Tactical card brawler Fights In Tight Spaces now has a free demo

Alright, I'll show my hand. I do not like card games. Yet somehow, when developers toss the concept of cards into types of games that don't normally have them, I'm interested. So it is with Fights In Tight Spaces, which I was quite taken by when it was first announced. If you're one for tactical fisticuffs, you can go dish out some deck-based brawling of your own in the free prologue version (read: demo) of the game right now.

I booted the demo up to check it out and can confirm that this is one that'll put the ol' hamster wheel in my head to the test. The demo includes a training scenario to introduce the rules of momentum and movement and combos before chucking you into the first level. It looks like each mission will take you through multiple fights in a few different small spaces. I dropped into the first mission and doled out some beatdowns in a bathroom before choosing to move on to an alleyway (instead of a second bathroom) for my second fight.

It's good fun, though I admit I didn't put as much thought into each move as I'd have liked, being on the clock and all. I wound up dying in the alleyway when I put myself in poor position, running out of movement cards while standing in front of a fella with a gun.

Everything is handled by the cards in your deck, movement included. Some cards will combine an attack and movement like my "front kick" card which lets me either deal damage to an enemy directly in front of me and push them back, or move one tile towards an enemy to kick them. Other cards build your momentum so you can squeeze in some extra actions on your turn. Some help you shove enemies into walls or in front of their pals with guns who may wind up shooting them.

I've had a nice time with it so far and I suspect that both the environmental hazards and my deck will grow more complex in later levels. For now, I'm just learning to manage dancing around these dastardly goons without getting shot.

You can find the Fights In Tight Spaces (Prologue) over on Steam. If you've got your eye on the final version, that's on its own Steam page.

Fights In Tight Spaces didn't manage to squeeze into 2020 as it had originally planned, now expected to launch in early access in early 2021