Hive Jump is an up to four-player cooperative Run-and-Gun game in the vein of Contra, with a heavy dose of Rogue-lite elements. Developed and released by Graphite Lab and released on July 20, 2016 after a successful Kickstarter campaign, the game is presently in Early Access.
It is the year 2356. Humanity faces losing a Bug War against the Ordovicians, or "Vics". Our only hope for victory is the JUMP Corps, a squad of elite space marines who deploy via ground-penetrating drop pods straight into the Vics' hives, in an effort to assassinate their queens and stop their swarms at the source.
Presently there is an "Arcade" mode, as well as daily and weekly run challenges, with a "campaign" mode planned. Players can select their loadout and cosmetic appearance prior to beginning a run. Once in game, the players must negotiate a series of procedurally-generated stages, with every third stage being a fight with a random boss. Along the way, you can collect bug "goo", which is used as a currency to purchase upgrades for your equipment that persist between runs. You can also find upgrade items that provide passive buffs, but these do not persist. The Permadeath is handled in a unique way: One player carries an Awesome Backpack that acts as a spawn point. Players can infinitely respawn as long as this backpack is around, but it can be damaged by the enemies if it's dropped and if it's destroyed, you're out of respawns.
Hive Jump provides examples of:
- Abnormal Ammo: The weapons, or "rifle mods", range from the standard to the very specific, such as the poison gas launcher and cryobeam.
- Acid Pool: These can be found in the mushroom biome.
- All There in the Manual: There's a codex in the game, detailing background information on the bugs, your equipment, persons of interest, terminology, and so on.
- Bug War: It's the backstory of the game and the reason you're invading all these hives.
- Character Customization: You are able to choose from a variety of skins, insignias, and colors. You can unlock additional insignias through attempted runs and additional skins from successful ones.
- Coop Multiplayer: Originally only in split-screen form, but online coop is now available as of late August 2016.
- During the War: And it's not going well. The bugs routinely wipe out outlying colonies and force refugees inward towards humanity's core worlds, creating both overpopulation and resource shortages.
- The Federation: The HSA, or Human Systems Alliance.
- Fungus Humongous: There's a "green" biome that features large mushrooms, some of which can be jumped on to launch you upwards, while others will instead spit purple Deadly Gas at you.
- Jet Pack: Your character has one. It requires you to hit the jump button a second time to activate and has a bit of a delay to it, making it very easy to say, hurl yourself into ceiling spikes you didn't know were there.
- Lethal Lava Land: Aside from your basic pools of the stuff, lava also shoots up in the form of lobbed rocks and vertical streams to hamper your progress.
- One-Hit Polykill: A railgun is one of the three rifle mods initially available.
- Permadeath: Only if the backpack gets destroyed — as long as it's intact, you have infinite lives.
- Procedural Generation: The levels have randomized layouts, with each set of three stages also having a random one of several Underground Level biomes, and all wouldn't look out of place in Metroid: Basic rock, ice, lava, and the mushroom one, which resembles Upper Brinstar.
- Recursive Ammo: The Rocket Rounds rifle mod, when upgraded, fires rockets that split into more rockets.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The ice caverns feature ice patches for you to slip on — sometimes into spike walls. There's also Stalactite Spite.
- Shout-Out: Many to Starship Troopers, if the premise didn't give it away.
- Space Marine: The JUMP Corps fits this to a T.
- Spread Shot: One of the three rifle mods initially available. It's great for dealing with swarms of flyers but suffers against bosses, as it requires you to get close... which is not a good idea.
- Spikes of Doom: In full force, and especially so in the optional "challenge rooms".
- Underground Level: At present, the entirety of the game is this.
- War Memorial: At the conclusion of a run, successful or not, a scene is shown of a jump trooper kneeling before a large stone obelisk, while a list of the randomized names of each trooper you played and died as scrolls past.
