How to Play No Filter Fighters
A one-on-one 2D fighter with a sidekick assist. If you have played any fighting game before, the structure will be familiar; if you have not, this page covers what you need for your first hour.
How to play No Filter Fighters: getting it running
- Use a desktop browser if you can — Chrome, Edge or Firefox, with a real keyboard.
- Open the game from the creator's itch.io page (see where to play). The first load takes a while because the build is large.
- Do not switch tabs while it loads — the browser may pause the tab and stall the download.
- On a phone or tablet, turn the screen sideways. Touch buttons appear on their own.
Step 2: Learn the controls
These are the default keys from the creator's itch.io page. Any key or button can be remapped in Settings. Controllers work after you press a button once so the game detects them.
| Action | Player 1 | Player 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Move / jump / crouch | W A S D | Arrow keys |
| Attacks | F G V B | J K M , |
| Special | H | L |
| Supers | T / Y | I / O |
| Sidekick | C | . (period) |
| Pause | Esc | Esc |
On PC downloads, F11 or Alt+Enter toggles fullscreen. Esc / Start opens pause: Resume, Restart or Quit to Menu.
Step 3: Understand the modes
| Mode | Players | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Story | 1 | First run. Dialogue between fights, shows the roster. |
| Arcade | 1 | Learning a new character against a fixed ladder. |
| Versus | 2 (local) | Same keyboard or two controllers. |
| Training | 1 | Repeating a combo and reading the move list. |
| CPU Showcase | — | Watching the CPU so you can see a character first. |
| Online Versus | 2 | A friend with a room code. Not a huge public pool. |
Step 4: The habits that matter
Pick a fighter and a different sidekick
Every match uses two names on your side. The same character cannot be both. If you only remember one face from the show, make that the fighter and pick anyone else as the assist.
Block first, attack second
In every fighting game the player who blocks well beats the player who attacks fast. A blocked attack costs you nothing; a heavy hit you walked into costs a chunk of the bar. Spend your first few matches mostly defending and watching what your opponent does. Check the defence controls in SETTINGS before your first match — every key is remappable, so what you see there is what you have.
Stop jumping
New players jump constantly, and jumping is the most punishable thing you can do — you are committed, in the air, and unable to block. Walk forward instead. You will lose fewer rounds immediately.
Learn one character, not all eleven
Character knowledge matters more than roster breadth. Pick one fighter — Martin Payne is the straightforward choice — and play twenty matches with them before switching. You will learn the move timing, which is the actual skill.
Stage breaks and NEXT LEVEL
The arena does not stay put. Smash your opponent through the wall, the ceiling or the floor and the match continues on a whole new stage. The practical consequence is that a corner is not automatically a safe place to reset — the wall behind you may be something you get knocked through.
NEXT LEVEL is the vertical version, and it is the newest mechanic on the build: uppercut an opponent up through the ceiling to the floor above, or slam them down through the floor to the floor below. Both players travel with it, so a clean hit resets the spacing for everyone. Learn the stage you play on before you learn a long combo.
Reveal Theater and rival trash talk
Two things here are not standard fighting-game furniture. Reveal Theater lets you watch every new fighter's reveal inside the game rather than hunting for trailers. Rival trash talk uses real lines from the show, so the chatter between fighters comes from the series instead of being written generically.
Settings, controllers and fullscreen
Nothing in the control table above is fixed — any key or button can be remapped in SETTINGS. Controllers are supported and get detected once you press a button, and the on-screen touch buttons hide themselves automatically while a controller is in use. On phones and tablets the touch controls appear on their own; hold the device sideways.
On the PC download, F11 or Alt+Enter toggles fullscreen, and your settings carry over when you update to a new build, so you do not have to remap everything every version.
Common problems
The game does not load
Almost always a tab that was backgrounded during the download. Close it, reopen the game, and leave the tab focused until the title screen appears.
Online matches will not connect
Online Versus uses a room code. You need the other person online at the same time. It is not a large matchmaking pool.
The game stutters
Close other tabs and anything else using the GPU. Browser fighters are heavier than they look. On the PC zip, the creator includes a compatibility-mode launcher if the window opens black.
Windows blocked the .exe
The downloadable build is an unsigned indie zip. The creator's instructions are: More info, then Run anyway. Only do that for the file you got from the itch.io page, not from a random host.