Video Game / Clone Drone in the Danger Zone

Are-you-not-enter-tained?

"Earth stands no chance. When the harvesting fleet arrives, it will wipe out every living thing on the planet. Human weapons will be useless against them. But we are no longer human."

Clone Drone in the Danger Zone is a voxel based Hack and Slash game where any part of your body can be sliced off, made by Doborog. The story follows the human race's struggle to avoid extinction at the hands of malevolent extraterrestrial robots, who are systematically slaughtering the entire Human population. They do this by destroying their bodies in fire, uploading their minds into robotic drones, and then forcing the people to endlessly participate in Gladiator Games until they inevitably die AGAIN for the amusement of their captors. They will not stop until there are no humans left.

The player character is one of many humans who have already been taken by the robots. You must now continually fight in the arena to survive.

Thanks to its unique controls and voxel-based damage model◊, the game has very interesting and intuitive combat mechanics.

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Tropes:

• Absurdly Cool City: Whatever city the player escapes from looks marvelous◊.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: The default sword can handily cut through robots like butter◊. At first glance, it appears to be a Laser Blade, but a cutscene reveals that it is not: it is clearly made of metal◊. They are some sort of technologically advanced sword with a heated blade.
• Artificial Stupidity: It is really easy to make robots kill other robots, and exploiting that is a major aspect of gameplay.
• Alien Abduction: The robots are systematically abducting humans to make them fight in their arena.
• Alien Invasion: The robots are invading from space to abduct humans to turn them into robots and then force them to die in gladiatorial combat.
• Aliens Are Bastards: The robots seem to have no empathy or love for anyone - not even their own kind. Their favorite pastime is forcing other species to die in gladiatorial combat.
• And I Must Scream: It's revealed by Comment-a-Tron that Human robots cannot speak. Other robots of the same make can speak in the story campaign.
• Armor Is Useless: Not in this game. In this game, armor can save your life◊. By design, the armor only covers the limbs, so it's still possible to take damage to the head, waist or chest.
• Attack Reflector: The last upgrade to the "deflect arrows" upgrade chain lets you reflect them at your opponents. The Announcers and the robot emperor also have shields that can reflect arrows.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Averted by fire swords and fire bows, as they can turn a glancing hit that would normally do only superficial damage into a kill. Played straight by fire hammers, as most of the time a single strike kills immediately regardless of added fire. Also averted by Hammers themselves, as a hammer swings a bit slower than a sword, but it can't be blocked like a sword and tends to instantly reduce enemy bots to lots of little pieces.
• Big Bad: The Emperor of robots is the main driving force behind the invasion, seeking to exterminate humanity by forcing every single human to die in gladiatorial combat. Even when the humans destroy the main core program that forced the robots to follow the algorithm of roboticizing the species they come across and forcing them to die in gladiatorial combat, he still chose to destroy humanity via the Orbital Bombardment. When he dies, the rest of robotkind choose to leave humanity in peace.
• Black Humor: Most of the game's humor comes from this trope.
• Blood Sport: The titular arena.
• Body Surf: Chapters 4 and 5 give the humans the ability to transfer their minds to the nearest robot body upon death.
• Boring, but Practical: Spears rarely sever limbs, and don't require the audience to wear metallic debris ponchos, but like the hammer they can't be blocked by swords, and can be upgraded with a shield that can let you block arrows and hammers. They're also pretty useful for taking out armored robots, as while their arms and legs are armored, their heads and torso aren't.
• Chekhov's Gun: The mind virus that keeps the first Human going while tearing through the invasion fleet. Halfway through chapter 5, we learn that it allowed the second Human to survive being burned up in the beacon control room. They managed to beam themselves over to the fleet as well, slicing their own way through robots before they caught up with the first.
• Comedic Sociopathy: The robotic commentators do this a lot.
  Comment-a-Tron: "If we were handing out medals, this Human would get a gold."
  Analysis-bot: "Instead, we will watch the Human die!"
• Computer Virus: The player becomes this to the Robots in Chapter 4.
• Co-Op Multiplayer: An update added co-op multiplayer, which is the way most players have any chance of reaching and surviving in the newly added hardest difficulty level: Insanium.
• Damage Over Time: When compared to the instantaneous effect of having a limb chopped off, fire takes a few seconds to spread, melting affected parts as it goes.
• Death Is Not Permanent: Robots can have a clone of themselves made as a way of avoiding death: said clone is merely a vessel into which the consciousness of the dying robot is instantly transmitted via the mind network - a robot that dies without an available clone is truly dead. Humans who have been uploaded into robot bodies (such as the player) are allowed to 'purchase' up to five clones as a part of the games: these function as the player's extra lives. In Chapter 4, the player has no clones. Instead, thanks to Emilia's Mind Virus, the player will automatically swap their robotic body with whichever robot just killed them, or any other available robot. This can be done up to five times between checkpoints before a "reset" is needed. On reset, the player will be rebuilt at their current checkpoint as a Mark 1 Spear Bot.
