Rivalry is an upcoming ragdoll-based sword-fighting hotseat multiplayer game created by Kew McParlane. The game was released into Steam Early Access in January 2016 after being previewed as a WebGL game at PAX Australia 2015.

Rivalry was created by Kew McParlane and launched on 1 November 2015 at PAX Australia.^[1][3] Rivalry was a surprise hit ^[4][5][6][7] of the show.

Kew came up with the idea of the game when he was a 12^[8] year old, leading him to build a prototype using Little Big Planet. He took the idea to his father, who encouraged Kew by teaching him how to program.^[9] He then ran a successful Kickstarter to raise $2000 to get himself an Indie Developer stand at PAX 2015 in Melbourne, Australia.^[10]

In Rivalry, two players take turns at moving their ragdoll character’s limbs and weapons until one is victorious. While the beginning stages of each game captures the strategic essence of swordplay,^[11] as damage and limbs are taken, the endgame turns rather Pythonesque.^{[citation needed]}

Rivalry's Steam Greenlight campaign launched a few days before PAX Australia 2015, and received mostly negative comments due to the primitive graphics of the game.^[12] During and after PAX, Rivalry began to receive almost exclusively positive comments from people who had attended PAX and experienced the game first-hand.^{[citation needed]}

The game was green-lit by Steam on 16 December 2015.^[13]

Rivalry was released under Steam Early Access on 22 January 2016.^[14] It gained some popularity amongst gamers when Kim Richards from The Yogscast published two playthrough videos on the 16th^[15] and 19th^[16] of March 2016.

On 14 June 2016, Kew was interviewed by ABC TV's Good Game about Rivalry and his development experience.^[17]

The game is currently in alpha development and many more features, including online multiplayer, are planned before the game's full release.^[2]