Planned Release Date: Dec 12, 2025

About This Game

Take your multitasking skills to new heights and become the goddess of K.N.O.B.!!!

Kinetic Neo Ornate Bout is a twin-stick competition designed for local multiplayer with intense 1v1 and 2v2 matches that will melt your brain!

You will

play the Ball Game [left stick] to score points

while you play the Layergames [right stick] to gain Abilities and activate them [Buttons]

while you push Void Snails towards your opponent to unleash CHAOS!!! [left stick + right stick]

Ball Game

Use the left stick to move your paddle and push the Ball towards your opponent. 21 points make you win a set - just like in the old table tennis rules. In the lobby you can chose how many sets you will play.

Layergames (Minigames)

Layergames appear in the center of the arena. Winning will reward you with Abilites. As a side effect your score multiplier increases with each consecutive win in any Layergame. If your opponent wins, your multiplier is reduced. This way you can score up to 4 points with a single Ball. 

Layergames are crucial and the core of Kinetic Neo Ornate Bout. If you ignore them, not only will your opponent use lots of abilites against you, you will also need to score 4+ times more points because your multiplier will not increase. 

When a Layergame starts, five prizes are drawn:

While playing the Ball Game (with left stick), players compete in the Layergame using their right stick!

Here are the Layergames (more to come soon) and some tips:

Bunny Dodge (a Layergame) seems hard at first glance. But once you figured out how to find the safe spot, you will to so increasingly faster. Save the little dude!

The squares tell you

• where to start counting (left hint)

• in which direction to move (bottom hint)

• how many fields to move (right hint)

• if you need to swap position with the other marked field in case you would land on one of them (top hint)

The position of the hint squares changes every round but they appear in this order: starting point, direction, count, swap fields.

Maze (another Layergame) is about reaching the exit (green) faster than your opponent. Once you start walking, you will continue moving in the same direction until you hit a wall or input another direction. So there is no need to constantly hold the stick!

Pro Tip: It requires some rounds to get a feeling for when you move next. You always move at the same constant rate and both opponents move the same speed, which makes a draw possible!

Cave Heli (another Layergame) is all about not messing up your paddle input since both (paddle and heli) require input on the Y-axis. The helicopter becomes faster over time. If both players reach the end of the cave the reward is split. Tastes particularly good with some walls from the blue Ability!

When a Layergame is over, the coins turn into Abilities. Note that you can store up to 2 stacks of each color! In the example above 2 pink abilites are wasted because the player already had a full stack of pink! The player quickly used a blue ability while receiving, to make room for another and not waste that one, too!

Pro Tip: Always use Abilites! Press the corresponding buttons on the gamepad for a regular Ability or hold it and release when fully charged for the power version. Power blue can destroy friendships, so use carefully! 

It you have an Ability equipped and one stack from the same color ready you can still charge a power version.

Abilitites

Four abilities (each with a regular and power version) mess up physics and visibility.

Quick Infos:

• Green Flip Boards? Yes they follow a strict rule and even in the power version it is predictable which Ball is the fake clone

• Blue walls tell the truth, pink walls always tell the opposite. Power version -> Paddle input is mirrored!

• Yellow speeds up the Ball. In a 2v2 match the teammate controlling Abilities aims the power version!

• Pink will send the Ball to the Void only being visible close to important structures and through void gates opened by Pink Snails. Power Pink will even send your opponents paddle to the Void!

Void Snails

Void Snails manipulate the arena! Generally they become more dangerous the closer they are and once they've reached your base you're in big trouble!

Once a Void Snail is in your base beware that

• the green will flip left and right stick! Welcome to hell.

• the blue is magnetic,attracting the ball. That's the same as outside your base but can get you in trouble

• the yellow will make you significantly smaller

• the pink will grant you insights to the Void! Okay, it will cover everything else but hey: if you are in the Void as well you can see yourself. Note that the Pink Void Snail may also cover important parts of Layergames.

Once the Void Snail travelled to the other side of your base, it will disappear and the effect will end.

Void Snails are pushed towards your opponent using electric Impulses. To gain an Impulse you need to come close to the center with your paddle (left stick) A quest will appear in form of an arrow. Flick the right stick in the direction of the arrow to gain a charge. Gain 5 charges to create an Impulse. Once you have an Impulse stored, bounce into the rail with your Paddle to send it towards a Void Snail which will then accelerate towards your opponent or become slower if it's moving towards you. 

You can hold up to 5 Impulses. If you gain a 6th one by any source (produced by yourself or your opponent sent one along an empty rail), your generator will overcharge, leading to an explosion that will stun you. 

Tip: In teamplay, if you control the paddle but do not control the generator, try to position the paddle in the center so your teammate can Impulses! It is then your job to bounce into the rail to send them.

Team Play

Kinetic Neo Ornate Bout is extra hard with a steep learning curve. So if handling the Ball, activating Abilities, playing Layergames and pushing Void Snails at the same time seems too hard, try playing 2v2 where each teammate takes control over two tasks. But which teammate controls which tasks is shuffeling frequently... of course. 

Reach out in the forums if you have any questions or find bugs. Besides that, have fun and please share your feedback!

Play local with friends! 

Oscar Duest & Couchlock Games