Ever want to know what would happen if Nicolas Cage fought The Tooth Fairy in a used car lot? How about if Abraham Lincoln battled Elvis Presley at the DMV? Knockout Names is a text-based fighting game that creates limitless matchups, pitting famous figures throughout history against each other. Robots and Cupcakes brought us in from the start to help conceptualize and build this fun iOS game.

Play with friends

Knockout Names was originally a traditional card game with physical playing cards that you could play with three or more people. We wanted to keep the social aspect, and the card game feel, so we added the group play mode with some fun little card animation effects.

Single player adventure

Perhaps the greatest departure from the traditional card game came with the concept for a single player mode. We helped to define and work through all the game play rules for a single player fighting through some pre-written content as he battles against famous competitors as one character.

Limitless expansions

We built a flexible infrastructure in the iOS app to read from an easy to edit database of characters and locations. This way Knockout Names could offer expansion packs as in-app purchases without having to completely overhaul the game each time.

We had a lot of fun building Knockout Names. The writing is hilarious and snarky, and we couldn’t help laughing out loud as we went through to test the game while working on it. Don’t be afraid to challenge us to a group play match if you run into us on the street (or if you happen to be Willie Wonka and we’re on the top of an active volcano).