HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO AFQM!
hello everyone! pluto here with some exciting news to share about new content coming to A Few Quick Matches later this month. but first, today marks exactly 1 year since AFQM's release, and i would just like to once again thank everyone who has played and supported this little project. 165,000 copies sold and still going strong! i'm continuously blown away by the longevity of this game. while i know there are very few players actively online at one time, we have a dedicated playerbase and community in our discord, and new players are buying the game every day to play with their friends (or to get demolished by those dedicated players....sorry about that). i call this activity a win every day! i love this game and am incredibly grateful to anyone who has taken the time to play it.
that being said, let's move on to the upcoming news!
ITHACA, THE HUNTER, AND HIS STAGE!
while current AFQM characters are all conveniently themed around fantasy, this wasn't always the plan. for the past few months i've been working on ITHACA, a space-themed stick figure primarily focusing on utilizing his powerful shotgun. not only is it a strong weapon in general, but ithaca's also uses this gun to blast himself in any given direction for large bursts of speed. be careful though! because it's a double barrel, after two shots you'll need to reload by using the dedicated move to do so, or by landing one of his few attacks that actively can reload the gun mid-combo if the hit connects.
overall, he's a very mobile glass canon with a bit of combat versatility thanks to the way he utilizes his gun. he's been super fun to work on and i can't wait to see you absolutely break him on day 1. here are a few of his moves to give you an idea! (the cape and other details are added once all base animations are complete)
ithica will release later this month, along with his dedicated stage!
WORKSHOP BETA!
while i've been working on mr. shotgun, playgue has stayed deep in the dev mines grinding away at workshop. i know we promised this a long time ago, but it's simply been way more of a herculean task than we originally anticipated. playgue has essentially reworked all of PFE, the system AFQM was built on, at this point. the creator of PFE himself warned that it was not built to handle modded characters, but we were stubborn and have pushed forward anyway. i'm happy to report that playgue has finally almost reached the finish line, and we expect workshop characters and stages, as well as our placeholder character creator, to go into beta later this month. for now, he's just working through some issues with being able to utilize characters online, but the workflow for making a character, and having them function outside the base game in their own mods folder, is nearing completion! i will post another announcement when this goes into beta so we can gather feedback and find inevitable bugs or issues that arise. thank you for your patience, i hope the wait is worth it and we get some truly crazy custom characters!
FINALLY, A TUTORIAL!
a fully playable tutorial is also coming later this month! this won't be much use to a lot of you at this point, but for new players, it is CRUCIAL that they learn the power of quick cancelling and other mechanics before hopping online to fight the demons who play this game all the time. this will hopefully be a really fun thing to try and speedrun as well, and the systems that were built to create the tutorial could be used for some other modes in the future. i'll announce more about my plans with these systems when i've fully fleshed them out!
PLATFIGHT 2026!
A Few Quick Matches has an official bracket at platfight 2026! this in-person tournament is a celebration of all platform fighters new and old. the event will take place october 16th-18th in calgary, alberta! if you are interested in attending to play or spectate, or if you'd like to learn more about how to watch the event online, you can find more information here: https://www.platfight.com/
EVEN MORE TO COME!
there are actually some things i cannot discuss with you today, but i PROMISE there is some really exciting news on the horizon and it is not far from being announced at all. beyond this secret though, i do still plan to make a couple more characters and content for AFQM. we've recently decided to push STICKFIGUREZ, our other platfighter, into early access soon after i finish up some updates for AFQM, but i want to give this game the love and attention it deserves before fully moving on.
once again, thank you for a year of AFQM. i know we didn't deliver as much content as we had hoped throughout the year, but we're still working hard as a full time team of 2 to make this game as fun as possible! i love you guys, see you soon with ithaca!
-pluto