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A Gentlemen’s Dispute Review, Where Class Meets Combat

Huge Thanks To Hydrorane for taking the time to talk with me!

For those hearing about A Gentlemens Dispute for the first time, how would you describe it in your own words?

I’d say A Gentlemen’s Dispute is a physics party brawler with elements of conventional party fighting games and roguelike power scaling, with the ability to use the upgrades each round to make a ‘build’ for yourself. Ultimately it mixes the classic physics party brawler formula with tighter controls that allow a surprising amount of depth (combos, tech) that is meant to be fun to play and watch regardless of how seriously you are taking it. And of course in the later rounds you get the insane visuals of throwing tens of grenades or hundreds of traps at once that is really unique to this game.

What inspired the concept and unique style behind the game?

Originally the game was created during the Global Game Jam 2024, where the prompt was ‘Make Me Laugh’. The original idea was a worms-like game where you took turns as distinguished gentlemen, walking up to each other and hitting each other with bats and various objects. It was the contrast of the gentlemenly concept of taking turns in a duel with the visual of a dude in a tux wailing on an another dude with a baseball bat and sending him flying as a ragdoll.

Were there any particular challenges in bringing A Gentlemen’s Dispute to life that surprised you?

There were an enormous amount of challenges in A Gentlemen’s Dispute, none of which were anticipated when we first set out to make it. Honestly if I could go back in time, knowing how hard it is but not knowing whether we could accomplish it, I’m not sure I would have recommended the idea to my past self. The idea of having our studios first title be a PvP online game with complex physics interactions and scaling upgrades was a bit insane. By far the hardest part was making the physics and the netcode work together with performance, since detailed physics, good netcode, and good performance are a delicate balance that even AAA studios struggle with. If the concept was only slightly different (no ragdolls or no scaling perks) it would be dramatically easier, but I also think it wouldn’t have quite the same magic to it, and although it definitely cost me some gray hairs, I’m really proud of how it ended up.

What part of development has been the most fun for you so far?

I think just being able to pick up and play the game as a team each day has been the most fun part for us. It always lifts our spirits when we have a hard couple of days and we playtest and we’re like ‘hey, this game we made is actually pretty fun’. Especially playing with the community in our discord has been a blast. For me personally my favorite part as a developer has been making all the complex interactions work together. Like being able to stick a mine to a possessed prop and float it over to someone, reflecting a rocket back at someone with a slap, or leaping into the ocean and hitting teleswap right before you hit the ground. Seeing that stuff work in real time is awesome.

Do you see A Gentlemen’s Dispute as more of a quick, casual play experience, or something players will dive deeper into, with, let’s say, a competitive mode or ranking system?

I see A Gentlemen’s Dispute as very similar to something like Smash bros in being something you can pick and play with your friends quickly, without needing to pvp someone online or try really hard to have fun. I think that will be the primary audience for the game. But we’ve put a lot of work into the depth of the game and people can get really, really good at it (we’ve gotten our butts kicked in a few public lobbies). I think if theres a big audience for it in the future I could see a more competitive mode as an option, but unfortunately the way the game is designed (peer to peer) makes it very hard to create a balanced competitive environment. It would need a significant rework of the netcode and the funding for dedicated servers before I would be comfortable advertising a proper ‘competitive’ mode to players. That being said playing teams mode when you are taking the game seriously is actually insanely fun so its definitely something in the back of my mind.

Is there a specific feature/addition coming that you are most excited for people to see?

On the horizon the thing im most excited about is more modding support and seeing more community created content in the game. I think A Gentlemen’s Dispute is a really solid platform of mechanics and there are so many directions it could go with new items, map ideas, modes, etc. We are only one small team and theres only so much of that we can explore but with the community being involved I could see things going really interesting places.

If you had unlimited time and resources, what’s one feature you’d love to add?

If I had unlimited time and resources I would probably rework the entire games physics engine into something custom (or something like Unity DOTS) so we could have deterministics physics and real rollback. With normal unity physics we had to cut a lot of corners to make it performant and reliable. There’s a reason most games don’t have networked ragdolls! But if we had done that this game would have taken way too long to make and may have never come out. So its something I’d love to reassess if the game is successful, either for a future overhaul or even a sequel.

What role do you think indie games like yours play in shaping the gaming industry today?

I think we’re seeing a trend in games very similar to what happened in other media like movies and music, where the tools to make games are becoming increasingly accessible (games are still really hard to make so its happening slowly) and its increasingly unnecessary to need massive studios to produce quality work that people will consume. I see indies like us as the beneficiaries of those changes, not necessarily the driving force. But I think the trend will continue. When I see these large studios investing so much money on tens of artists and programmers on these huge projects I get a lot of anxiety thinking how risky that is, especially when I already feel what we are doing is risky with just our small team. The gaming audience is enormous now and its much safer (and healthier for the industry overall in my opinion) to make smaller stuff focused on passionate specific audiences than trying to make huge games that appeal to massive audiences.

So There we go! There are some excellent Answers. They set a brilliant vision of the game and its future. We hope you’ll join us on launch day for some good fun playing the game!

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