The steady beat of the thumping music focusses the mind as I carefully assess the space and my adversaries. We're trapped in a jail cell barely large enough to fit us in and of the three goons facing me down one is an informant who is adamantly maintaining their cover by laying in to me. Stark yellow paints him as distinct from the others giving me a mental shortcut to focus on the bright orange of my foes.

Tactically swiping cards out of my freshly drawn hand I weave around the impromptu battlefield, staying off axis as my opponents try to land blows while I return with jabs, throws and devastating flying kicks. My foes are swiftly dispatched and I stand there unscathed.

But this is but the first battle of the day. There will be many more as I make my way out of this prison and it will take all my wits to outsmart and out position my way through.

Fights In Tight Spaces gives you exactly what it says it will. It achieves this through a combination of semi procedural levels organised into tight tree structures spread across a few storylines within a campaign. Each level is populated with a subset of the varied adversaries. You choose your moves from a hand drawn from your deck which expands over the course of the game. There is a substantial amount of cards within the game catering to numerous playstyles.

Stylistically the associations with John Wick, both in tone and content are clear for anyone to see. The protagonists suit is a particular give away. Ultimately it takes a core part of the John Wick action fantasy, tactical melee combat, and focusses in on it to create a satisfying experience filled with rich tactical flare and budget friendly stylishness.

The stark contrasty art style does an excellent job conveying the necessary information while requiring much less manpower to look good than a more photoreal style. Indeed its weaknesses turn into strengths as you learn to accept the style as a thing of itself.

In many ways it Echos 'Sifu' a game which also focusses on tactically melee combat in contained spaces where beating the levels is as much about knowing your foes moves as it is knowing the lay of the land. But where Sifu tasks the player with mastering complex real time controls in addition to the tactical elements Fights In Tight Spaces doubles down on the turn based tactical style to give a thematically similar experience that caters to different player tastes.

It's well worth a few hours if you are in to this sort of stuff.