In case you haven’t heard, Punch Club is a 90s-styled boxing management sim that tinyBuild Games has been working on since summer 2015. They are also the developers of the game No Time to Explain. Now, tinyBuild has apparently partnered with Twitch for a bit of an experiment: Punch Club will be played live on Twitch, and viewers will get to collaboratively play through the game, using hashtag comments as commands.
Now, if you have followed Twitch before, you will note that this experiment is not completely a new idea – Twitch Plays Pokemon did the same thing. However, there is a new twist, according to the developers: the game will not launch publicly on Steam and mobile until Twitch has beaten Punch Club. So, as the developers say, the fate of their game is in the hands of Twitch viewers.
Plus, there is apparently another cool twist as well: every time Twitch wins a fight, a Punch Club Steam key will be dropped in Steam. So you can get Punch Club for free by just watching the Twitch feed. Maybe.
All of this is certainly a bold idea – in theory, tinyBuild Games might find themselves in the awkward position of never being able to release Punch Club, because all the criteria have not been met. That is unlikely, of course; what we have seen from the game so far leads us to believe that it is a promising title, with cute retro graphics and what looks like a pretty deep boxing-sim experience, complete with training at the gym.
Punch Club can be pre-ordered right now on Steam, and it is 20% off if you do so.
SOURCE: tinyBuild Games Press Release