there should be an "Add Game" button in the lower left corner. One of the options under it should let you add by serial key. From there, just tell it to download.

Awesome. Thanks!

Finally got a chance to play around with this a little.

Man, I suck at fighting games. Especially when I don't have a controller and have to use the keyboard.

Keyboard does have a couple advantages, though: keyboard arrow inputs are more precise than analog controls and double-tap inputs come out quicker.

I've lost both fights I attempted in the game so far, once with the computer in Arcade mode and once with a person online in a Mirror Match with Arizonas. At least in the second one I put up a fight though, nearly got at least one round.

You can adjust the AI difficulty in the options if you want. It's one of those things that can be really mean an inconsistent if you have it at a level higher than what you can handle, anyway (the higher you go, the more it input reads, so you have to be able to really make the most of the few openings it gives).

Gonna have to wait until my next check before I can pick this up. Spent nearly everything I saved up for a new computer. But! I should be able to get it before the sale ends.

edited 24th Feb '18 4:29:29 PM by GreatT

Well, the practice mode in this game is shit. I couldn't even figure out what button I needed to press in order to leave it. Normally, it should be "Escape." Also, the game froze when I tried to change it to fullscreen.

I'm probably not going to try to play it again.

Haven't had any issues here. I feel like I'm beginning to hone in my Oleander. I still lose more often than not, but by slightly better margins.

Anyone else hoping for an avian-themed sequel called Them's Fightin' Birds?

The next installment after that is obviously Them's Fightin' Thirds.

Possible roster for Them's Fighting Birds:

Cassowary

Ostrich

Penguin

Eagle

Owl

Canary

Peafowl

Vulture

Secretary Bird

Cormorant

Magpie

Crow/Raven

Chicken

Turkey

Duck

Swan

Hummingbird

Swift

Albatross

Whew, lot of extremes today. I went 3 wins vs. 3 wins against a Velvet, who was probably my most even match up so far, and then two Tianhuos mop the floor with me so thoroughly one of them got a flipping Perfect.

Funnily enough, both incidents happened on a Japanese server.

edited 25th Feb '18 8:12:24 AM by edvedd

I think the Japanese servers are my jam. Finding some great games.

The official servers seem to be a good place to go for newbies. There's still a lot of people around who haven't quite gotten the hang of their character, so you should be able to get some even matches. There's still usually a couple really good scoreboard toppers, though, so make sure to check that before challenging (I'm reasonably sure that the current casual ranking system isn't properly tuned, so that's not really a good indicator... also, I haven't been able to find any kind of legend for it, making the symbols more or less useless).

Are the ranking symbols like DBFZ's threat level (square next to a name)? Where it's ill-defined, but eventually fans figured out what it means?

edited 1st Mar '18 7:25:28 PM by Malco

They're flags that appear under a name when you challenge someone. As best I can tell thus far, yellow is for non-backers and maroon is for backers. I've yet to see a yellow flag with any additional symbols, despite facing a huge variety of range of skill across blank yellow flags. I've fought a few fellow backs with tick marks ranging from 2 to 4 in number, but we've been close enough in skill range that I have no idea if it's a descending or ascending system and why the numbers are so tightly packed when yellow appears to have never changed. I guess I need to go get whooped by Bubble or something to have more extreme data on the maroon flags.

@edvedd

I've been following this casually. Do you get a lot of Japanese players to play against? This is gonna be niche as all hell regardless but I could see Japan respecting it the most despite the cutesy subject matter.

edited 2nd Mar '18 6:18:46 PM by Hashil

I have been informed that the casual ranking is a function of your Steam hours in the game. I was also wrong about the yellow and maroon banners, as they were just the most common and seemingly correlated that way because they're currently functionally the same as time played, given that backers retained their time played when the keys transferred. There's still no legend to the progression of colours and pips, though.

Oh, i'm glad they finished the animation for Oleander's magic teleport.

More than three years later...

Hoist the anchor! Batten down the hatches! Swab the poop deck, and change your underwear!

Because here comes a new challenger! Her name be Shanty!

(Goat pirate. Can't believe we never saw that before now...)