This article is about the gameplay in Indie Pogo.
Movement
Jumping
In Indie Pogo, the playable fighters are auto-jumping as soon as they touch the ground. This was the primary development decision, and every other mechanic has been built around this gimmick. Auto-jumping keeps the pacing of a match always in motion.
Air Jump
Additionally, all characters are able to perform an air jump while in the air. This allows players to get on top of their enemies and thus having an advantage, as well as recovery when falling offstage.
Dodge
When in midair, fighters are able to dodge, and be invicible during a few frames. They can dodge in place, or in any direction. Dodging upward can add a bit of recovery. Dodging puts fighters in helpless state, where they cannot do anything until they touch an opponent or the ground.
Parkour
On the ground, players are able to use the parkour button to stand or crouch on the ground. Inputting a direction allow the character to roll. Releasing the button will stop the parkour. Pressing the jump button mid-roll performs a rolling leap. Parkour can be inputted near walls to wallslide and walljump.
Attacks
Pogo Attack
The main way of attacking in Indie Pogo is by Pogo attacking. When ending on top of a foe, players are able to damage the opponent and jumping off them. Pogo Attacking resets your attacks, dodge, and air jump. You can Pogo Attack after a dodge. Unless otherwise stated in their page, a character's pogo attack deals 3 damage (or 4 if the character used is Fishy).
After Dodging, the Pogo Attack hitbox gets bigger but thinner. This lasts after the character touches the ground two times, and is present when jump after touching the ground a first time.
Rolling leap
Rolling leap is performed when jumping out of a roll. When entering on contact with a foe, it does 4 damage. Jump button can be held to keep the momentum and the hitbox active.
Walljump
Walljump works similarly as the rolling leap, but is slower and is performed on a wall.
Grabs and throws
This sections talks about beta branch content not yet released in the main game. Informations within this section are subject to change during development.
Grabs are a new mechanic introduced in Beta 0.0.0.2. They are accessed through multiple ways. The first way is by pogoing on an opponent's head and pressing the parkour button. The second way is by dodging on an opponent in knockback or tumbling state. The last way is by using parkour in midair to perform an aimable grab action. Parkour can be used to grab an opponent regardless of if they are in knockback or tumbling state, but is overall slower, punishable and covers less range.
When grabbing, a player can press either dodge, parkour or attack to throw the opponent. A player can throw their opponent in any direction. Holding this button will charge the throw, increasing its knockback. An enemy thrown into a solid surface will receive between 2 to 6 damage depending on the charge.
When a player is grabbed, mashing any button will get them out of it.
Other attacks
Main article: Fighters
Every character can perform attacks using the attack button and a directional input, in the air or on the ground.
Neutral Aerial: An attack that deals damage around the fighter/that can be angled to the sides.
Up Aerial: An attack or a movement angled upward, useful for recovery and damaging enemies trying to Pogo.
Down Aerial: An attack or a movement angled downward, useful for doing combos after a Pogo Attack.
Grounded Charge: A move performed on the ground, that grows in power when charged.
SUPER: A unique super attack, performed with its dedicated button. Super needs five Gems to be activated. Most SUPERs will get a character out of hitstun, effectively breaking a combo.
Pogo Combo and Gems
The Pogo Combo is the main combo mechanic of Indie Pogo. Instead of counting the number of hits that a fighter could land on an stunned opponent like in most fighter games, Pogo Combo counts the number of hits a fighter can land before touching the ground. After two hits, the Pogo Combo displays a "1". This number corresponds to the number of Gems that the player will earn when touching the ground. If an enemy attacks the fighter before they could land on the ground, the Pogo Combo is lost. When a player touches the ground with an active Pogo Combo, it disappears, transforming into Gems. Five Gems are needed to execute a Super. At the start of a match, every fighter receives 2 Gems.
Unique traits
In Indie Pogo, some characters possess a unique mechanic no other character has. Here is a list of all these unique traits.
CommanderVideo: After doing a Pogo Combo of 3, he activates the Rainbow Trail, which buffs most of his moves. Holding up spawns an Orange paddle above him that deflects projectile.
