EMBERLINE

Kessai is a rail city under permanent smog. The Emberline is the last working track out of it, and once a year the line runs a card: three fighters come down off the rooftops and up out of the boiler decks for the Ember — one fragment of furnace-light, enough to buy a single person passage above the smog.

You do not win money. You win the sky.

At the end of the line the Warden has held the terminus for eleven years, and the Ember has never left Kessai.

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What it is

A 2D versus fighter in the arcade tradition. Best of three, ninety-nine seconds a round, two fighters on one plane under a strictly orthographic camera. Hand-worked 96x120 sprite sheets, hard one-pixel outlines, painted parallax stages at five depths. Wet slate, sodium lamps, steam and rust, one hot orange in a cold frame.

Pick a fighter and take the ladder: four opponents in sequence, each a best-of-three, the AI getting sharper as you climb. Beat the Warden and the line runs for you.

The roster

• Magritte Voll — all-rounder. A fireball, a rising anti-air, and the footsies to set them up. The fighter to learn the game on.
• Kite — rushdown. Fast, fragile, and always one step inside your range.
• Bell — grappler. Slow to start, and the command throw ends the conversation.
• The Warden — zoner, and the reason nobody comes back from the terminus.

Stages

Kessai Central's sodden platform in the rain. Lantern Row, the viaduct night market, lit warm over a full house. The Coal Deck, all furnace glow and iron grating. End of Line — the terminus, cold and grey, where the Warden waits.

Controls

Move / crouch / jump	W A S D
Light / Medium / Heavy	J K L
Throw	U
Confirm	Enter

Blocking is holding away from your opponent. Standing block stops overheads, crouching block stops lows, and a throw beats both — so the guessing game is real. Chip damage still gets through, so blocking forever is not a plan.

Specials are motion inputs, read from the direction you are facing:

Motion
down, down-forward, forward + punch	Projectile
forward, down, down-forward + punch	Rising anti-air
down, down-back, back + punch	Command special
the projectile motion twice + heavy	Super — needs a full meter

Meter builds off damage dealt and taken, so a round you are losing is a round you are arming.

What to look for

• Link a light into a medium into a special. The cancel windows are real, and so is the damage scaling that stops a combo running forever.
• The AI anti-airs a lazy jump-in. Make it respect a ground game first.
• Save the whole meter for one super. There is no half-measure.
• The crowd is having a good night. Listen for them.