Toribash is a turn based ragdoll fighting game. Rather than depending on speed, as in normal fighters, you get a bit of time to plan a move. Each turn you plan a move (and your opponent does the same), and then both moves are executed at the same time. Each match is divided in a number of "frames" with each turn taking a given amount of frames. For instance the match total could be 500 frames and each turn 10 frames, which means after each turn the remaining amount of time goes down by 10, and your characters will move for 10 frames based on the move you chose.

Controlling your characters is also quite different from normal fighters, you can choose to contract, extend, relax or hold twenty muscles and joints in your character, your choices will make it move. For instance extending your ankles and thowing your arms up will make your character jump up. The controls are really quite interesting, but obviously take a little time to get used to, but once you've got the basics under control it's fun to play around with, and see what kind of moves you can make your character make.

To win you either need to have more points than your opponent when the time ends, and you get points by hitting or kicking your opponent, hitting the head gives the most points, hands and feet can't take damage. The other way to win is if your opponent touches the ground with anything else than hand or feet. One great way to win is if you manage to rip off a bodypart of your opponent (can be done, sometimes quite hard) and dunk it in the ground; immensely satisfying.

If you get stuck with trying to control your character, you can always head over to the Toribash forums, where they have a section for strategy and moves where people post exactly how to exectue certain moves.

The game has a single player mode, but it could probably better be renamed to practice mode, because there is no AI, so you're stuck beating up a ragdoll which isn't doing anything except holding itself together. The main fun comes in multiplayer. When you enter a server you are places in a queue, and you'll always play the players just before and after you. When it's your turn you generally get 20 seconds to make your move each round. The total time and round time vary a bit, from 120/10 (120 frames total, 10 frames per round), to 1000/70 where you really have to try to figure out what your opponent might be doing, since the long rounds only let you change what your character does every 70 frames.

There are a few screenshots on the website, but if you want to get an impression, you're probably better off downloading one of the movies. Or even better, download the game, which includes a few replays so you can see some nice moves right from the start.

At the moment it's only available for Windows (with the multiplayer server software only available for linux), although there is a beta for osx. The windows download is only 2.6MB, so you should really download it!

Hmm, most of my attacks are just luck from random clicking.

Heh, I tried one of the grabs from the forum, but the other guy kicked my legs off (it was a jump attack at the head).

Anyone know any good sites 2 go 2 that you can download any cool replays or sword and shield mod.

I'm having problems doing any tricky moves, any tips or hits that could help me? Mostly I want help with punching and kicking.

Version 3.0 of Toribash has been released, and it's back to being free again! Hooray!