Beatdown On The Downbeat

Charlie Disco, a man described as a mix between Michael Jackson and Jackie Chan, is beating the crap out of a group of goofy henchmen. He looks great doing it, landing flashy combos and countering punches aimed at the back of his head without even looking. It would be extremely cool, except it’s slightly undermined by the soundtrack: his punches are timed perfectly to the beat of a weird song I recorded for my coworkers, a parody of “Rasputin” by Boney M about mac and cheese. I added it to the game myself, but it wasn’t a mod. Believe it or not, I’m playing exactly as the developers intended.

Dead as Disco is an energetic, approachable rhythm game, mixing musical sequences with Batman: Arkham-style combat. Each level is synced up to a song, and Charlie Disco only punches on the beat, adding a rhythmic, percussive layer to whatever song that may be. At the time of writing, there’s only a demo available, but it includes a mode called Infinite Disco, where players can fight waves of enemies to whatever soundtrack they want. When I talk to the developers at Brain Jar Games, they tell me they posted the demo for Steam Next Fest in summer 2025, but it was so popular they decided to leave it up.