• Degraded Boss: In Chapter 5, command-bots appear as regular enemies. In endless mode, they are joined by captains. This doesn't make fighting them any easier.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Conceited, militaristic social darwinists who destroy "lesser races" in the fire? Who could that be referencing?
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The new difficulty level: Insanium. It's filled to the brim with the uranium level robots on top of commanders.
• Exact Words:
  • It turns out the Emperor was telling the truth about the Core Command forcing the robots to harvest organic life, but he made no promise about what he would do after the player shut it down. His first order once the command is silenced is to recall their infantry and bombard Earth from orbit.
  • On a meta level: One of the more requested features while the game was in pre-alpha was duel-wield weapons. Come the game's full release, and the Emperor himself uses a hammer and a sword at the same time.
• Free-Floor Fighting: The fights are very dynamic, involving highly mobile enemies fighting on slopes, platforms, pits, bounce pads, and a myriad of death traps.
• Fire-Breathing Weapon: The Flame Raptor's fire breath◊, and it's playable version, the Flamethower Upgrade◊.
• Galactic Conqueror: The robots are led by a totalitarian dictator. He happens to be absolutely massive, and speaks with a very deep voice.
• Green and Mean: Analysis-bot has green eyes and a green tie. He is considerably meaner than Comment-a-Tron.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: An upgrade to "kick" allows you to kick robots into each other, possibly into traps.
• Guilt-Free Extermination War: Despite their colorful personalities, the robots have no good qualities to speak of. so the player killing them by the hundreds brings up zero moral questions.
• Heel–Race Turn: Double Subverted and Downplayed. At the end of the Chapter 5, the humans destroy the core program that forces robots to systematically roboticize the entire species and force them to fight in gladiatorial combat. After being freed, The Emperor decides that there is no purpose behind forcing the humans to fight in gladiatorial combat for fun...so he decides to destroy the humanity via the Orbital Bombardment. But then, when he dies, the robots decide to not follow his orders, and with their newfound freedom they decide to find better ways to spend their time. While they don't seem to be that repentful for their transgressions against humanity, they do apologize and choose to depart in peace, not seeking further conflict against the humans.
• Humongous-Headed Hammer: The hammer upgrade gives the human a hammer, and each upgrade makes the hammer radically increase in size, and by the third upgrade, the hammer is as big as their own body.
• Inhumanable Alien Rights: Captured humans have their consciousness uploaded into robot bodies, which the robots consider superior. Despite this, they are treated as mere fodder for entertainment.
• It Amused Me: The Robots don't have a grand reason why they force captured humans into gladiator matches beyond:It's fun.
• Jerkass: All of the robots get their entertainment from watching humans die in various horrific ways, and their games always continue until the contestant dies. Presumably, they have done this to other species before. Though, as it's revealed at the climax of the Chapter 5, there is a program that forces them to follow such pattern, and when it's destroyed and their emperor dies, they choose to leave humanity in peace and even apologize for their actions.
  Comment-a-Tron: "You know what will be cool to try after all humans are gone?"
  Analysis-bot: "What?"
  Comment-a-Tron: "Orcas!"
  Analysis-bot: "Ohhh, those things are deadly!"
  Comment-a-Tron: "That's a sequel right there."
• Kill It with Fire: Each weapon has an upgrade that lets your attacks do flame damage, and a further upgrade to increase the flame damage that weapon does, and an upgrade that lets you straight up breathe fire. It is very useful, as it can make what would have been a glancing blow into a kill shot.
• Lack of Empathy: So far none of the robots has been shown to demonstrate any real affection or empathy at all. They are dismissive not only to humans, but their own kind as well, sending countless robots into the arena without any hesitation, or indeed, any discernible reason beyond the fact that it's entertaining to do so. They are also shown to follow any orders from their superiors unquestioningly.
• Ludicrous Gibs: Due to the nature of how damage is applied, you can chop off arms, legs, heads, or just smaller parts of those, and litter the arena with them. However, that pales compared to the hammer, which does nothing but reduce robots to thinly strewn piles of scrap metal. Winning in the multiplayer mode "last bot standing" also showers your bot with rival players' pieces once you've come out on top too.
• Man Versus Machine: Humans are pitted against robots in gladiatorial combat.
• Mechanical Lifeforms: The Robots are complicated life-forms of their own kind. They genuinely have trouble understanding the nuances of biological existence. Not that they really care.
• Mental Space Travel: This is used by the resistance to intercept the Harvesting Fleet, which was already en-route to Earth.
