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Best
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Read the boxer's wind-up, dodge to the matching side, then tap punch to land a counter before the recovery window closes.
The opponent stands centered on screen and cycles through four states: idle, wind-up, strike, recover. During the wind-up phase his shoulder draws back and the matching dodge side glows — that's your tell. The wind-up lasts about half a second and the strike that follows is over in a fifth of a second.
Three buttons span the bottom of the canvas: dodge left (◀), punch (🥊), dodge right (▶). Tapping a dodge button leans your head that way for about eight tenths of a second. The dodge is judged once, when the strike phase ends: if you are leaning to the matching side at that moment, the punch misses. A dodge tapped during the strike itself still counts, but one tapped more than eight tenths of a second earlier has already worn off.
Dodging the right way safely opens a counter window of roughly six tenths of a second. Tap punch during the window for a clean counter: +25 points and the opponent staggers (longer pause before his next attack). Miss the window or punch outside it and nothing scores.
Dodging the wrong way (or not dodging) costs you one health. You start with five health. Every counter you land makes the opponent faster — same telegraphs, shorter timings: +0.05× per counter up to 2.6× (32 counters, 800 points), then +0.02× per counter with no upper limit. The speed never goes back down, so sooner or later the wind-up is shorter than human reaction time, and the run ends when you run out of health.
Pre-commit, don't react late. The wind-up is half a second and the strike two-tenths, and the dodge is checked at the moment the strike finishes — so you have the whole wind-up plus the strike to get your thumb down, and not a moment more. Tap dodge during the wind-up, the moment the shoulder starts moving back. You'll feel like you're dodging too early; that's correct. The buttons hold the dodge state for eight-tenths, which is plenty of cushion to cover the moment the strike is judged.
Treat the counter punch as a separate beat. Many players try to dodge-and-punch in one motion and end up tapping punch before the strike resolves — which scores nothing because the window hasn't opened. Land the dodge, watch the strike pass (you'll see the fist whiff), then tap punch. The counter window is six-tenths and only opens after the strike is over, so you have time to make it two clean taps instead of one rushed swipe.
The speed-up after each counter is small but cumulative. After ten counters the wind-up is about a third of a second and the strike just over a tenth; at 32 counters (2.6×) the whole tell, from wind-up to judgement, is about 0.27 seconds, and from there it keeps shrinking a little with every counter. At that pace you have to read the rhythm of the cycle and pre-place your dodge on the beat. Skipping a counter does not slow him down — the speed never decreases — and it costs you the stun pause a landed counter gives you before his next attack, so keep countering and use that pause to reset your focus.
Don't dodge without intention. Spamming both dodge buttons hoping one matches will lock you into the wrong side just often enough to bleed health. But when you can't read the side in time, guess anyway: no dodge and a wrong dodge both cost exactly one health, so freezing loses every time while a guess still wins half the time. Just make it one deliberate tap, not two.