Our complete strategy guide to Punch Club for iPhone/iPad will help you to build up your fighter into the ultimate warrior, as well as pointing out hidden secrets and quick-win tips for beating the leagues and unlocking the best skills.
Punch Club Walkthrough
Punch Club is a fighter sim/tycoon style game where you take the reins of an aspiring fighter with a troubled past. You direct his training and lifestyle as you progress through his career as an amateur fighter and unravel a mysterious storyline. The fighting mechanics are automated, but you guide your fighter's progress and tactics. Genre: Tycoon / Fighting sim / Strategy. Released: January, 2016. Train hard, fight crocodiles and find love. Earn your place in the Punch Club ranks,. Punch Club is a boxing tycoon management game with multiple branching storylines. Your goal is clear, but how you get there depends on whether you want to legitimately climb the rankings, or take the more ridiculous, shady route. Along the way, you'll want to focus your talents. Punch Club is a boxing tycoon management game with multiple branching story lines. Your goal is clear, but how you get there depends on whether you want to legitimately climb the rankings, or take. London Club Excellent value. A friend of mine gave me my first one of these and I had to sign up with JR's and get 2 boxes for myself. And the free pack of 5 Punch Rothschilds that came with them is a great cigar as well. 4 5 1 July 12, 2016 Keith L.
Punch Club is at its heart a simple grinder, but managing your money and time while climbing the fighting leagues can be a challenging prospect – and possibly either fun or frustrating, depending on your strategy.
Punch Club: The Basics
Tip one: Your main stats
In the top left corner you’ll find your health, hunger, happiness and energy meters. You’ll need to keep a close eye on these as they’re incredibly important for training, working and fighting.
Health: This is vital when it comes to fighting. If your health is below maximum, that will directly impact how many hit points you have going into each battle. Your health takes a knock after every bout, so make sure you get some rest before your next sparring session to bring it back up again.
Hunger: If this reaches zero, you won’t be able to work or train. Stock up on meat at the local convenience store to fill up the hunger meter – it’ll take a couple of meals to boost it back up to max from empty. Note that hunger has no apparent effect on your fighting abilities.
Happiness: When your happiness dips below the halfway point, any training you do will be less effective. Thankfully you get a happiness boost every time you win a fight, which should keep you topped up most of the time. However, happiness will also drop when you work hard or lose a bout, in which case you can boost it back up by tapping on the sofa back at your house to chill out and get a mental health boost. Remember, you only need to get this above the halfway mark to make a difference.
Energy: Like your Hunger levels, you won’t be able to work or train if your energy levels hit rock bottom. Boost it by sleeping, or with a few energy drinks if you have no time to waste and plenty of cash in the bank. Note that if you get your resource management in check, you should never have to rely on energy drinks.
Tip two: Explore the map
First off, it’s important to explore Punch Club’s world and familiarise yourself with all of the different locations and what they have to offer. You won’t be able to go many places at first, but after the first five minutes the map will start to open up a bit.
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Your home is a key location for boosting all of your main stats, as well as training to improve your fighting stats (Strength, Agility and Stamina). You can train up your fighter in your garage using whatever equipment you’ve bought from the Sporting Goods Store, get some well deserved rest by tapping your makeshift bed (which boosts your Energy and Health rating but also lowers your Hunger rating) and eat some food by tapping your fridge, to boost your Hunger rating back up. There’s also a TV to kick back with, which boosts your happiness rating if needed.
If you’re ever low on cash and desperately need food, don’t forget to head to Mick’s place. He’ll sort you out with a free meal that boosts your Hunger meter by half.
The Convenience Store is your one-stop shop for food. Stock up on steaks every chance you get, you’ll burn through them quick when training.
You can spar at the local gym, which is an easy way of earning some points to spend on your skill trees. However, this costs a bit of cash, so you’ll want to befriend Roy as soon as he approaches you (more on this in the ‘story progression’ section). You can then spar for free, to save valuable cash.
