Rising Thunder: PC fighting game by EVO co-founders and Seth Killian

Giant robots fight each other for some no reason.

Anyway, the main draw of the game is that it's meant to have most of the mechanics and appeal of competitive fighting game (ability match-ups, managing and countering combos, playing mindgames of prediction and misdirection) but more accessible for two main reasons.

• Simple inputs: There are three buttons for three special attacks (which also have cooldown times so they can't be spammed too badly) plus a fourth for a super attack. Getting an effective combo still requires knowing which attacks to use when, but performing any individual action requires at most pressing two buttons (Combo Breaker) at once or . It's also design for use with a keypad (the controller support is actually pretty bad at this point), although joysticks
• Focusing on ranked online matches: The game's netcode is very good. Lag still happens occasionally, but it's usually unnoticeable even with ping around 100 ms. This lets you play against people of your approximate skill level even if you don't live in an area with an established fighting game scene.

It just entered what they're calling a "Technical Alpha" Sign up here, and you'll probably get an invite after not to long—I got one by the third day with essentially zero first-hand experience with fighting games, then got two codes to give away that evening. Just make sure you can meet the system requirements (see below) first, because they're higher you might think. As "alpha" suggests, it's still very bare-bones (six playable character, online ranked matches only, semi-frequent crashes), but it still looks and plays pretty well.

People are still figuring things out, so feel free to post miscellaneous things that aren't explained in game. Here's some:

• While jumping forward, a heavy attack will normally go forward, but holding "down" makes it instead aim behind you, allowing what's called a "cross up": when you jump over your opponent then hit them before you land. Since blocking requires tapping away from the direction the attack came from (as in left or right), cross ups can be very difficult to block—especially if you can't be sure it even is a cross up.
• Be conservative/mindful with your jumps. Most of the characters have one or more attacks that are very good at knocking people out of the air.
• A lot of people are having trouble against Chel (a very traditional shotoclone) and her projectile spam. One of the reasons is that the attack's cooldown timer skips to zero if her projectile hits or is blocked. If Chel is far away and you need to get closer, jump forward over them instead of blocking, because stopping to block every time she sends one at you is a very slow, painful way to cover the distance.
• The altitude of Vlade's missile and Chel's cannon seem to be binary: either you use it on the ground and it hits an enemy on the ground, or you use it in the air and it hits an enemy in the air. Vlad's missile will go faster if fired in midair.
• A character flashing blue means they can get hit one time without flinching, though they'll still take damage. This is called "(a hit/point of) armor".
• A character flashing yellow is completely immune to damage and flinching. This is always so brief that if you start an attack after seeing yellow, the invincibility will have faded by the time the attack connects, but if you're wondering why an attack hit but did nothing, that might be why.

Here's some videos of combos and other such:

• Doopliss's combo video from Event Hubs
• Numerous combos from Shoryuken.
• A one-hour playthrough by the Super Best Friends.

Here are the system requirements post on the official forum:

• MINIMUM
  • OS: Windows 7 64-bit or newer
  • Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad, 2.8 Ghz or AMD Phenom X4
  • Memory: 4 GB RAM
  • Graphics: Radeon HD 7770 or Nvidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti
  • Hard Drive: 4 GB available space
• RECOMMENDED
  • OS: Windows 7 64-bit or newer
  • Processor: Intel Core i5, 3.4 GHz
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 760
  • Hard Drive: 4 GB available space

For comparison, I have a 560 Ti and at max setting the framerate is in the range of 30-40.

edited 1st Aug '15 1:54:36 AM by thatother1dude

It has a lady robot boxer.

What has Science wrought?

Technically, it's a lady piloting a boxing robot.

The game is open-access now. Anyone can sign up immediately.