Rematch players are flopping about like schools of flying fish because—and I tested this—it's actually faster

Rematch football game.

Rematch is doing great for Sloclap, and with good reason. It's a gorgeous-looking footie game that blends the studio's penchant for fighting game glory with some proper tekkers. Minor issues with lag and netcode aside, I've been having a good time.

However, if you've been playing, you might start to notice some strange natural phenomena. Schools of players flopping about like schools of majestic flying fish, a hivemind of spaghetti-limbed madlads that turn Sloclap's lovely presentation into something altogether sillier. Here's an example from the game's subreddit.

Jumping being faster than running just doesn’t feel right from r/Rematch

While this might look like a meme at first, it turns out that it's actually significantly more efficient. No, really, I tested it. Booting up Rematch and heading into freeplay, I went ahead and did some runs—horizontally, across the field, using the halfway line as a guide. I recorded five times with a stopwatch, then snagged the average. Here are my findings.

• Sprinting: 8.07 seconds.
• Sprinting (Extra Effort): 7.58 seconds, rounded up.
• Flopping like an idiot: 7.13 seconds, rounded down.

That's almost an entire second of difference! I should also note that, generally, repeatedly diving is harder to control—I did not exactly keep my character on the straight and narrow during those tests, and it still beat out normal running by a significant margin. Still, even my highest dolphin-diving time (7.42) was significantly faster than my lowest extra effort sprinting time (7.55).

Here's my full list of times, if you're curious.

(Image credit: PC Gamer (Google docs))

The only downside is that flopping is slightly more inefficient, though not by a huge margin. Running horizontally across the field brings you to about 1/4th of your stamina bar, whereas flopping (depending on how straight you manage to keep your character) typically depletes all of it.

Still, I can conclusively say that if you need to get somewhere quickly, holding down sprint and diving repeatedly is 100% faster than doing something normal like, uh, jogging. I foresee a hotfix in Sloclap's future.