Hellish Quart

Hellish Quart is a 3D, physics simulated, realistic fighting game developed by Jacub Kisel, known more commonly as Kubold. The game is based in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the mid 17th century; shortly after the Peace of Westphalia but before the Deluge. The game features characters from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Italian States, the Duchy of Prussia, and many other city states, principalities, and kingdoms.

As the game is currently in the pre-alpha stage, neither the story mode or the full cast of characters are complete; however, the story, written by the renowned polish author Jacek Kamuda, is fully complete and all characters planned for release have been designed and awaiting development.

## Game description

Hellish Quart is a fighting game about one-on-one sword dueling, in which the blades block each other using physics, and the characters use motion-captured historical fencing techniques. Players fight as 17th-century warriors: Cossacks, Hussars, Janissaries, Highlanders, Tatars, and use sabers, rapiers, broadswords, longswords, and many other blades. The game is a love letter to ever more popular Historical European Martial Arts (also known as HEMA).

## Gameplay

Hellish Quart is a spiritual successor to games like Bushido Blade or Kengo, but with a European twist. The main feature of the game is that the swords actually physically clash and block each other, using the game engine’s physics simulation. There are no visible health bars and, like in the aforementioned games, fighters can be killed by a single, well-timed, and measured attack.

### The controls

The view and controls are very similar to a regular 3D fighting game. Players walk with the gamepad’s left stick or a d-pad and the four gamepad buttons represent 4 attack angles. Different button combinations give special attacks and combos. If players are not attacking, their character will automatically try to hold guard against their opponent's attacks. The characters, when blocking, are not invulnerable, like in other games. The only thing that is stopping the opponent’s blade to cut into them, is their own, physical blade, that’s in the way.

### The looks

The gameplay looks and feels like a real HEMA duel. There are no Hollywood-style, flashy, but unrealistic moves. This is because all animations in the game are recorded by HEMA practitioners, using motion capture. Jakub Kisiel, the head developer of the game, is a mocap artist that formerly worked on games like Bulletstorm and The Witcher III and is a lifetime sword fighting enthusiast.

### The Setting

Hellish Quart happens in a historical, realistic setting. The game takes place in 17th century Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. This place and time is a wonderful mix of cultures and races, constant wars, battles, and duels. It is also a period in which the swords reached their peak in variety and specialization. All this allows for a really varied character roster. Players will duel Zaporozhian Cossacks, Polish Hussars, Tatars, Turkish Janissaries, Swedish Reiters, French Musketeers, and more. Players will use sabers, palaches, basket hilt swords, rapiers, and even an ancient german longsword.

### The graphics

The character models are made from 3D scanned, real, historical reconstruction clothes. To do that, the developers use photogrammetry - it’s a scanning technique, where multiple photos of a piece of clothing are taken from every possible angle. Then, the scanning software can reconstruct the scanned piece in 3D space.

## Main features

### Features

* Sword fighting using active ragdolls and physical sword collisions
* Super-realistic motion-captured fencing animations
* 3D scanned 17th-century clothes

### Current game modes

* Arcade mode
* Survival mode (series of duels till defeat)
* History Buff mode (randomized duels with history cards as a reward for winning)
* Quick Fight (PvE or PvP, normal or right of way variant)
* Training mode

### Planned game modes

* Single-player Story mode
* Individual character’s mini-stories
* Native Online mode

### Platforms

The game is currently only available on PC, but a console version is planned after going out of Early Access.

## The Team

Hellish Quart is developed by a Polish studio Kubold: Jakub and Kate. Formerly Jakub was a lead animator in People Can Fly (Bulletstorm, Infinity Blade II, Gears of War: Judgment) and a senior animator in CD-Projekt Red (The Witcher III). Kubold is best known for creating a big mocap animations library for game developers, which anyone can get at Asset Store and Marketplace, to make his own game.

## Related links

* Jakub on Moby Games: https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,293979/
* Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1000360/Hellish\_Quart/
* GOG: https://www.gog.com/game/hellish\_quart
* Hellish Quart Youtube Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOJ\_sYrQ5Gs&list=PLKX-zT\_MCM-yOH6UxEi1nzQN-rqP7ZrYJ
* Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hellishquart/
* Kubold Official WWW: https://www.kubold.com/