From the creative First Person Tutor developer comes Argument Champion, a fast-paced, “rhetorical combat” game made for the A Game By Its Cover 2012 competition. Debaters pick a word (their argument) which they defend, and gain popularity with, by making the shortest connection possible using the audience’s associated words. Players can also use negative “X” words to build the shortest connection to weaken their opponent’s argument.

While the mechanics are nothing like First Person Tutor, the pacing is at times just as frantic. Players have about 20 seconds to click and expand various word trees to find the shortest connection. The difficulty of First Person Tutor isn’t present, either; even if connections are weaker, winning seems inevitable.

The developer sought to further investigate language-based games after the success of First Person tutor. The inspiration is a mix of 16-bit Japanese turn-based wrestling/fighting games, turning the Sumo and wrestling into RPG mechanics, and Phoenix Wright’s logic-based gameplay, especially the courtroom scenes. The goal was to create a debate/reasoning game that made rhetoric fun. Argument Champion seems largely to have achieved this, even without sound.

Those curious can check out the cover from Argument Champion after the jump.