Fishy: Their Pogo Attack deals 4 damage instead of 3. Their air jump goes higher but cannot be immediatly interrupted by a dodge.
Jack: He can hover by holding the Jump button.
Shovel Knight: By holding down, he can use his titular Shovel Drop attack to bounce off the ground or foes.
Velocispider: His Grounded Charge and Neutral Aerial share the same charge.
Viridian: Their air jump inverts their gravity, allowing them to go really high.
Welltaro: His air jump allows him to fire up to 8 bullets out of his Gunboots for extra hang time, slowing his descent, or dealing damage.
Advanced techniques
Quick Jump
A Quick Jump, or Squat-cancelling, is performed when landing on the ground. Inputting jump during the Jumpsquat animation will cancel the Jumpsquat, allowing characters to jump faster. This technique doesn't consume the air jump. This technique is helpful for characters with long Jumpsquat animation, such as Fishy. Quick Jump is universal and works with every character.
Teching
After taking a hit and being in knockback or tumbling animation, instead of falling flat on the ground, the parkour button can be pressed right before hitting the ground to instantly get in standing position and recovering from a fall. This technique is hard because the window to input the parkour button is very small.
Quick Roll
Pressing the parkour button and holding either side when landing on the ground cancels the jumpsquat animation and bypasses the crouch animation, allowing the character to instantly roll.
Rolldancing
Rolldancing is a technique that lets the player crouch or roll immediately after ending a roll on the ground. To do this, a player has to first cancel their landing with a quick roll. After this, releasing the parkour button and immediately pressing it again will let the player crouch, and the player can roll again or do any other actions possible out of crouch. A player can usually only roll twice when rolldancing. However, this technique can be extended by rolling off a platform and landing on another one.
Keeping Parkour momentum
Some characters can use a specific move during a rolling leap or a wall jump and keep the momentum gained at the same time. This is beneficial for certain characters such as Viridian.
List of all the moves that can keep Parkour momentum:
Penelope's Down Aerial (only on startup frames)
Shovel Knight's Shovel Drop
Velocispider's Neutral Aerial
Viridian's Neutral Aerial, Up Aerial and Down Aerial
Welltaro's Neutral Aerial and Up Aerial (only on startup frames)
Zorbié's Down Aerial (only on startup frames)
Dodgerolling
Dodgerolling allows players to dodge into the ground and then start rolling almost immediately. To do it, the player must dodge into the ground, wait for a very short number of frames after touching the ground and then try to roll. This bypasses the jumpsquat and crouching animations in the same way in which a Quick Roll does, allowing players to dodge into the ground instead of falling all the way so players can get into a roll faster.
Dodgedancing
Dodgedancing allows players to roll in one direction, turn around very quickly and start rolling in the other direction. Dodgedancing is faster than Rolldancing when turning around and also lets players turn around multiple times per roll, whereas Rolldancing only allows players to turn around once, or twice if they fall off a platform after starting their roll. Dodgedancing is performed by doing a rolling leap, dodging into the ground, waiting a few frames after touching the ground and then trying to roll in the opposite direction, however the player can choose to keep rolling in the same direction after Dodgedancing as well.
Gallery
Trivia
- Earning Gems when landing on the ground after a combo is a mechanic taken straight from Downwell. In Indie Pogo, Welltaro's Super is Gem High, a mode that also activates when collecting Gems in Downwell.
- Quick Rolling is the result of an early implementation of the Rolling mechanic. When it was first implemented, rolling was either based on timing (with the window of the Quick Roll) or a set-distance roll if initiated while in Standing position. Rolling was then changed to be non-stop no matter what, but the timing-based roll still exists and thus results into the Quick Rolling technique.
- Quick Jumping was thought to be discovered by players, but Trevor Lowe talked about it prior to this "discovery". This technique is also taught by the Shopkeeper.
- When the hazards are turned on, Bouncy Castle replicates the Quick Jump automatically each time a character lands on the ground.
- The dodge mechanic is inspired by the dodge in Jack the Reaper, where the user spins and becomes invulnerable.