The Monster Multiverse

A beat 'em up (sometimes also called "brawlers") is a type of action game where the player character must fight a large number of enemies in unarmed combat or with melee weapons. Gameplay consists of walking through a level, one section at a time, defeating a group of enemies before advancing to the next section; a boss fight normally occurs at the end of each level. However arcade versions of these games are often quite difficult to win, causing players to spend more money to try to win.

Beat 'em ups are related to—but distinct from—fighting games, which are based around one-on-one matches rather than scrolling levels and multiple enemies. Such terminology is loosely applied, however, as some commentators prefer to conflate the two terms.At times, both one-on-one fighting games and scrolling beat 'em ups have influenced each other in terms of graphics and style and can appeal to fans of either genre. Occasionally, a game will feature both kinds of gameplay.

Multiple characters and players

Beat 'em ups often allow the player to choose between a selection of protagonists—each with their own strengths, weaknesses, and set of moves. Attacks can include rapid combinations of basic attacks (combos) as well as jumping and grappling attacks. Characters often have their own special attacks, which leads to different strategies depending on which character the player selects.[The control system is usually simple to learn, comprising as little as two buttons. These buttons can be combined to pull off combos, as well as jumping and grappling attacks. Since the release of Double Dragon, many beat 'em ups have allowed two players to play the game cooperatively—a central aspect to the appeal of these games. Beat 'em ups are more likely to feature cooperative play than other game genres.

As Beats of Rage is a customizable engine, the game included with the engine is but one of the many games available. In the included game, character sprites and some background art was taken from the King of Fighters games by SNK Playmore. The gameplay is traditional "walk and punch" or beat 'em up style.

Beats of Rage was listed as a "cream of the crop" game in the June 2006 issue of the British PSP magazine Pure. It was also covered on the television show "Cinematech: Nocturnal Emissions" on the television network, G4.

First programmed for DOS, it was later ported to the Sega Dreamcast console, Linux, Playstation2, PSP, Pocket PCs, and Windows.

The engine is customizable, and allows for new games to be built on the engine in distributed in its custom PAK format. The games developed for the Beats of Rage engine are commonly referred to as "mods", the creators are commonly reffered to as "modders", and the engine itself is commonly referred to as "moddable".

Beats of Rage has become so popular due to the engine's ability to be completely customizable that it has become the watermark for customizable engines for video game consoles. Customizable engines for these systems are now often referred to as "moddable like Beats of Rage".

OpenBOR is a project that aims to give more functionality to Beats of Rage. It gives modders the ability to add new moves and combos to their games that were not in the original Beats of Rage game. It also now allows for mods to support three or four simultaneous players as opposed to the original engine's maximum of two.

OpenHOR is a subproject of OpenBOR that allows modders to create horizontal and vertical two dimensional aircraft shooting games using the Beats of Rage engine.