The building site and pizza joint are your main sources of income at the start of the game, a way to quickly top up between matches. Don’t worry, you’ll soon move onto bigger and better things.
Finally, the Sporting Goods Store is the place to go for equipment to build up your gym. You only have four items to choose from and which ones are best for you will depend on your chosen skill specialty. See below for more info.
Punch Club: Successful fighter skills and stats
The most vital thing to realise early on is that you can’t waste your time trying to upgrade all three fighting stats (strength, agility and stamina). Not only is there not enough time, but you won’t be able to fully unlock more than one skill tree without insane amounts of grinding. And remember, a jack of all trades is a master of none.
Tip one: Pick a specialty
After you fully unlock Punch Club’s basic skill tree, which gives you basic moves and general skills, you’ll need to choose a specialty. The three options are:
Way of the bear: Imagine Ivan Dravo. With this route you rely on big, powerful attacks, while soaking up damage like a tank. The core skill to build up is strength, with a bit of stamina on the side.
Way of the turtle: Defense is the key here. You can block with the best, soak up the odd bit of punishment and counter-attack to take your opponent off-guard. Stamina is the core skill, followed by strength.
Way of the tiger: You’re a fleet-footed fighter who can dance and dodge away from danger, striking with light attacks to wear down your opponent. Agility is the core skill, followed by stamina to keep energy levels up.
Personally I chose the Way of the tiger, which I found an easy route for progressing through the story and winning the various leagues/competitions. Most enemies will rarely land a solid blow and if you unlock the Backlash skill in the way of the tiger tree, you’ll reflect a quarter of their damage back at them with each successful block.
After 100 fights with this strategy, I’d lost just 8 – and none of those losses were an arse kicking.
Tip two: Build up your gym and train well
Which route you decide to pursue will determine which gym equipment you need to buy from the Sporting Goods Store. The old bench boosts your strength, the small punching bag is for your agility and the treadmill boosts your stamina. You also have the wing chun, which gives you half as much agility as the small punching bag, while also topping up your strength and stamina.
My personal strategy involved buying the small punching bag, treadmill and wing chun. Each session, I would hit the small punching bag until my fighter got bored, then I’d attack the wing chun. This ensures my agility was maxed out, while also helping to boost my strength and stamina a little. If I had any energy and time left, I would then hit the treadmill to bump up my stamina.
Make sure you train at least every two to three days, or your stats will quickly diminish. You can also unlock skills which prevent your stats from dropping below a certain level, which comes in handy early on when time management can be tough.
Tip three: Get involved with the league fights early on
As soon as you can, get fighting in the Rookie League. You might lose the odd battle, but each fight gives you vital points to spend in the skills trees and a victory nets you cash and happiness. Between each fight, train as hard as you can and occasionally head to the building site to top up your funds if needed.
Punch Club: Story progression
Tip one: Beat the thugs
When you start the game, you’ll be attacked by annoying thugs when travelling about the map. They’re basically pushovers, so don’t bother paying up your hard-earned cash or legging it.
Beat enough of them down and you’ll be introduced to their boss, the wonderfully-monikered Big Bobo. He’ll sort you out with an easy protection racket gig, earning £100 every three days with no effort required. Just remember to head back each time to earn more cash.
Eventually you’ll be introduced to the Don, who can throw even more cash your way – once you beat the Rookie League and earn your license.
Tip two: Pepperoni perfection
It’s worth delivering some pizzas to open up the ‘special pizza’ mission (which usually take about five or six complete deliveries). Ask Casey the owner about his spiced pizza and you’ll be asked (eventually) to deliver a special order to the sewers.
Down here, you’ll have to defeat a foe based on a certain popular comic and cartoon series. Defeat him and you’ll get some much-needed skill points. You can repeat this three more times, but be sure to leave it a little while between each fight and train up – the opponents get very tough, very quickly.
