The Basics
In this section we break down all of the core mechanics and explain everything you need to know to get started in knight club.
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Health, Damage, and respawning
Health
Knight Club has a traditional fighting game health system, and a not so traditional stock (lives) system. The name of the game is to deplete your opponents health, which will make them lose a stock, and respawn from the top of the screen. Players respawn with a full health bar.
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Respawn
During the respawn state, players are invincible, and are able to fly around for a few seconds before dropping back into the match. If a player attacks, dashes, or blocks while in the respawn state, they will drop back into the match instantly and will no longer be invincible. Players can also press the jump button to drop in without performing a combat action.
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Ghost
Once a player has lost all of their stocks, they are knocked out and are unable to continue playing. If there are more than two players in the game, and the Ghost option is enabled, players who have lost all of their stocks will respawn as a ghost! Ghosts can't interact with living players directly, but they can fly around the stage and cover up allies or opponents, blocking the view of the action.
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Healing
Players can also heal by holding the down button for about 1.2 seconds. In order to heal, players must be in a neutral state, and not moving! This means they cannot be attacking, blocking, dashing, running, jumping, or falling! While holding the down button players will crouch, and the heal timer starts. Every 1.2 seconds the player will heal 50 hp while down is held.
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Movement
If you are familiar with the platformer genre, then you are likely familiar with the movement in Knight Club. Players are able to run, jump, dash, and air dash around the stage. All of these movement options are simple and easy to perform, but offer a bit of nuance.
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Running and Jumping
Knight Club offers an "unlocked" movement style. This means you are not forced to face your opponent like you would in a traditional fighting game. Players also have complete control over their character while airborne, as long as they are in the neutral state. Depending on the chosen weapon, player run speed is different! Dagger has the fastest run speed, while Axe has the slowest.
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When jumping, players can hold the jump button to jump higher. Some platforms will require a full height jump to reach. Tapping the jump button will result in a short hop. Although not technically a jump, holding down and pressing the jump button will cause players to fall through the two way platforms in the game.
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Dashing
Dashing is the cornerstone of Knight Club's movement and combat. Players are able to dash in the air and on the ground. If an air dash is performed, players cannot dash in the air again until landing on the ground. Dashing has two parts, movement and recovery. When pressing the dash button players will quickly move forward in the direction they are facing. After a few frames the player will then slide to a stop. This is the recovery part of the dash. During recovery players are unable to perform any action! Once the player has come to a complete stop, the recovery will end and the player will return to neutral. It is important to note that there is NO recovery when air dashing.
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It is possible to interrupt, or cancel, a dash by performing another action before the dash enters recovery. Try experimenting with this, or check out the Advanced Techniques section for more details.
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Combat
Attacking
The combat in Knight Club is fairly straight forward, but has a lot of underlying mechanics at work.​ Players pick a weapon when selecting their character, and based on that weapon they have access to different attacks. For the most part, all weapons follow the same control scheme. You press the attack button and the direction you want to attack in to perform an attack that will attack in that direction. Up + Attack results in an upward angled attack that is good for attacking opponents above you, where as left or right + attack, and down + attack, will perform an attack in those directions. For more information on weapons and their attacks, check out the Weapons section of the site.
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If a player is performing an attack in the air, and they land on the ground before the attack is finished, they will enter the recovery state. Recovery lasts a set amount of time based on the attack that was interrupted, and players are unable to perform any actions during this state. After the recovery duration expires, players will return to the neutral state.
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If two attacks collide, players will clash and be pushed apart. When clashing, nether player takes damage.
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Getting Hit
When hit by an attack, players are knocked back and are put into hitstun for a short amount of time. During this time the player is unable to act and is susceptible to follow up attacks from their opponents. Landing multiple attacks on an opponent before they can recover from hitstun will result in a combo. Each hit of a combo knocks back your opponent just a little bit farther, the damage is reduced by a percentage, and hitstun is slightly decreased. This prevents infinite combos, where a player could continually hit an opponent and kill them before they are able to recover.
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Tech Roll
When hitstun has ended, players will then perform a tech roll, and return to the neutral state. A tech roll is a mostly invincible roll that happens automatically, and is used to get out of harms way. While in hitstun, simply hold the direction you would like to roll (up, down, left, or right) and as soon as hitstun expires, your character will roll in that direction. The roll is completely invincible at the start, but vulnerable at the end. If your opponent guesses which way you are going to try to roll, they can punish you with an attack!
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Blocking
By holding the block button players are able to block incoming attacks from opponents. Players must be facing the direction of the attacker to block the attack! It is possible to be hit in the back if blocking in the wrong direction. If an attack is blocked, the blocking player is pushed back and is put into blockstun for a short amount of time. This is similar to hitstun in that the player cannot perform any other actions until blockstun has expired. If an attack is blocked within a few frames of pushing the block button, no blockstun is applied.
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Blocking also has another mechanic called push block. If an attack is blocked, and the player pushes the direction they are facing within 10 frames of the player actually blocking an attack, the attacker will be pushed back rather than the blocking player.
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Normal block vs push block.
Counter Hits
If a player is hit during the start up of their attack, meaning the time between pressing the attack button and the attack actually coming out, it will result in a Counter Hit. A yellow hit effect will be shown, a special sound will play, the player will take an additional 10% damage, and hitstun will be increased by 10 frames. This allows for easy follow up attacks.
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Back Stab
Watch your back! If a player is hit in the back, meaning the player was facing the opposite direction of the attack that hit them, they will be back stabbed! Back stabs result in additional damage on the hit that triggered the back stab. It is important to note that only one back stab can be triggered per combo! A special sound will play, and a red hit effect will be shown when a back stab is triggered.
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Clashing, a normal hit, counter hit, and back stab.
Ready to learn more?
Check out the Advanced Techniques section!