Duels of Fortune/Getting Started

The purpose of this page is to provide a quick-start written guide to Duels of Fortune

Getting The Game

Duels of Fortune is currently available for free on Steam and Itch.io. Links are on the main page.

Modes

Duels of Fortune has several single-player modes as well as the usual versus mode. They are as follows:

• Versus: The usual 1 on 1 mode of a fighting game, with the option to fight CPUs or a player. Stage hazards can be enabled.
• Story: Coming sometime in 2024.
• Arcade: Like arcade modes in other games, you fight a gauntlet of increasingly difficult CPUs before fighting a boss. Has multiple difficulties and secret bosses with high enough scores. Minigames are also played in interludes.
• Training: The usual fighting game training mode with infinite health and meters. Has multiple options for testing and labbing as well as a hitbox viewer.
• Missions: A series of special fights that add unique challenges and/or conditions. Many costumes are unlocked by completing specific missions, and most of the game's bosses lie in this mode.
• Combo Trials: A set of 9 to 11 combos of increasing difficulty and complexity for each character. These can help give a reference for how the combo system works but are rarely if ever optimal.
• Minigames: Bonus games where you attempt to get a high score. Include breaking cars, horde fights, and races.
• Boss Fights: Rematches with any of the bosses that have already been defeated.

Options

Duels of Fortune has the following menus in the Options.

• Controls (Game): Allows you to change what your in game inputs are.
• Controls (Menu): Lets you change what buttons you use to navigate the menus. Currently, movement buttons can't be changed for either controls.
• Data: Allows you to select "Unlock All", giving you access to all the game's content or reset your save data.
• Graphics: Lets you change the visuals of the game to lower or higher quality.
• Audio: Allows you to balance the volume of game.

Collection

Duels of Fortune has the Collection menu which includes a number of features.

• Lore Journal: Includes many unlockable lore entries for characters in the game, including NPCs and bosses.
• Jukebox: Listen to any of the songs from the game's soundtrack.
• Facts: A collection of small tidbits both on the game as a whole and for specific characters. These are displayed in loading screens.
• Extras: Weird modifiers to spice the game up such as Big Head Mode.
• Credits: Plays the game's credits.

Basic Actions

Movement

Button	Direction	Movement
	Forward	Forward walk
	Back	Back walk
//	Up	Jump
	Down	Crouch

Button	Inputs	Action
	Forward, Forward	Forward Dash
	Back, Back	Back Dash
	Forward Forward Up	Dash Jump
+	Up Forward Forward	Air Forward Dash
+	Up Back Back	Air Back Dash

Buttons and Attacking

DoF has 8 dedicated buttons, 3 of which are normals, 2 being specials/supers, and the other 3 being more utility based. The normals are Light (L), Medium (M), and Heavy (H). There are also command normals/specials done by holding a direction and inputting the correlating attack button. These can all cancel into each other and into other buttons. Throws are done by hitting forward and H while close to a grounded opponent. Specials (S) and supers (SP) can be canceled into but generally don't cancel into anything else. Specials are done by holding a direction and hitting the button and come at no cost. Supers come in neutral and down variants, and cost 50-100 meter. Reversals (R) are 25 meter invincible moves that are punishable when blocked. These can only be used when the opponent is in neither hitstun or blockstun and can't be canceled into. Burst (B) is a combo breaker with Break Burst and a combo extender with Blast Burst. Burst has its own dedicated meter and can be canceled into from anything else as long as the meter is full. Taunt (T) causes a character to do a preset animation that can't be canceled out of. Characters generally have a neutral and down taunt but some have a back taunt. Some taunts have special effects but most are just animations.

Button	Button Name
	Light
	Medium
	Heavy
	Special
	Super
	Reversal
	Burst
	Taunt

Defending

There are two ways to block in Duels of Fortune. By default, the game is set to back to block. This means you hold back to block mids and overheads, and down back to block mids and lows. The other option is button block. The reversal button becomes a block button, but unlike block buttons in other games, one must manually turn the character the other direction in order to block cross ups. Reversals are done in this mode by hitting S while holding the block button.