Tip three: BFFs and a special lady
When you start to advance in the Rookie League, a friendly chap called Roy will try to befriend you. Accept and you can visit his house, where he’ll promptly take advantage by demanding that you fix up his knackered old car. The cad.
Accept, and then bash away at his engine for a little while before attempting to speak with him again. He’ll tell you to chill with him, so take a seat and drink beer until he says something about how great it tastes. Then you can spar with him (which gives you skill points) or train with him (which helps to boost your stats even faster).
Unfortunately you’ll have to repeat this rigmarole every time you wish to spar or train, but Roy does also introduce you to his sister and allows you to woo her as much as you like, which involves finding five flowers. Here’s a hint: the first is right there on Roy’s garden. Cheeky.
Tip four: Hard of hearing
At one point you’ll have to sort out a noise pollution issue in the trailer park, asking Big Bobo to turn down his stereo. The problem is, he’s a little deaf and needs a new hearing aid first. Where can you find the hearing aid? Well, luckily the owner of the Sporting Goods Store happens to have a spare one, which he’ll give to you for free. How lovely.
Read next: Our Punch Club review
Punch Club Free Play
| Punch Club | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Lazy Bear Games |
| Publisher(s) | tinyBuild |
| Engine | Unity |
| Platform(s) | |
| Release | Microsoft Windows, OS X, iOS, AndroidNintendo 3DS
|
| Genre(s) | Sporting management simulation |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Punch Club (originally titled VHS Story) is a sporting management simulation developed by Lazy Bear Games and published by tinyBuild. In the game, the player manages an upcoming boxer in training and preparation for a series of boxing matches at a local club, while searching for clues of who killed their father. The game was developed as a humorous take on action films of the 1980s and 1990s. The game was released in January 2016 for Microsoft Windows, OS X, iOS, and Android, following a Twitch Plays Pokémon-style event on Twitch. A Nintendo 3DS port of the game was announced in a September 2016 Nintendo Direct for release in January 2017 after some delays.[1] Ports for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One were released on March 31, 2017. A Nintendo Switch version was released on May 24, 2018.
Gameplay[edit]
The player controls an unnamed boxer whose father, who helped to train him, was murdered. The boxer aims to continue his training and become the best boxer at a local league, while following clues to lead him to who killed his father. The player manages the boxer around the clock through various locations in a city, including his home, the boxing gym, stores, and his work place. Time progresses when the player is involved in any activity, including moving between these locations.
The boxer character has three primary attributes that contribute towards his skill in boxing and how other boxers are compared: strength, agility, and stamina. These attributes start at one but can be increased by performing various activities, such as exercising or going to work. However, performing these activities will wear away at other attributes, including hunger, alertness, and happiness, and if these attributes are too low, some activities may not be available. These lesser attributes can be regained through eating, sleeping, and other events, though the main boxing attributes will slowly degrade with game time. The boxer will gain friends or other associates over the course of the game which will help also lead the character towards resolving the mystery of his father's murder, perform new activities to help raise the primary attributes, or aid in boosting the lesser attributes. Further, many activities require in-game money, which the player earns through performing work or by winning boxing matches. Thus, the player must determine how to balance the character's activities with the limited in-game time to maintain sufficiently high boxing attributes as to advance up in the boxing ranks. The game has a quest system, but many quests are optional.[2] The game has several possible endings, depending on choices players make.
When the player opts to send the character into a fight, or when the character is forced to fight, the game then allows the player to equip the boxer with a limited number of boxing skills that they have learned to that point including punches, kicks, and blocks; these skills can be swapped out between boxing rounds and these kicks and punches crushes enemy stamina and help occupy a limited number of slots, which brings in a smart, simple and strategic layer to Punch Club.[3] Opponents will also have a similar set of skills, which the player can examine between rounds. Some skills require the player to have a high enough primary attribute to be used, while the effect of others is based on the value of these attributes. Once the player has selected these skills, the round is executed automatically by the computer during the next round. The moves for each fighter during the round are randomly drawn from those selected. The goal is to reduce the health of the opponent to zero before the boxer's is reduced, or before twenty rounds are completed, in which a decision is made by the game as to who won the match. New skills are gained as the player completes more of the game, making them a more adept fighter.
