Eufloria is a Real-Time Strategy game by indie developers Alex May, Rudolf Kremers and Brian Grainger. Inspired by the Dyson Tree hypotheses
, the player assumes the role of Plant Aliens who seek to colonize asteroids in order to hasten the return of the Growers. Using ten seedlings, the player can build a either a Dyson Tree, which produces more seedlings, or a Defensive Tree, which releases flying explosive fruit.
Over the course of the game, the player encounters the Greys, who are seedlings driven insane by The Virus, and later the creators of the virus, who are themselves another seedling empire.
The game received an Updated Re-release titled Eufloria HD, which expands upon the gameplay by adding new tree and unit types.
Tropes Present in Eufloria
- Action Bomb: Mines. However, their four laser beams are so effective that they straddle the line between this being the main purpose and it being just a Taking You with Me.
- All Your Base Are Belong to Us: The game is a never-ending series of these between your enemy and you.
- Armor Is Useless: While Defensive Trees do have their uses and value, the core of this game is about attacking new planets, rather than defending old ones.
- It makes missions in which you're supposed to defend things rather complicated. For example, one mission involves you defending a group of grey seedlings from enemies. The best way to do this? Zerg Rush every enemy on the map with your starting seedlings.
- Artificial Stupidity: The 14th campaign mission, "Liberation", has your units additionally controlled by an AI assistant. Said assistant actively sabotagues your frontline activity, by pulling units away when it is not necessary to do so and by sending a too-small attack force to attack an enemy asteroid.
- Beam Spam: How seedlings fight. Mines have four continuous beams that can easily decimate a low-energy seedling army.
- Color-Coded Armies: played with. You can choose one of the available palettes for your forces. Enemies have their palettes randomly chosen from the same set you do (with the exception of the Greys, who are always, well, grey), which means that occasionally both sides look exactly the same, distinguished only by the unique faction symbol.
- Fog of War: Until you send a seedling to an asteroid, all of its properties are unknown. Afterwards you can see it forever, even if you lose all the neighboring asteroids.
- Have You Seen My God?: The Mother Tree worships the Growers, and the seedlings' main motivation is to hasten their return by colonizing asteroids.
- Scenery Porn: The 'dark' levels are especially gorgeous, even though the art style is simple.
- Suspicious Video-Game Generosity: The first level of the last chapter, 'Event Horizon', opens with "Our enemy is weak... They are retreating from our might! Round them up and finish them off." A few asteroids ahead is a large asteroid with very good stats. As soon as you take it the enemy attacks with a large force of super seedlings.
- Taking You with Me: Mines, besides their four laser beams, explode upon death. This means that the usual method of removing them can end in disaster.
- Terraform: Terraform Trees in Eufloria HD. After using ten seedlings to plant it on an asteroid, up to 100 additional seedlings can be used to upgrade one of that asteroid's three stats (Energy, Strength, or Speed), which in turn will upgrade the all new seedlings produced by its Dyson Trees.
- Too Fast to Stop: 'Speed' type seedlings generally avoid the "traffic jam" problem due to attempting to hit the entrance, being denied due to another seedling being closer, bouncing off and flying into space to make another pass.
- Tracking Device: Beacon Plants in Eufloria HD can send these to other asteroids, causing all new seedlings produced on the Beacon Plant's asteroid to automatically rally to the target asteroid.
- The Virus: What the Greys are afflicted by. It's actually a biological weapon created by one of the other seedling empires.
