What Punch Planet is
Punch Planet is a 2D fighting game set across exotic planets, advanced cities, and alien races. You pick a character and fight in classic 1v1 matches, either against a friend or against the CPU. The game is in Early Access, built by three longtime competitors who wanted solid competitive mechanics alongside story, humor, and design. The story follows Roy, an undercover Detective for the Luna PD, who is framed for a high profile murder and must travel to Planet K-0, known as Punch Planet, to track down the real murderer and clear his name. Arcade mode includes animated cutscenes that carry that story forward.
Playing together
The core of the game is versus play. Local Versus Mode lets you and a friend share a screen and fight each other directly. Online Versus Mode uses official GGPO rollback netcode for matches over the internet, and the official Punch Planet Discord is used for community matchmaking. There are also Player Lobbies where you can gather, spectate matches, and jump into casual matchmaking. If someone in your group wants to watch before playing, spectating is available. Remote Play Together is supported, so a friend can join your session from their own setup.
Before you start
There are 9 playable characters and 5 stages available now, with 1 new character coming soon. Training Mode is deep: it includes hit box viewers, a frame data overlay, dummy recording, reversal options, state saving, and CPU control, so you can drill specific situations before taking them online. Trials and Arcade Mode give you single player work when nobody else is on. Two meters matter in matches. The TC Meter powers Time Canceling, which lets you jump back up to 1 second into the past to correct a mistake, opening up mechanics like Double Time Canceling, Jump Time Canceling, and Absorb Time Canceling. The E-Meter spends 1 stock for an enhanced version of a character's unique attack, and 2 or more stocks together execute a powerful Advanced Attack. Since the game is Early Access, expect the feature set to grow over time.