Mix a turn-based fighting game with floppy ragdoll physics and out
pops Hampus Soderstrom's deceptively simple Toribash. Boil human
anatomy down to spheres on the ends of chubby pipe cleaners and
you've got a sense for what Toribash's contenders look like. Click
joints with your mouse then tap hotkeys to relax, hold, extend, or
contract appendages in a contest to see who can inflict the
bloodiest damage first. Turns zip by at intervals -- one is roughly
equal to raising your arm from hip to head, or kicking a foot
forward from flush with the ground to hip level -- and gauge your
success by monitoring your "ghost," a translucent projection into
the future represeneting what would happen if you ended your turn
with your current selections. Tapping the spacebar commits your
choices and advances the clock.
Inflict enough damage with a single blow and you'll send body
parts flying -- the game is in fact quite fond of blood geysers,
though it's worth noting you're maneuvering bundles of simplistic
geometry as opposed to anatomically realistic people. Moves run the
kung-fu gamut, inviting sophisticated tactics, including everything
from "punch" and "kick" to exotic stuff like "aerial body breaker,"
"good arm removal," "overhead body split," and "super duper simple
decap." It's even possible to engage in different fighting styles,
from kickboxing and judo to "taek kyon" and "wushu."
--Matt Peckham
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