The golden days of the arcade may be long gone, but some games still fondly remember the era where games were all about challenge, risk and frantic action. Developed by Dave Parsons of Confused Pelican and published by Curve Digital, Iron Fisticle is one of those games, and it’s out now on Steam for less than a roll of quarters.
Designed by one of the programmers of Curve’s own Stealth Inc and featuring the artistic work from Dugan Jackson, artist on the original Stealth Bastard, Iron Fisticle joins the growing Curve Digital catalogue alongside games like Thomas Was Alone, Swapper and Proteus.
An arena shooter in the style of classic games like Robotron and Smash TV, with graphics inspired by everything from Gauntlet to Ghosts ‘n Goblins, Iron Fisticle is all about taking what made old arcade games great and giving them a modern twist with an emphasis on replayability and depth.
The game has all the action and emphasis on high scores of a pure arcade game, but it also has hundreds of collectable items, a permanent upgrade system that persists through multiple games, and procedurally generated dungeons.
Iron Fisticle can be picked up in seconds, but like all great arcade games it’s much more difficult to master. Enemies, chests and bonus stages allow the player to pick up coins and spend them on a variety of permanent and temporary upgrades for your character. The game forces you to make quick decisions, taking the risk to jump into a crowd of enemies for that last coin or important weapon drop.
Iron Fisticle also seeks to bring back the lost art of playing with a friend, with a full local co-op mode and separate co-op leaderboards. With fully configurable and bindable controls, you can play via keyboard, controller or even an arcade stick.
Iron Fisticle is available on Steam for £5.99 / $8.99 with a 10% launch discount.