Punch Club Mods
The game itself is written with numerous references to 80s and 90s fighting movies, including references to the Rocky films, Fight Club, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and other works.[4]
Story[edit]
During the boxer's childhood, his father was murdered by an unidentified gunman wearing a trench coat in an alley. The orphaned boxer is adopted by a police officer named Frank until the boxer hits adulthood. While attempting to look for work, the boxer gets beaten in a street fight. Witnessing the boxer's potential, an old man named Mick approaches him and guides the boxer into training at a local gym owned by Silver. The boxer undergoes training and participates in a minor boxing league as well as an underground fight club. While participating in the matches, the man in the trench coat, identified as 'the man in black' was briefly seen by the boxer. The owner of the underground fight club explains to the boxer that the man in black is looking for the best fighters to compete in a tournament on a remote island. Depending on the player's actions, the boxer can follow one of the two paths: One is to participate in a boxing championship tournament to gain a professional fighting card, or to fully complete the underground fighting circuit in order to curry favor for a local crime boss named Don.
The story diverges based on the player's choices. If the boxer completed the championship, the boxer sustains an injury, prompting fellow competitor Roy Jackson to fight in the boxer's place. However, Roy is killed while fighting a Russian fighter, prompting the boxer to fight in Russia after recovering. If the boxer completed the underground ring, he is incarcerated after a failed black market deal, and fights for his release after participating in prison fights. Regardless of the path taken, the player learns from a friend of Mick's that the boxer's father was in possession of a medallion, and that the father had split it into two halves with disastrous consequences. During the night of the father's murder, one of the father's friends is accused of committing the murder and imprisoned despite coming across the father's dead body.
Shortly after completing the fight in Russia or the prison, the boxer builds up his reputation as a fighter by either working under Din Kong as a professional boxer, or as an enforcer for Don's criminal organization. Shortly after beating the champions of the respective path, the boxer is invited to the man in black's island, with the final fighter determined by the boxer's chosen path. If the professional fighter route is taken, the boxer fights the underground fight club owner, revealed to be the boxer's brother. If working under Don's wing was taken, the boxer fights a blue-colored ninja (as a reference to Sub-Zero). Shortly after beating the final fighter, the man in black reveals himself to be the boxer's father as the game ends.
Development[edit]
Punch Club was initially developed by the Russia-based, three-person Lazy Bear Studios under the name VHS Story, which stood for Video Hero Super Story.[2] Sviatoslav Cherkasov, one of the developers, said that their whole team, in 2015, were around thirty years old, and had grown up around Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Genesis titles, cartoons like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and action movies of the 80s and 90s distributed at that time on VHS tapes from stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, and Jean-Claude Van Damme.[2] As fans of strategy games, they sought to combine these features, coming up with what they considered to be a Street Fighter manager, inspired by the story of the Rocky movies.[2]
For the fighting portion of the game, the studio found that having the player lack direct control of their boxer fit well with their tycoon game. The selection of moves made it similar to the strategy required for collectible card games, giving the player ways to adjust their strategy based on how well their boxer matched with a competitor even during the course of a fight.[2] Further, as the player lacked interaction during the boxing rounds, the player will be able to watch the fight, which they believed was more entertaining.[2] For the larger game, they did not want to have a story-driven title, and made most of the quests optional.[2]
