The game takes place late in the twenty-second century, twenty years after Earth has fallen to alien invaders named the XADA. Now humanity's new home planet, Gaia, is facing a similar attack that is being orchestrated by the XADA from Earth. You play as Jake Carloway, an Earth refugee and pilot for the Ivonix corporation who controls a WarMech III battle suit codenamed Avalon via a Brain/Computer Interface. If the WarMech gets destroyed, you die with it, because your mind has been downloaded inside. While Avalon's primary weapon is a BFS Sharpened to a Single Atom, you can also use ranged weapons to get the job done. Your goal is to search Earth for the XADA invasion signal and shut it down before Gaia also falls. During your journey you'll also find modules known as ARKs that will upgrade your WarMech.
Available on Google Play, the Apple App Store, and the Nintendo eShop. The official Rayark Games site can be found here
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Implosion: Never Lose Hope contains examples of:
- Achievement System: The player earns badges for completing levels under certain conditions, some of which are designed to appeal to Challenge Gamers and 100% Completionists. Badges can then be used to collect rare ARKs or weapons.
- Action Girl: Diana May, pilot of the WarMech codenamed Crimson.
- Allegedly Free Game: It's such in a different way than typical Free To Start mobile games. It's like a modern Shareware game in that you get the first fraction for free, but need to pay for the rest.
- Apocalypse How: the backstory describes how the Earth was running out of resources to support humanity (class 3b) and then the XADA invaded to bring about class 3a by infecting humans with a virus that puts them under XADA control.
- Apocalyptic Log: the various personal messages collected by your WarMech's hack drone. Since the messages are somewhat random, you not only collect the history of the XADA invasion, but also engineering status reports, interoffice memos, and the results of a company betting pool.
- Boss Banter: All the bosses except for two indulge in this.
- Boss in Mook Clothing: Praetors. They're big, fast, powerful, and shielded. As the game goes on, you encounter increasing numbers of them in smaller areas.
- Bullet Time: The Precognition Protocol skill allows you slow down nearby enemies while retaining your normal speed.
- Character Customization: You change your WarMech's abilities by swapping ARKs.
- Chekhov's Gun: The WarMechs, both versions II and III. The WarMech II was scrapped because it couldn't protect the pilot inside from XADA infection. The Model III with its neural interface solves this, but leaves the pilot open to mind hacks from XADA tapping into the link. It's also liable to explode if an attack is charged up without releasing it. In the end, the XADA queen is able to freeze Jake in place by hacking his mind link. Jonathan, wearing a WarMech II, can't be controlled by the queen, so he shoots her with a BFG. The shot fails, the queen kills Jonathan, and then Jake kills her by detonating his WarMech III.
- Chekhov M.I.A.: Jonathan Carloway, Jake's uncle. Left behind on Earth 20 years previously and presumed dead, he returns in an outdated WarMech II fighting suit to help Jake. It proves useful.
- Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Can happen when you switch between the Avalon WarMech and Crimson, because their central ARKS control different special attacks that don't always fill all available attack slots, so their fighting styles are very different.
- Controlling Jonathan may take a while to get used to as he has a very different fighting style and outdated WarMech that can only Impulse Dash once (as opposed to 3 times) and doesn't have Shield.
- Deadpan Snarker: Both Jake and Diana are this, especially when it comes to the accuracy of the intelligence coming from Mission Control.
- Zoe: Your Drop Pod will shuttle you to possible XADA locations.Jake: So...we're just guessing now?Diana: We're correct fifty percent of the time, all the time.
- Deus ex Nukina: Jake explodes his Avalon WarMech with his mind still inside it to kill the XADA queen. A WarMech's pilot dies if the WarMech is destroyed. Also a classic case of Taking You with Me.
- Difficult, but Awesome: If you wait after hitting a mook it's possible to charge up a flashy heavy attack that will do more damage without costing RA. Really hard to pull off against the faster XADA.
- Difficulty Levels: Easy, Hard, and Expert, which also happens to be Final Death Mode. The other two allow revives.
- Finishing Move: several varieties, depending on whether or not you're using RA.
- Gameplay and Story Integration: The in-game dialogue will change depending on whether you're playing as Avalon or Crimson.
- Gameplay Grading: each level ends with a Score Screen giving you a grade, and listing the XP, money, ARKs, and badges you earned.
- Glass Cannon: Jonathan can deal tons of damage with his dual guns and his ballistic is more powerful than Avalon's and Crimson. But his WarMech doesn't have shield and he can only dash once.
- Guilt-Based Gaming: Quitting in the middle of a level gets you this question: "Are you quitting on humanity?"
