The Kickstarter
A stick figure fighting game where every frame is traced by hand.
Free on iPhone and Android. Five attacks and a block are playable today. The campaign funds the next twenty-four moves, and every one of them arrives free for everyone.
- Platform
- iPhone, Android
- Price
- Free, forever
- Playable now
- 5 attacks, 1 block
- Goal
- $12,000
Be told the hour it goes live
Day one decides a campaign. The list gets the link before anyone else, and nothing else.
One mail when the campaign opens. No date is set yet, and we will not invent one.
Proof first
What exists today
Most campaigns in this genre open on a trailer for a game nobody has played. Here is the state of this one, in numbers you can check on this site before you decide anything.
| Thing | Where it is |
|---|---|
| Five attacks and a block | Playable. Straight, uppercut, front kick, jump kick, sweep. Every one is on this site frame by frame, with the contact frame marked. |
| Forty-six moves traced | Drawn and checked. Twenty-two are going into the game. The other twenty-four are the bench, and that is what this campaign is for. |
| The knockout | Done. Time drops to a fifth at the moment of contact, the camera pushes in, and the fall is five authored poses on a ballistic arc. |
| Touch controls | Done. Six buttons and a stick, running on a phone. |
| Still to build | The belt ladder end to end, sound polish, device testing across cheap Android hardware, and the twenty-four moves. |
Why this one
Three things that are actually different
1. Every frame is drawn, not generated
A move starts as reference footage. Each pose is traced by hand onto twelve points and checked back against the footage until the timing reads right. The game plays those drawings exactly as drawn, with no smoothing in between. That is why the weight reads, and it is also why this is slow and why the campaign exists.
2. A block that changes the fight
Most games in this genre are ragdoll physics and a jump button. This one has startup, active and recovery frames per move, a block that costs you something to hold, and recovery you can be punished for. Six inputs, real decisions.
3. Free, on the phone you already have
The closest comparable game to this one raised over a million dollars in 2025. It ships in 2028, on PC and console, and the loudest request under its own updates is a mobile version it is not getting.
We are mobile first, free to play, and arriving sooner. The fight is never behind a paywall, and no reward on this page changes that.
Rewards
Nothing here sells you the game
The game is free, so every tier sells something else: being early, being named, being in it, or a piece of the production line itself. All of it is digital, so there is no shipping to anywhere and no country is excluded. The top tiers are built in the first month, not the last.
Your name on the founder wall, on this site and in the game's credits. Wallpapers from the traced poses.
The beta before the public. The Founder Belt, black with a gold stitch, worn in every fight and every clip you record, never sold after launch. No interstitial ads, for life.
Plus everything above.
Every skin in season one, not just the founder one. Exclusive colour palettes. And a real vote on which of the twenty-four unbuilt moves gets traced next, counted in public.
Plus everything above.
Up to twelve characters of your choosing, painted on the ring in your own arena. It is in shot for every fight you play and every knockout clip you record and send.
Plus everything above.
A hall in your colours: the floor, the light, the ropes. Yours in every fight, and the backdrop of every clip you share.
Plus everything above.
One of the twenty-four moves already traced and waiting ships with a name you choose, and your name beside it in the game. Subject to one veto, for the obvious reason.
Plus everything above.
A move that does not exist yet, made because you asked for it. You describe the strike in a call with me: what it is, where it lands, what it should cost to throw. We source the reference, the lab traces it onto the twelve points exactly the way every other move in this game was made, and it ships as a real move with your name on it. Anyone playing can throw it.
This is not a gimmick bolted onto a campaign. It is the production line pointed at one person, and it is the only reward on this page that nobody else could credibly offer, because for anyone else it would be a bespoke favour rather than the normal process. Built in the first month of production, not the last.
Plus everything above.
Every tier is digital. No shipping, no customs, no address needed, no country excluded. A pledge is tied to the email address you back with. We never ask a backer to send us video or photographs of themselves, for any tier: we source our own reference, as we always have.
The money
A deliberately small goal
The goal is $12,000, and it is not the project budget. A goal's job is to be cleared, because a funded small campaign beats a failed large one on every measure that matters, including whether Kickstarter shows it to anyone. The game is being built either way. The campaign decides how fast, and how many of the twenty-four moves make it in.
| Where it goes | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Tracing | The moves themselves. Reference, tracing, timing passes, hit windows, balance. This is the bulk of it and the slowest part. |
| Sound | Impacts, whoosh, the knockout sting, licensed cleanly. |
| Device testing | Cheap Android hardware, which is where mobile games actually break. |
| Rewards | The arenas, the tags, the traced moves, and the time to do them properly. |
| Platform and tax | Kickstarter and payment fees, and German tax. Roughly a tenth off the top before anything is built. |
Stretch goals, if they happen
Content, not features. Content scales with money in a way that features and ports do not, and over-promising features is how campaigns in this genre die two years later.
| $25,000 | Six more traced moves on top of the planned set |
| $45,000 | A second arena, built like the first |
| $70,000 | A second fighter with their own silhouette |
There is no fourth rung on purpose. Past a point, selling more scope to a solo developer is selling a delivery date nobody can keep.
Dates
Less, and earlier
The comparable campaign promised delivery three years and two months after it closed, from a funded position with a team of eight. We are one person and a tracing partner, so we are promising less and sooner, and then keeping to it.
| Campaign opens | Not set. It opens when the build earns it, and the list hears first. |
| Founder beta | Within three months of the campaign closing |
| Reward builds | Traced moves and arenas in the first month of production |
| Free release | iPhone and Android, within nine months of closing |
| Updates | Monthly, without gaps, whether the month went well or not |
Who
One person, and the thing that makes it possible
I am Michael Hensel. I am building STIX Duel in Hamburg, on my own, with a tracing partner who turns reference footage into the twelve-point poses the game plays. Forty-six moves have been through that pipeline already, which is the only reason I am willing to sell a tier that puts a stranger's kick into the game: it is not a favour, it is the normal process with a different input.
Everything on this site is from the build. The fight on the home page, the frame data on the moves page, and the screenshots above are all the real thing, and nothing on the site shows a move the game does not have.
Risks
What could go wrong
Every campaign has this section and most of them waste it. These are the three real ones.
Tracing is the bottleneck and it does not parallelise
A move is not done when it looks right, it is done when its hit window, its recovery and its balance are right too. Money buys some of that and not all of it. If the campaign goes far past goal, the honest constraint is time, which is why the stretch ladder stops where it does.
One person can get ill
There is no team to absorb it. The mitigation is a small goal, a short delivery window, and monthly updates so a delay is visible the month it happens rather than a year later.
Mobile is a hard place to be found
Funding the game is not the same as anyone playing it. That risk is mine, not a backer's: the game is free, so nobody is buying a copy that fails to find an audience.
The list hears first
One mail when the campaign opens. If you would rather back something now, the $2 Founder Ticket gets you the beta before the public and the best deal on day one of the campaign.
No date is set. We will not invent one.
Claim your founder spot for $2 · See every move, frame by frame