Wallace Bros: Lisbon Fury

Lisbon, 2145. Tom Barden sells a synthetic called Azul to half the city and has been sampling it himself for twenty years. Ten fights stand between you and the top of his tower.

Pick a brother. Benjamin Wallace boxes out of a gym under the Alcantara flyover: slow, armoured, and his HAYMAKER goes through whatever you put in front of it. Joseph Wallace is not a fighter in any recognised sense, but he is quick, and his FIRE FART is a full-screen projectile that nobody ever blocks the first time.

The ladder runs through the city: Tuk-Tuk Rui at Praca do Comercio, the Alfama Ghost on the steps, the Fishmonger on the docks at Cais do Sodre, Fado Duarte in Bairro Alto, Tram 28 at the Bica funicular, a bought policeman at Rossio, the Chemist in the Beato lab district, O Touro under the 25 de Abril bridge, and Jeffrey Thompson - the Thompson family’s underboss, and the man who does Barden’s thinking - at Belem. Then the tower.

Everyone has a special. Hold back to block, and remember that a sweep beats a standing guard while an overhead beats a crouching one.

HOW A FIGHT WORKS

Each fight is the best of three rounds, and each round lasts sixty seconds. If time runs out, the round goes to whoever has more health left. You get three credits for the whole run. Lose a fight and you have ten seconds to spend one and take the same opponent on again.

You have four ordinary attacks:

• Jab (Z): quick to come out and quick to recover. Hard to punish, light damage.
• Kick (X): slower and heavier, with more reach.
• Sweep (Down + X): a low kick that always knocks the opponent off their feet.
• Air kick (X while jumping): an overhead, which hits someone who is crouching to block.

Blocking works the way it does in most fighting games: hold away from your opponent. A standing block stops high attacks and overheads but not sweeps. A crouching block stops high attacks and sweeps but not overheads. A blocked hit still does a sliver of damage, but only about a seventh of the full amount.

THE SPECIAL METER

The blue bar under your health is your special meter. It fills when you land hits, when you block, and also when you get hit. Being knocked about tops you up a little, so a fighter who is losing badly often has a special ready. A special costs about half the bar, and every special that connects knocks the opponent down.

• Haymaker (Benjamin): a charging punch across the screen. It hits harder than anything else either brother has.
• Fire Fart (Joseph): he turns his back and sends a ball of blue flame along the street. It’s the only ranged attack the brothers have, so use it to pick away at big, slow opponents before they reach you.

THE BROTHERS

Benjamin is the heavyweight. He has more health, hits far harder and takes less from each hit, but he’s slow on his feet and slow to swing. Close the distance by blocking and walking in, make each punch count, and save the meter for a Haymaker when they’re in range.

Joseph is much lighter and quicker, on his feet and with his hands, but he has less health and his jab and kick do little damage. He wins by landing lots of hits, staying out of reach, firing the Fire Fart whenever he has the meter, and punishing whoever runs in after it.

THE LADDER

The opponents get faster to react, more aggressive and better at blocking as you climb. Each has a special of their own:

1. Tuk-Tuk Rui - Tuk-Tuk Rush, a charging dash. The gentlest of the ten.
2. Ines Cardoso, the Alfama Ghost - Blade Flurry. Very quick on her feet.
3. Bruno Sa, the Fishmonger - Cleaver Toss, a thrown blade. Heavy, slow and tough.
4. Fado Duarte - Lament, a slow, wide projectile, thrown from further out than anyone else on the ladder.
5. Carla Vaz, Tram 28 - Live Rail, an electric burst all around her. Don’t stand close when her meter is full.
6. Nuno Pinto, Badge Zero-Nine - Taser Dash. Blocks more than anyone before him.
7. Sofia Brandao, the Chemist - Azul Cloud, the widest area attack in the game, and she uses it often.
8. Vitor Alves, O Touro - Bull Charge. The toughest body on the ladder, and his charge hits as hard as Benjamin’s Haymaker. He’s slow, so sweep him.
9. Jeffrey Thompson, the Underboss - Silencer, the fastest projectile in the game. He reacts quicker and blocks more than anyone before him.
10. Tom Barden, the Blue Baron - Blue Rush, a dash faster than anyone else’s. More health than anyone, and he barely gives you a moment.

TIPS

• The jab is your safest move. When you aren’t sure, jab. It’s hard to punish, and it’s how you find out whether they’re blocking.
• Mix high and low. An opponent who keeps blocking low can be beaten with an air kick, and one who stands and blocks will fall to a sweep.
• A knockdown is a breather. A sweep or a special puts them on the floor. Use that moment to get to the range you want.
• Health wins on time. If you’re ahead with seconds left, block and let the clock finish the round for you.
• Scoring: each round won is worth a thousand points plus ten for every point of health you have left, and every fight won adds a further two thousand. Your best score is kept in your browser.

BEHIND THE GAME

Lisbon Fury is a love letter to the early-90s street fighter: big characters, a best-of-three, a ladder across a city and a boss at the top of a tower. Both fighters run through exactly the same code, and the only difference is where their instructions come from: your keyboard, or the computer’s opponent logic. That means the computer plays by your rules. It can’t block a sweep standing up any more than you can.

As with every game on the site, there are no sprite sheets. Each fighter is a skeleton of joints posed differently for every move, and then drawn as chunky pixel limbs. Every hitbox is scaled from the same numbers as the body that throws it, so a long-armed fighter really does reach further. Each of the ten stages is a different part of Lisbon, drawn in code from one adjustable street scene with its own palette and landmark: the arch at Praca do Comercio, washing lines in Alfama, cranes at the docks, the tram at Bica, the bridge, the tower at Belem.