Fun
Stickman Fighting
Ink Duel is a stickman fighting game built around bullet time: dodge or parry at the last moment and the whole fight slows down around you.
Slow-motion stickman duel
INK DUEL
Best of three rounds against the computer.
Controls
| Action | Player 1 | Player 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Move | A / D | ← / → |
| Jump · double jump · wall jump | W or Space | ↑ |
| Fly (hold after the double jump) | hold W | hold ↑ |
| Crouch · drop through (↓ + jump) | S | ↓ |
| Light attack (3-hit combo) | F | K |
| Heavy · uppercut (↓) · dive kick (↓ in air) | G | L |
| Block · tap just before a hit to parry | H | ; |
| Dodge · air dash · slide (↓) | Left Shift | Right Shift |
| Grab and throw | T | O |
| Focus (bullet time) | hold R | hold P |
Solo modes accept both key sets. Gamepad: stick or d-pad to move, A jump, X light, Y heavy, B dodge, RB block, LB grab, LT focus. Esc pauses, M mutes.
Play and explore in your browser. No account needed.
Frequently asked questions
When does the game go into slow motion?
Automatically when you dodge through an attack while you are invulnerable, when you parry, when a fighter first drops below a fifth of their health, briefly on uppercuts and slide trips, and — most dramatically — on the final blow of a round. You can also trigger it yourself: hold the focus key (R, P, the Focus button or LT) and the world slows while your own fighter keeps moving at close to full speed. Focus is earned by landing hits, dodging and parrying.
How hard is the computer opponent?
There are four levels. The CPU reacts to where you were a moment ago rather than where you are now — 0.42 seconds ago on Easy, down to 0.14 seconds on Master — and Easy also makes frequent deliberate mistakes and rarely finishes combos. Normal, Hard and Master block, dodge, juggle and grab more often. Hard and Master also use the focus meter. None of them can read your inputs, so a well-timed dodge or parry works against every level.
Can two people play on one computer?
Yes. In 2 Players mode, Player 1 uses W, A, S and D with F, G, H, Left Shift, T and R, and Player 2 uses the arrow keys with K, L, ;, Right Shift, O and P. Two gamepads also work: the first controls Player 1 and the second Player 2. It is a local game on one screen; there is no online play.
What is the perfect parry and how do I dodge?
Blocking stops a hit from the front but a grab still gets through. If you press block in the last 0.14 seconds before an attack lands, it becomes a parry: the attacker staggers, time slows and you gain focus. A dodge makes you invulnerable for about a quarter of a second — dodging towards the attacker rolls through them, and doing it as the attack connects counts as a perfect dodge.
How does Survival mode work and is my score saved?
Survival sends one rival after another. They start on Easy and move up to Master from wave 8, with more health each wave, while you recover 30% of your health between waves. There is no round timer, and falling off the Floating Isles costs 15 health. Your best wave is saved in your browser’s local storage on this device, and nothing is sent to a server.
Does it work on phones and with a gamepad?
Yes. On a touch screen the game shows a virtual joystick and buttons for Jump, Light, Heavy, Dodge, Block, Grab and Focus, and pressing Fight switches to full screen where the browser allows it. It is designed for landscape, so turn your phone sideways. Standard gamepads are read through the browser’s Gamepad API, and the game pauses by itself when you switch tabs.
About this tool
This stickman fighting game runs entirely in your browser with nothing to install. The fighters are articulated skeletons: their legs and arms are placed with inverse kinematics every frame, so a run, a roundhouse kick or a wall jump is animated procedurally rather than played back from sprites. Heavy blows, throws and knockouts hand the body over to a Verlet ragdoll, so every fall is different, and a fighter tumbling through the air can still be hit a few times before landing.
Bullet time is the heart of the game. The simulation steps at a fixed 120 times a second of game time, and slowing the clock simply means less game time passes per real second, so physics and hit detection behave exactly the same at any speed. When time slows, the colour drains from the arena, the camera closes in, cinematic bars appear and sounds drop in pitch. Every knockout is followed by a slow-motion replay of the last couple of seconds, which you can skip with an attack key.
The move set is small enough to learn in a minute and deep enough to practise. Light attacks chain into a three-hit combo; a heavy attack after a connected jab finishes it; the uppercut launches an opponent for air juggles; the dive kick and hammer punish from above; and a grab beats someone who only blocks. Each hit in a combo does a little less damage, and hitting someone during the start of their own attack is a counter-hit worth 25% more.
Four arenas are drawn in code rather than from image files: a rooftop at dusk with a striped sun, a lantern-lit dojo, a rainy neon alley and floating sky islands where you can fall off. Everything — art, animation and the synthesized sound effects — is original and generated in the page, and only your best Survival wave is saved, in local storage. Players who prefer less motion can turn on reduced motion in their system settings to switch off screen shake and soften the flashes.