You play a crew of ship engineers whose ship has crashed on a desert planet. While awaiting for a rescue ship, they are attacked by hordes of vicious aliens and zombies, and they have to salvage components from their ship to fight back.
You can play it here.
Tropes present in this game:
- Action Bomb:
- Bursters. If they get too near a unit, you can kiss that unit goodbye with the Burster.
"Faster, more aggressive... and suicidal. They would literally explode if they got close to one of us. We had to keep them as far away as possible."- The Imploder turns the enemy it hits into one that deals heavy Knock Back, pushing all other enemies around it backwards.
- Beam Spam: You can call in a laser turret or even tell the crashed ship to fire a massive volley of lasers. Bear in mind that each laser is a One-Hit Kill on any enemy.
- Boring, but Practical: Nail Gunners in Levels 1, 2, and 5. They're cheap and can be bought in large amounts, and a whole row of them can easily take care of Bursters and Runners. Subverted in Levels 3 and 4, where they are easily beaten by Hunters and Infected.
- Dark Reprise: In levels 3 and 4, the music gets darker and more hectic as different, more deadly foes start appearing.
- 11th-Hour Superpower: The Beam Cutter, which is only available in the final level. It's able to One-Hit Kill a whole line of enemies.
- Energy Weapon: Averted. Lasers are instant hitscan weapons.
- Four Is Death: In a sort of coincidence, Day 4 is the first time you encounter the zombified crew members.
- Fragile Speedster: Bursters have the lowest amount of health alongside Runners, but they're much faster.
- Glass Cannon: The stronger units, like Flamethrowers, Imploders and Beam Cutters. The first deals heavy damage to Mooks and the last two kill them instantly. However, like all units, they take one tap from an alien/zombie to die.
- The Goomba: Runners. Bursters are every way more dangerous by having faster speed and more lethality. In the final level, the last few waves contain everything except Runners.
- Improvised Weapon: Every single weapon in the game. Your characters are engineers who salvaged components from the wreckage of their ship and made them into weapons."The wreckage was full of components; Components we put together... and we fought back"
- Isometric Projection
- Kill It with Fire: Hunters. In fact, it even slows them down from reaching the flamethrower unit. Infected are also very vulnerable to getting burned.
- Knock Back: The Imploder instantly kills a Mook and explodes it, knocking back all other units around it. The Repulsor ability pushes all enemies in the wave, including Hunters that are underground.
- Kung Fu-Proof Mook: Hunters are immune to damage when underground, will only rise when near a unit, and have lots of health. These act similar to the Snorkel Zombie from Plants vs. Zombies."...then it seemed like the desert came alive... they were coming out from under the sand! We couldn't do anything until they were too close. Their skin was tougher than the plating of our wrecked ship. They were bloodthirsty... slaughtering one man after another. The only way to kill them was to burn them."
- Lightning Bruiser: Hunters. While all the mooks can kill units in one hit, the Hunters have high durability and the speed of Runners. Their tradeoff is that they're pushed away and slowed down by Flamethrowers.
- Mooks, but no Bosses: There are no bosses in the game, and "difficulty" is mainly done via high enemy count. The final wave of the final day is The War Sequence instead of a giant boss accompanied by mooks.
- Nail 'Em: The first unit you have is the Nail Gunner, who shoots nails at a moderate range.
- Night of the Living Mooks: Infected. These have a LOT of health, but are the slowest Mooks and are easily pushed back and killed by the Imploder."When we crashed, the ship had split in two. I didn't think anyone from the other section had survived. But there they were, walking towards us. I ran out towards them... my buddies. I thought... no way they could have survived! Only when I got closer did I realize I was right. They hadn't survived."
- One-Hit Kill
- If any of your units are harmed by an alien, they die. In the case of Infected, they become another Infected.
- The Imploder does this to one enemy and pushes all enemies in the vicinity back.
- The Beam Cutter is a One-Hit Polykill that destroys a line of enemies, but has slow firing rate.
- One-Hit-Point Wonder: All your units are defeated in one hit.
- Our Zombies Are Different: Infected. For one, they walk normally and don't shamble. How they got infected is also unknown.
- Palette Swap: Runners, Bursters and Hunters are pretty much recolours of each other, but they act differently. This can get annoying when one can't tell if that Mook in front is a Hunter or a Burster.
- Plot Tailored to the Party: From days 2-4, you fight a new enemy. On that same day you get a weapon that just so happens to counter that enemy type:
- The far-ranged Fuel Launcher that slows down the fast, suicidal Bursters.
- The close-range flamethrower that pushes back and torches the burrowing Hunters that rise when at close-range.
- The Imploder that One Hit Kills and pushes back the tough but slow Infected.
- Schizophrenic Difficulty: Many players agree than Day 3 on Hard is much tougher than Day 4 and Day 5 on Hard. This is because you can only place one less flamethrower unit, and the Hunters can easily sneak in past the flamers' firing range and kill them. On Day 4 and 5, Hunters don't appear early.
- Status Effects: The Fuel Launcher coats the enemies in hardening oil, causing Runners, Bursters and Hunters to become slower (Infected are already slow). If they are hit by a flare gun or flamethrower, they catch fire and take extra damage (while being slow).
- Sticky Situation: The Fuel Launcher does this to enemies, making Runners, Bursters and Hunters much slower.
- Stone Wall: Infected are the slowest enemies and can take a huge amount of damage before going down.
- Superweapon Surprise: The Tool conversion sort. The ships engineers were helpless, but with Fuel, Flare guns and even Nail guns, they manage to fight back against the aliens.
- Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: Flamethrowers and Imploders beat Hunters/Infected, who beat most other weapons, which beat Bursters, which beat Flamethrowers and Imploders.
- The Virus: Infected will turn your units into more Infected should they manage to get close.
- The War Sequence: Level 5's final wave. 50 or so Engineers v.s. 2800 Bursters, Hunters and Infected.
- Weak to Fire: Most weapons aren't very effective against Hunters except for the Flamethrower, which even pushes them backwards.
- Worm Sign: Hunters have these when burrowed underground.
- Zerg Rush: The enemies attack in this format, especially on the final wave and "massive waves".
