Shockwave: Stickman Fight

Shockwave is an offline stickman fight: a hand-drawn beat 'em up where you are one stick figure against a building full of them.

WAVE SURVIVAL, NO UPGRADES TO GRIND

Wave 1 sends one enemy. Wave 2 sends two. Wave 12 sends twelve, and every fifth wave finishes with a boss fight. There is no upgrade screen and nothing to buy - you get better at the fighting game underneath, or you go down.

FIGHT WITH EVERYTHING

Tap ATTACK three times for a punch-punch-kick combo that ends with a launcher. Dash through an attack for invincible frames. Time your block to the incoming hit and you parry it. Grab a staggered enemy and throw him into his friends — a launched body knocks down everyone it hits on the way.

STAMINA IS EARNED, NOT WAITED FOR

Your bar only fills when you land hits. Dashes, blocks and your special are all paid for by fighting, so backing off never recharges you. Fill the bar completely and the SPECIAL button arms: one multi-hit chain that launches whatever it touches.

TEN WEAPONS, ALL OF THEM TEMPORARY

Eight melee weapons plus a bow and a gun lie around the level — bat, sword, spear, hammer, flail, dagger, rock, bottle. Every one has limited uses — a hammer gives you four swings, a gun six bullets, a bow six arrows — and then it becomes a husk you can still throw once. Nothing lasts.

CALL FOR HELP, ONCE A WAVE

Surrounded? Press BUDDY. An ally runs in and fights beside you for 15 seconds. Enemies turn on whoever is nearest, so leading him into a crowd genuinely pulls them off you.

He cannot be killed and he cannot hit you — but he leaves the moment the wave is cleared, so spend him well.

TWO TERRAINS

CLASSIC is a three-storey building with solid floors, staircases and ladders; enemies climb after you. RETRO is a chain of floating islands over open sky, joined by ladders and a rope bridge — and there, falling off the bottom kills. It kills them too, so a well-aimed launcher is a kill on its own. Each terrain keeps its own high score.

DIE AND CARRY ON

Losing does not send you back to wave 1. CONTINUE puts you straight back into the wave that killed you with your score intact, as many times as you like.

BUILT TO FEEL GOOD

Every figure is drawn from scratch every frame — no sprite sheets — so the poses hit hard and read clearly. Impacts freeze the screen for a beat, a double kill drops into slow motion, bodies ragdoll and settle, and blood pools where it lands.

PLAYS OFFLINE, ASKS FOR NOTHING

No account. No internet connection. No ads. No in-app purchases. Nothing is collected about you — the only thing saved is your high score, on your own device. Play this stickman brawler on a plane, on the subway, anywhere signal doesn't reach.

CONTROLS

On-screen stick and buttons on phones and tablets, in landscape. Full keyboard support if you plug one in: A/D to move, W to jump, J attack, K special, L dash, S block, E grab, Q throw, F buddy