The Real Belt

Update:

The progression screen got reworked for mobile. Each powerup node is only an overview until it is clicked. A dialog then offers detailed choices. The powerups can now also apply to cards as well as to Dirk. They appear on the cards (with tooltips) like this:

The tiny blue dot in the bottom left indicates it is repeated. That's a +2 (S)trength. boost.

The Real Belt

You are Dirk "The Upright", an aging journeyman boxer chasing former glories, spurred on by your fast approaching 40th birthday. Under British boxing rules, you will become ineligible to compete.

You boxed for fitness, for beer money, for pride – while office work paid the bills. When the office work went to AI, you went back to manual labour. It feels like a second youth – except for the baggage of decades on the journeyman circuit.

You’ve got drawers full of nothing-belts: colleges, amateurs, charity shows. None of them count. Now there’s one chance at the Southern Area belt before the licence runs out.

Help Dirk win one real belt, then walk away from the only sport he ever loved.

Music and some SFX by Hannon Hawkes (now fixed to synchronize to in-game hallucination)

How to play

Open the rule book. It's basically pontoon, with power-ups/buffs, and custom decks if you make it that far. Truth be told, I didn't get around to implementing card powerups, only personal stat boosts, and deck modifications. I had plans to make some of the gains appear on cards, but alas the deck is left pretty much unaltered.

Modifying the deck is fun, but so too is boosting your game with powerups.

Click around the screen, hover to find out what is what. Be brave!

The damage system of (S)trength and (T)oughness is a little unusual. It was modelled on games a played a long time ago. I show one row in the rules above. Here is the rest:

Your strength determines your row, opponent's toughness is the column, the grid content is the damage.