David Sirlin is no stranger to the fighting game genre: he was the lead developer of Street Fighter 2: HD Remix and a top 8 competitor at EVO. He's decided to take all the knowledge he's gathered and make a title that is for both newcomers and veterans alike. This dream project, Fantasy Strike, is currently up on the crowdfunding site Fig and David is looking for $500,000 USD to complete it. He's looking to release it on PC and Mac via Steam and on the PS4 in the Fall of 2018.

The campaign page has more information on the style of the fighter that Sirlin Games hopes to make rather than on the details of the story or characters. Basically David wants to simplify the fighting mechanics (no complex move inputs, easy combos, large buffer for attacks) so anyone can learn how to play in few minutes. However, the incredible depth of modern fighters will still be there with concepts such as frame traps, poking, zoning, and other mind games in there for good measure.

While this all sounds a bit idyllic, it's promising that the team at Sirlin have been working on Fantasy Strike for over two years. They're actually planning on having a backers only beta up and running on Steam right after the campaign is over. And they also plan to release a public Early Access version a few months after that.

The Fig page also includes the following features and game modes which the devs are hoping to incorporate:

• Works great on any input device: keyboard, controller, joystick, and more.
• Your lifebar has discrete chunks so that even the display of hit points is easy to understand.
• Unique throw counter: simply let go of all controls and you automatically reverse throws!
• Ranked play that simulates playing in 8-person tournaments
• An online “arena” mode where you draft a set of 5 powerups then go on a run until you win 10 times or lose 3 times against people who did the same.
• A mode vs CPU opponents with different, wacky rules every day
• A team battle mode where you and a friend each choose a roster of 3 characters.

The fighters and world of Fantasy Strike will be based on Sirlin Games' card battling system, Yomi. There seems to be some interesting character designs in there with the shoto based Grave facing off against the archer Jaina in the Fig promo trailer. More interesting are the anthropomorphic fighters such as a Panda named Lum and a Fish named Argagarg.

The campaign features a a few different pledge tiers including the basic $20 USD level for the base game and a $49 USD level for the backers' beta. With 45 days to go, over $30,000 USD has already been raised. But it'll be a long way to that half a million dollar goal. The crowdfunding trailer is below if you need more info before making your decision: