Silly, competitive multiplayer games with crazy, over-the-top physics are among my favorite genres on mobile, enough so that I have an entire folder dedicated to them. One of the more underrated titles that fits this mold is Cloud Knights ($1.99) from solo developer Henri Kuismin and his company Astrosnout. I guess the best way to describe Cloud Knights is that it’s a one-on-one fighter based entirely around moving and attacking by rotating your weapon and pushing off the ground to vault yourself around. There’s a learning curve to Cloud Knights but once it clicks it’s an absolute riot. Now Kuismin is back to take on the one-on-one fighting genre again with his upcoming game Mixed Macho Arts. I’ll go ahead and let the trailer for Mixed Macho Arts speak for itself.
Like Cloud Knights, Mixed Macho Arts features a two-button system which causes your character to rotate either clockwise or counterclockwise. Your offense consists of cartwheeling into your opponent but there’s some special moves that can be automatically triggered based on your positioning too. The result is a frantic flail fest that, like similar physics fighting games, has a lot more depth than it appears to have on the surface. It doesn’t hurt that all the fighters have hilarious randomly generated nicknames and are spouting off trash talk dialogue all during the fight. There’s definitely a heavy Smash Bros. vibe here too as your goal is to fling your opponent off of whatever platforms you’re fighting on and into the lava below. Of course, the game also includes same-device multiplayer, which is where these types of games really shine. If you love these games as much as I do, keep your eye out for Mixed Macho Arts when it arrives on June 14th for $1.99.
