Beat 'em up template
You walk into a street, one kind of enemy arrives, and the corner comes only when they are gone. Streets of Rage 4 (Dotemu, Lizardcube and Guard Crush, 2020) is still that block. Castle Crashers (The Behemoth, 2008) plays it as a cartoon with a friend. Change how many hits the basic enemy takes before you draw a second street. It sits between the AI fighting game maker and the AI side-scroller game maker.
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What makes a beat 'em up
Beat 'em up: you walk through streets fighting waves of enemies, often with a friend.
The games that set the standard are Streets of Rage 4 (Dotemu, Lizardcube and Guard Crush, 2020), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge (Tribute Games, 2022) and Castle Crashers (The Behemoth, 2008).
What the template starts with
The beat 'em up template starts with one street, one enemy type and a three-hit combo. That is the smallest version of the loop that defines the genre: walk in, crowd arrives, clear it, move on.
What to change first
Clear one screen of the same enemy until the third hit of the combo is the one you actually want. If they die on the first swipe, you have a musou. If they take ten, you have a boss fight wearing a crowd's clothes.
2D or 3D
The beat 'em up template starts in 2D.
Related templates
Start from this template in the Flockbay app
Describe your version in one sentence. The AI writes a brief from the template, and nothing is built until you approve it. Free for Windows and Mac.