Stikbold & The Beautiful: '70s-Styled Dodgeball With Whales

Local multiplayer games seemed a frustrating shame until recently: I'd see a cool art style or neat idea and then discover that I could only play it if I had people around my house. I hate having people around my house, because that's where I store the evidence. But then Nidhogg, Gang Beasts and Towerfall happened and I had a gang of folks whose houses I could visit, and so Stikbold, a 1-6 player local multiplayer dodgeball game with colour, humour, and whale-based bossfights seems like an extremely enticing prospect.

This is the GIF that made me want to post about the game. The power of just a few, funny moments of animation:

That's from a scene coming in a new, as yet unreleased trailer, but there's also this older footage from back in May which is similarly joyous:

The game began as a 48-hour project for the Nordic Game Jam 2013, where it was award "Most Fun" by the 400+ other participants at the event. That seemed encouragement enough for Danish developers Reign Bros to expand on the idea, which includes making a singleplayer story mode for those, like me, who think of their homes as fortresses of solitude. Or fortresses of solitude + immediate family, technically.

The estimated release date for the game? "1976!" says the Reign Bros. site, as if after our own hearts. "Summer 2014" says the presskit, more practically.