Meters

Health

Health is the main win condition in DoF like most fighters. When the health bar reaches 0, a character is KOed and loses a round. In DoF, health values vary heavily between characters, ranging from 18000 (Guy) to 30000 (Baron), with an average of 24000 (Clyde, Rattlebone, and Black Heart). There's no guts or any other defensive modifiers, so what you see is what you get.

Super Meter

The super meter appears on the bottom corners of the screen for each character and has 4 pips of 25 meter each. The super meter can be spent on two things, reversals and supers. Reversals cost 25 meter to use, and supers are generally 50 meter with a few 100 meter supers. Meter gain in DoF is quite fast, with most bnbs building around 25 meter, so the number of supers used per set can be fairly high.

Burst

The Burst meter appears below each character's health bar. It starts full at the beginning of a match but does not refill between sets. With the exception of Johnson, who has the unique Bullet Meter, Burst can be used in two ways. One is Break Burst, which can be done at any point to combo break and launch the opponent away. The other is Blast Burst, which is done by canceling into Burst from an attack. Blast Burst slightly resets damage and hitstun scaling, allowing for extended combos. Burst regenerates naturally over time and also from being hit.

Learning Effectively

Training Mode

One of the biggest keys to learning a fighting game is making use of its training mode. You can freely practice many things, including but not limited to combos, setups, okizeme, blockstrings, blocking, movement, mixups, and more. There are a variety of useful tools such as setting the dummy to move in certain ways, block, or even be a second player, check the exact damage of a combo, and see a character's hitboxes. Training Mode has everything you need to improve and get good at Duels of Fortune, outside of experience.

Numpad Notation

This wiki's moves and combo sequences are notated with Numpad Notation, which uses the layout of a numpad on a keyboard to define inputs.

Here are the digital directional inputs possible in DoF:

⬁	⇧	⬀
⇦	ｎ	⇨
⬃	⇩	⬂

How these inputs are represented in Numpad Notation. "5" represents the lever neutral position, and "6" always faces the same direction the character is facing for consistency.

７	８	９
４	５	６
１	２	３

Examples of inputs in numpad notation

Move	Numpad Notation]
Standing Light	5L
Crouching Light	2L
Quarter-Circle Back Special	214S
Half-Circle Back Special	63214S

Reading Frame Data

As a beginner, reading frame data can seem like a waste of time or too confusing, but frame data can still be useful in some situations to understand the interactions between various moves. The wiki has frame data for all (eventually) the attacks in the game, and here’s the explanations for the key elements of reading frame data:

• Startup: This is the first frame the move hits on. This is so you can compare the relative speed of attacks. The fastest attacks in the game are usually 5 frames.
• Active: This is how many frames the attack is active for. It’s especially useful to know for moves which slide you forward like sliding kicks or advancing attacks, since you might not hit the opponent with them on the first active frame.
• Recovery: How long the attack animation takes to finish after the active frames end. For normals, you can usually cancel the recovery by going into another normal or special, but for specials, supers, reversals, and taunts, you usually can’t. This, alongside advantage, can be useful to gauge how risky a move is.
• Advantage: Besides “first active”, this is the one that matters the most, and you will see people talk about the most. This is how comparatively quickly you can act on block in comparison to your opponent. If a move is 0 on block, both you and your opponent can act at the same time. If your move is +2 on block, you can act 2 frames before the opponent. If your move is -2 on block, it means you can’t act until 2 frames after the opponent can. This is important, as generally any move which is -5 or slower is vulnerable to being hit before you are allowed to block - assuming the opponent’s attack will reach. This only refers to moves when you don’t cancel them, and let the full animation play out, however. If you cancel the recovery of a normal into another attack, you won’t be at the listed advantage for the move.
• Property: Many moves in DoF have extra qualities to them that make them stand out, such as: Armor, Jump Cancel, Dash Cancel, and more. These qualities can heavily effect where you want to use a move.

Finding Matches

Unfortunately, Duels of Fortune has no native netplay and never will. In order to play online, it's generally recommended to use Parsec although Steam Remote Play is also an option. These allow one to connect to another player's pc, although this will be on delay-based netcode which is usually subpar. The best place to find matches against like-minded players is in the Discord, which has a dedicated channel and role for Parsec matchmaking.