The game entered its alpha release in December 2014, with original plans to release on Microsoft Windows, but with the potential for other platforms due to the cross-platform Unity engine.[2][5] To help fund the game, the developers looked to spur pre-release sales in addition to other funding sources, and used Steam's Greenlight feature to gauge interest in the game.[2] The Greenlight process in January 2015 successfully approved the game for release on Steam within five days, one of the fastest Greenlit games on the service.[6] At the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2015, tinyBuild announced that they would be helping to publish the game, now titled Punch Club, for Windows and mobile platforms.[7]
To release the game, tinyBuild created an event similar to the Twitch Plays Pokémon social gaming events, in which the viewers on their Twitch channel can enter commands to control the game's character, with the mass numbers of viewers often giving conflicting commands to make for humorous events in game. The 'Twitch Plays Punch Club' event was started on January 7, 2016, promising viewers that once they completed the game, they would release the title, or otherwise release the title on January 25, 2016 regardless. The viewers of the event successfully completed the game in 36 hours, and as promised, the game was officially released on January 9.[8]
In February 2016, Lazy Bear and tinyBuild announced the game had sold over 250,000 copies across all platforms, with over $2 million in revenue. As a result, they announced plans to release in March 2016 a free expansion, 'The Dark Fist', along with improvements to the game, including integration with Twitch to allow players to bet virtual currency on fights which can unlock additional in-game content, and saves that work cross-platform.[9]
tinyBuild's Netherlands studio helped to port the game to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, which were released on March 31, 2017.[10] It was also ported to the Nintendo Switch which was released on May 24, 2018.[11]
Reception[edit]
Punch Club currently has a Metacritic aggregate score of 73/100 from 30 reviews.[12]
By March 2016, Alex Nichiporchik of tinyBuild who published Punch Club, reported that the game has sold more than 300,000 copies, but also have reported piracy of the title exceeding 1.6 million units.[13]Punch Club was one of the disputed titles in the controversy on the legitimacy of key-reselling by the online store G2A.[14]
References[edit]
- ^Nintendaan. 'Punch Club Will Be Arriving On North American 3DS eShop Next Week'. Go Nintendo. Retrieved January 11, 2017.
- ^ abcdefghiPriestman, Chris (February 6, 2015). 'Interview: Trading Blows, Remembering The 80s/90s With The VHS Story Creators'. Siliconera. Retrieved February 23, 2016.
- ^Dyer, Mitch (January 15, 2016). 'Punch Club Review'. IGN. Retrieved February 11, 2019.
- ^Koziara, Andrew (January 22, 2016). ''Punch Club' Review - A Gut Punch of Nostalgia'. Touch Arcade. Retrieved February 23, 2016.
- ^Priestman, Chris (December 6, 2014). 'Manage Your Own Streetfighter In The Nostalgic VHS Story'. Siliconera. Retrieved February 23, 2016.
- ^Cherkasov, Sviatoslav (January 30, 2015). 'How to get greenlit in 5 days'. Gamasutra. Retrieved February 23, 2016.
- ^'Punch Club, the 90s boxing tycoon E3 Demo is right here'. Gamasutra (Press release). June 22, 2015. Retrieved February 23, 2016.
- ^Dingman, Hayden (January 9, 2016). 'Twitch Played Punch Club And Got A Girlfriend'. Rock Paper Shotgun. Retrieved February 23, 2016.
- ^'Punch Club crosses $2m in sales, is getting 'free DLC' in The Dark Fist expansion' (Press release). Gamasutra. February 23, 2016. Retrieved February 23, 2016.
- ^Yin-Poole, Wesley (March 28, 2017). 'Steam hit Punch Club launches on consoles this Friday'. Eurogamer. Retrieved March 28, 2017.
- ^Craddock, Ryan (May 16, 2018). 'Boxing Simulator Punch Club Aims For A Knockout On Switch Next Week'. Nintendo Life. Retrieved May 20, 2018.
- ^'Punch Club (pc)'. Metacritic. Retrieved February 23, 2016.
- ^Wawro, Alex (March 21, 2016). 'Punch Club surpasses 300k copies sold -- and 1.6 million pirated'. Gamasutra. Retrieved March 21, 2016.
- ^Yin-Poole, Wesley (June 23, 2016). 'G2A and tinyBuild's row over PC game key reselling gets ugly'. Eurogamer. Retrieved March 28, 2017.
Punch Club Free Download