Yakko Tako Royale Press Kit

The 30-second version

Yakko Tako Royale is a kite fighting game where the whole fight is about one string. Kite fighting is a real sport played across South Asia, East Asia and the Middle East, and the rule is the same everywhere: you do not shoot anybody down, you bring your line across their line and you cut. Hold to fly, steer with the shoulders or the gyro, and lunge to cut. Two passes through a rival's string cuts it, damage stays until somebody clears it, and the seven lucky gods drift past to change those numbers. Play it on the couch with two to four players, or take it online through Steam, where up to sixteen players share one sky four screens wide and battle royale means exactly what it says: the sky empties one string at a time until one kite is left flying. Twenty-seven kites, four arenas, six formats, bots at four skill levels, and a hands-on tutorial that teaches all of it in one sitting.

Factsheet

Cut their string, keep yours

Kite fighting is a real sport, and Yakko Tako Royale plays by its rule. Nobody shoots anybody down. Your kite hangs from a string that runs a long way straight down, every rival's does the same, and the whole fight is about getting your line across theirs.

Sixteen players, one sky

The online game runs through Steam. A host opens a lobby, sets the arena, the format and the speed, and up to fifteen more players join from the friends list or the open game browser. The arena stretches to four screens of sky, the camera rides with your kite, and a marker strip along the bottom keeps every rival on your radar. When the match ends, the results stand on a painted board, and one press starts the rematch with the whole lobby carried along.

The lunge is the gate

Hold to fly. Release and glide. Steer with the shoulder buttons, or tilt the pad if gyro is on. Flying through a rival's string does nothing on its own, and that is deliberate: every string hangs below its kite, so anybody flying underneath would otherwise cut by accident. Lunging is the intent. The lunge is a short committed dart with a cooldown, shown as a bar under each player's score. Cross a string while lunging and you land a pass.

Damage stays

Two passes cut a string. The first pass does not heal, so a rival you caught once stays one pass from falling for the rest of the round unless a god clears it. A cut kite falls, and the floor is the end of the fall.

The seven lucky gods

Daruma drift across the board and open on contact. Fukurokuju makes one pass enough. Jurojin makes rivals need four. Benzaiten makes you uncuttable and wipes the passes banked against you. Bishamonten makes you invulnerable and armed, so two rams take a rival out with no string work at all. Hotei clears your own damage. Ebisu casts your lunge far past its normal reach, and Daikokuten hands you the mallet, so you can lunge again almost at once.

Still the best couch game in the house

Two to four players on one screen, one machine, no accounts and no waiting. Any empty bay takes a bot, at one of four skill levels, mixable in the same match and tuned to keep the fight interesting rather than to win it.

Four arenas, and one that changes

Batsu is islands and open sea. Shinkai is the deep, crossed by schools of fish. Back to Edo puts the great wave behind the fight. Yume is the dream, and picks a different filter every time you enter, so the same arena arrives as gold leaf, as a woodblock print or as blue ink line art.

Screenshots

# captured in-engine · click any shot for full resolution

Sixteen kites, sixteen strings, one sky The lobby: sixteen seats, ready up and go Battle royale: a cut is final Shinkai: the deep board Yume: the dream, in one of its looks Choose your fighters: the night market fills up The main menu: a duel plays out behind the lanterns Set the match: arena, format and speed Pick your kite before you fly online The results board: who wears the crown

Logos & downloads

Everything below is cleared for editorial use. The full pack bundles all screenshots at full resolution plus logos, capsules and the key art.

About the developer

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