• Mind Hive: The robots are revealed to operate like this in Chapter 3. Each robot has a unique mind, and that unique mind exists in a hierarchal network going from simple combat robots up to powerful command units and Overseer units. Each robot can have a clone of themselves made as a way of avoiding death: said clone is merely a vessel into which the consciousness of the dying robot is instantly transmitted via the mind network - a robot that dies without an available clone is is truly dead. Thanks to Emilia's Mind Virus, the player can use the network to take the bodies of his robot enemies.
• Parrying Bullets: The "block arrows" sword upgrade allows a robot to do this (the "arrows" in question are made of energy). Hilariously, two robots with this upgrade can parry a projectile between them continually at very high speeds◊.
• Playing with Fire: Despite the fact that they only mastered fire very recently, the robots absolutely love fire-based weapons and attacks. They have invented a technological flaming sword that can combust metal as if it were wood◊.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Analysis-bot mentions that the humans killed in the arena are analyzed as they fight to help the robots make better soldiers.
• Press X to Die: It's entirely possible to destroy your own clones before you actually use them. Doing so will leave the commentators bemused.
  Comment-a-Tron: "Oh dear."
  Analysis-bot: "That is not the optimal way to win this game!" (Not that the game can be won)
• Robot War: The game begins with humanity gradually losing one of these.
• Robot Soldier: Most robots in the game are some kind of soldier unit, each specialized for a specific weapon. Sword-bots, Archer-bots, Spear-bots, Hammer-bots, Jetpack-bots... so on.
• Rule of Cool: The danger zone seems to run on this. Flame breath, flame raptors, giant flaming hammers, jetpacks,the ability to use fire on every single one of your weapons.
• Spider Tank: Captains are robots whose lower bodies are replaced with quadruple spider-like legs, while Spider-Trons are robots specifically modelled after quadrupedal spiders.
• Subsystem Damage: Each time a weapon impacts a robot, damage is done to the individual voxels the attack actually touches◊. Undamaged parts will remain functional unless one of the robot's critical areas is damaged or all of their weapons are removed. As a result, it's not unusual for robots or the player to keep fighting while missing legs◊ and arms◊.
• Techno Wizard: A human hacker named Emilia Blum managed to upload her consciousness to the Robot's mind network and start a resistance movement.
• This Is Gonna Suck:
  Comment-a-Tron: I have heard this level is described as "evil".
  Analysis-Bot: Who said that? I bet it was a human!
  Comment-a-Tron: Yes. They cried as they watched it form.
  Analysis-Bot: Their suffering will end in fire.
• Throw Down the Bomblet: Spider-Tron 5000 only attacks by flinging grenades. Spider-Tron 6000 upgrades this to a LOT of grenades.
• Unexpected Shmup Level: At the beginning of the Chapter 5, the player takes control of one of the robots' spaceships, turning the game into a 3D spaceship shooter.
• Unwilling Roboticization: Every human contestant has had their organic body destroyed in the fire and their mind uploaded into a robotic body before participating in the games.
• Videogame Flamethrowers Suck: ZigZagged in the case of flame breath, as it might be short-ranged, but given most of your attackers will be using melee weapons, it has enough range to stay just of reach, can't be blocked or deflected, and lets you pour on an incredibly lethal amount of damage, but has the trade-off that it requires an absurd amount of energy to use.
• Walking Armory: There's a wide variety of weapons available, each rewarding a specific play style and having its own unique incremental upgrades. They can be switched between in gameplay on the fly.
  • An Energy Sword is the default weapon. It cuts through enemies like butter, and automatically blocks melee attacks coming from the front unless you are in mid-swing. It rewards broad, sweeping cuts in good hands; it has been known to take out multiple enemies in one swing. Its upgrades include the ability to deflect energy arrows, as well as set enemies on fire. An upgraded sword is a good answer for basically any problem. All other weapons are only available as upgrades.
  • The Bow fires rather slow-moving, flat energy projectiles that - like the sword - will cut through basically anything on contact as if it were thin air. Its Upgrades make the actual projectile wider, to the point where they start to resemble Razor Wind. Its ammunition is completely reliant on your remaining energy.
  • The Hammer has a longer reach than the sword, requires less precise aim to use, and completely bypasses the Sword's block, but cannot parry any attacks. Its upgrades enhance its size, eventually to gargantuan proportions, allowing it to effectively clear crowds with wild swinging.
  • The laser spear rewards skill and precision over everything: it bypasses a sword's defense, but it cannot parry attacks. Also, thanks to the voxel-based damage system, it is much harder to land a lethal blow with it by attacking wildly, and it is nearly impossible for a spear to control a crowd. However, the same damage system makes it possible for a well-controlled spear thrust to strike between armor plates and land a deadly blow instantaneously. It's upgrades include an unbreakable shield that can deflect arrows and hammer strikes, but only from one side.
• We Come in Peace — Shoot to Kill: The robots accept a human diplomat onto their ship for negotiations shortly after they arrive over Earth. They proceed to force him into the arena and kill him on live broadcast, during which Analysis-Bot casually quips about doing the same to every other human in existence. War ensues.
• Wham Line: After the human successfully disables the robots' harvesting directive.
  Emperor: Annihilate them from orbit.
• Wolfpack Boss: The Command Bots attack the player all at once.