Caster is a
Third-Person Shooter with
RPG Elements by Elecorn Studios for the PC. The game is
episodic, with two episodes released so far. You play as a rookie Caster fighting bug-like aliens called the Flanx. You start with just a slow-firing Pulse weapon and an extremely brief
dash, but by the end you have
six devastating weapons, the ability to
jump halfway across the map, dash near-constantly,
run up walls, and even
run on water. There's also two weapons that can raise and lower terrain, and your enemies can use these as well, so after a few levels fights become frantic affairs as you dash and circle-strafe wildly while ripping big craters in the landscape.
This game provides examples of:
- Artificial Stupidity: Enemies will happily run into acid or lava to chase you.
- Blackout Basement: One level in episode 1. You light it up by shooting the ground, and it's fully lit once you heal the tree.
- BFG: The Erupt and Blast powers cover a huge area with a single slow-moving shot.
- Charged Attack
- Combat Tentacles: The final boss of Episode 1 latches onto you with tentacles to slow you down, then pulls itself towards you to deal Collision Damage. You can get it off by stunning it and waiting for the tentacles to fall off. In Episode 2, one regular enemy does this as well.
- Convection Shmonvection: You can run on lava.
-
Development Hell: The last real update- which added the partially complete second chapter- launched in 2010. The game still has a level on the main menu that only brings up "to be continued" when selected. - Excuse Plot: Why are the Flanx attacking? What are all the other Casters up to? Why are there so many different biomes in one region? You'll be too busy running up walls to ask.
- Hand Blast
- Healing Shiv: You heal infected trees by shooting them, and shooting regular trees makes them grow and drop a health item.
- Hero-Tracking Failure: None of the enemies lead their targets, but you'll still have to dash to get out of the way fast enough. On your end, the Seeker doesn't actually home in, it just auto-aims.
- Hitscan: The Stun weapon.
- In a Single Bound
- Job Title: Of Protagonist Title
- Magitek: The Casters' abilities are pretty much magic, but the rest of the game is sci-fi themed.
- More Dakka: The upgraded Pulse and Seeker.
- Orbiting Particle Shield : The Orbit weapon.
- Patchwork Map: Different levels can have completely different terrain and biomes.
- Power Nullifier: Two levels in Episode 2 feature a Nega-Orb which prevents you from doing damage with your powers. However, you can still deform the terrain, and you have to use this to dispose of the orb.
- Protagonist Title: By Job Title.
- Roboteching: The Seeker.
- Rocket-Tag Gameplay: By Episode 2, you'll be nearly maxed out on your powers, and you can take out entire groups in seconds with Stun and Pulse or Seeker. But by the time you reach that power level, the game introduces Nega-Orb enemies, which can kill you in a couple hits. Fortunately, you're always dashing, so it's very hard for them to land those hits.
- Rookie Red Ranger: You're a rookie Caster with few abilities, and you're being sent out because all the other Casters are doing something more important. By the end of Episode 1, you've risen to the challenge.
- Sprint Meter
- Super-Speed
- Teleporting Keycard Squad: If you see an unguarded energy orb, you can guarantee that there's enemies underground who will pop up when you get closer.
- Upgrade Artifact: Six of them, one for each weapon. It's mentioned that extremely powerful Casters created them. The Nega-Orb looks like one of these, but with more evil colors.
- Walk on Water: When your dash is fully upgraded. You can even run on acid or lava without harm.
- Wall Crawl: Wall Run
- World-Healing Wave: Healing an infected tree clears the level of enemies and heals all the other trees on the level.