- Heroic Sacrifice: Jake and Jonathan Carloway. Jonathan dies in his last ditch effort to kill the XADA Queen, knowing he would probably fail. Jake finally kills her by exploding his WarMech, killing himself in the process.
- Hold the Line: One level per chapter is this, giving you the mission of defending an area from XADA attack. In one instance you're given this exact command from Mission Control.
- Impossibly Cool Weapon: The XADA Destroyer shoots stationary spinning discs with lasers that can kill all but the strongest monsters who wander into their radius, but ignore your WarMech. It's so powerful its ammo is limited to three shots. Earning enough badges gets you the unlimited version.
- Industrialized Evil: Before they were turned into XADA minions the Buffalos, K-9 robots and Centaur security guards were all designed to protect Earth's remaining humans. Even then they were dangerous enough to frighten the people they were protecting.
- Inescapable Ambush: Each new area in a level locks down doors or puts up laser fences that won't open again until you've cleared the mooks out.
- Interface Screw: Mission 3-7 has a variant of this. Because of the in-universe effects of a virus, the background visuals are extremely fuzzy, and both your mech and any enemies you encounter look like pale silhouettes. It's not a short level, either, so by the time you're done, your eyes are probably going to hurt.
- Kaizo Trap: The boss monster at the end of the first chapter. It tries to drag you into the pit it's falling into as it's dying.
- Level Grinding: Necessary because it's easy to get a level-locked ARK. Also because it's the only way to earn badge rewards.
- Limit Break: Every XADA you hit collects energy called RA to fill your RA meter for special attacks. Typically the more RA a move uses, the more devastating it is. Accepting a "ranged weapons only" challenge means you'll be completing a level without collecting any RA at all. Other challenges require you to fight with no ARKs equipped, so you'll be filling up the RA meter with no way to use it.
- Mental Fusion: The hive-minded XADA use this to control humans, especially Drs. Raymond and Goldie Millar. One of the XADA you kill early on turns out to be Jane Millar, likely a relative.
- Mind Screw: The epilogue, in which we see Jake's body in hospital, still alive, but now run by his WarMech's AI mind.
- Mission Control: Napoleon Venefray, Zoe, and Diana. Throughout the game they give status reports on the current invasion, and advise you about the area you're moving through. Some levels cut you off from them, in an version of Missing Mission Control.
- More Dakka: Earn enough badges, and you can collect weapons with unlimited ammo.
- Old Soldier: Napoleon Venefray. As a veteran WarMech pilot who's fought XADA before, he tells you about the strengths and abilities of the XADA you run across. Late in the game you start encountering XADA he doesn't know about, and he tells you you're on your own.
- One-Word Title
- Our Zombies Are Different: the "mutaforms" in Implosion are stated to be human pilots who were infected, killed, and then reanimated by the XADA virus.
- Promoted to Playable: Diana May, when you unlock the "Crimson" WarMech.
- Pun-Based Title: In the opening cutscene, Jake is told "You are Hope." And in order to stop the XADA, Jake must never lose.
- Sequential Boss: Dr. Raymond Millar, over the course of 3 levels, after he's been completely taken over by the XADA queen.
- Shout-Out: Messages you collect that aren't part of the storyline tend to be shoutouts written by people like "Stephen Jobbes" (Head of I.T.), "Albert Weinstein" (Head of R&D), and some lowly researcher named "Nikola Telsar". Other shoutouts: Advertising messages from "Macrosoft Engineering", a memo titled "Full Metal Jacket", a plea from someone who lost his "IDBook" contacts to everyone asking them to resend their contact info, and a message from a ticked-off victim of a practical joke: "I will find you and I will kill you."
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: The rousing reply to The Dragon's "You are doomed" speech. "Never underestimate the power of the human spirit."
- Spectacular Spinning: Crimson, Diana's WarMech, is equipped with a lance, rather than a sword, and most of her special attacks involve twirling her weapon. One finishing move has her planting the lance and whirling around it like it's a stripper pole, a la Bayonetta.
- Suspicious Video-Game Generosity: Increases as the game goes on. By the endgame you're given half a level of mooks and loot to gain XP and better ARKs.
- The Chessmaster: Dr. Raymond Millar, even after merging with the XADA queen.
- The Dragon: Goldie Millar to her husband, Dr. Raymond Millar. And Dr. Raymond Millar to the XADA Queen.
- Unlockable Content: With enough badges, the Crimson WarMech. The message entries for a certain level can't be read until you've cleared the level. The latest update includes an endless mini game with waves of XADA attackers that is available only after you complete the game for the first time.
