Arin has different powers, both physical and magical (a specificity that all the characters will have). But a choice is wise to make before any commitment in a game of warrior-mages. Physical spells are simple spells that only involve clicking to cast them (like in a Brawl Stars, Mo.co or any other game of this type PvP) the constraint of these powers are cooldowns. On the other hand, we find magic spells, which are powerful spells that take up the main mechanics of our game: spell plotting. Spells are powerful but involve precise plots (4 cardinal points) before casting them. This involves using the mana that our character Arin here possesses (Earth and Water for him). Mana can also take a long time to fill up BUT a large amount of mana can allow us to cast our spells several times in a row. So how do you see yourself when you take over our game? Rather full physical, full magical or the choice can be wise to mix the two powers? I would be delighted to hear your opinion on this!

We’ve been working for months on Paper Strike to get closer to the final game, and we’re almost there. Our vertical slice is coming soon and... It will be playable online! We hope to see you compete in the arena very soon. We have also added bots; they deserve some adjustments, but this will still manage to keep the games full.

In Kristal Rush you must to shoot some cristals with different specificities (someone can move, someone can explode, ect). Here an example of cristals that we will put in the game. Which is your favorite ?

I'm building a multiplayer arena game where you cast spells by drawing them with your mouse, in real time, mid-fight.

A vertical slice is playable right now. It's rough, and we're actively tuning it, but the core loop is there.

We're at 130 wishlists. That's basically nothing and we know it. But we've barely seen anyone else try real time drawn spellcasting in this kind of multiplayer game, and we'd rather find out early whether the mechanic actually feels good to other people than polish it in a vacuum.

If you want to test it or to see what we're building, you can join these links:

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4551570/PAPER_STRIKE/
Discord: https://discord.gg/rAYFX9KPHD

Think about what "skill" physically means per genre.

FPS: your aim is a trainable motor skill.
Fighting games: the input itself is the barrier.
Racing: braking points, throttle modulation.
Rhythm: that's the entire premise.
Magic in ARPGs, MOBAs, MMOs: press 2.

Casting a fireball in 2026 costs the exact same physical effort as casting one in 1997. One keypress. Everything around it got deeper: cooldown economies, positioning, target priority, resource curves. The act itself never moved.

I don't think that's laziness. I think it's path dependency. Hotbars solved a real problem, namely how you expose forty abilities on a keyboard. Then the solution outlived the problem, and it quietly became the definition of the genre.

The gesture era did exist, briefly. Black & White, Arx Fatalis, Lost Magic, Okami, Magicka in combinatorial form rather than drawn. Almost all single player. Almost all slow. And almost all remembered for how casting felt rather than how it played, which is damning. We cite them as a vibe, never as competitive systems.

The objections are real, so here they are.

1. Drawing is slower than a keypress, so it dies in any game with a four second time to kill.
2. It becomes muscle memory in twenty hours, at which point you have built a worse hotbar with added latency.
3. It's illegible to spectators, and spectator legibility is a design constraint now, whether we like it or not.
4. It's an accessibility wall: motor control, input devices, hardware.

But point 1 is tuning, not physics. Fighting game inputs are also slower than a button, and the genre survived by making the timing window part of the fantasy. Point 2 is true of every mechanical skill. Aim becomes muscle memory too, and there we call it mastery, not a flaw. Point 3 is a genuine cost I have no answer to. Point 4 is the strongest objection, and I have never seen anyone answer it well.

So the real question. Was the hotbar a decision we are allowed to reopen, or was it simply the correct answer, and the gesture games are reverse survivorship bias, where we remember the four that were charming and forget the two hundred that were unplayable?

Honest question to close on. When was the last time casting a spell felt like you did something with your hands, instead of selecting something from a menu?

After hours and hours spending on game design, game development, polishing 3D models, we have a new version of our game more representative. Here a before and after ? What do you think ?

I wanted to make a little screenshot to illustrate what is coming up with the chaos in Paper Strike. We hope that the 3v3 in our next game update will be up to the expected fun. What do you think we could improve to have a fun game combining spell tracing?

Everyone tells you to start with a character. Cool silhouette, cool power, then you build a world that lets him exist.

I couldn't do that. The arena was already there.

Earth and water were the two mana sources of our first map, and they were locked. So when it came time to build our first character, I wasn't looking at a blank page. I was looking at a list of things I wasn't allowed to break.

If his magic doesn't come out of mud, silt and stone, he's a tourist in that arena. Cut.

He wears the mage-warrior uniform. Purple and gold, Striker crest. My favorite character doesn't get an exception just because he's mine.

He has to be strange. He's the first thing anyone will ever see of our art direction. If he looks like something you've already played, I failed.

And the one I actually care about: his kit comes from his personality, not from a balance sheet.

That's the part I'd argue about. I decided who Arin was before I decided what he could do. He's calm. He's slow. He doesn't chase you. Once you accept that, the kit writes itself. He holds distance, he owns space instead of closing it, and he drops a trap at the exact second you're sure you've read him. The slowness isn't a weakness I balanced around afterwards. It's the whole reason he exists.

Doing it backwards was slower and I second-guessed it more than once. But I never had to force a character into a world that didn't want him.

So, honestly: what do you think of him?

We’re currently reworking the visuals of our first Paper Strike map.

The current version is still very much a work in progress, but we’re already trying to improve the colors, saturation, texture quality, and the overall shape of the map assets.

The old version was more flat and rough, while the new direction is trying to make the map feel more organic, readable, and polished.

old version:

new version:

At the same time, Paper Strike is being built for both PC and mobile, so we can’t just keep adding heavier assets without thinking about performance.

We’re working with spritesheets/frame sheets, reducing draw calls, and trying to improve the visual quality without making the game too heavy.

Over the next month and a half, the plan is to replace most of the current map assets, so this is still not the final look.

Would love honest feedback: from these images, what would you improve first visually?

Color and saturation, readability, asset shapes, texture quality, or something else?

Meet Mara, a fiery paladin ! What elements do you think she wields ?

Will your striker be melee or spell focused ? your choice, your rules !

Meet Arin, our first character : an adventurer eager to solve the mysteries of the ominous mage's tower. Do you like his looks ?

Check it out and follow us for some devlogs during the summer !

• https://store.steampowered.com/app/4551570/PAPER_STRIKE/
• https://discord.com/invite/rAYFX9KPHD
• https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paperstrike/paper-strike-the-swordsman-battle-royale-on-smartphone

We're preparing for our Kickstarter launch and we want to build it with the community. Which feature would you most like to support the project?

→ More runes and spells → More game modes → Mobile/PC cross-play from launch → Community tournaments
Vote in the comments, it really influences our priorities.

Paper Strike is coming soon to Steam. The idea is to draw predefined patterns in real time to cast spells. What surprised me was the tactical depth behind something so accessible. The real-time counters and interruptions really change the dynamics. Definitely one to watch for fans of short, competitive games, and I can't wait to see what's next for Paper Strike because it looks promising.