Aquatic Beast Force

About the game

You are a helicopter pilot over a stretch of desert, and the tanks are rolling in. There is no map to explore and no end in sight: the point is to last, shoot what comes and see how many tanks you can take down.

The helicopter flies over a sandy, top-down field, and the tanks come at it from the edges of the screen. Each tank that explodes gives back some ammunition, and that is the heart of the game: your supply of shots is small, so you have to hit what you aim at. If the ammunition or the health bar runs out, the run is over. The health bar slowly refills by itself, but only while you stay alive, so a close call is not the end. A small panel at the bottom of the screen shows the shots you have left and your health.

The art is in the style of the early handheld consoles, with four muted greens and pinks that fit well with the squid-like emblem on the title, and the sounds are short and crunchy. The kraken in the emblem has six arms, and the author knows it.

Julian Dinges (Thunraz) made it for js13kGames 2014, a contest where the whole game has to fit in 13 kilobytes. It is simple and short, and it is easy to come back for another try.

Playing it here

Click Play, then click inside the game to give it the keyboard focus. There is no title screen: the helicopter is flying at once. Press an arrow key to move and Space to shoot.

Controls

A few things worth knowing

Do not waste shots. You start with ten, so wait until a tank is in line before you press Space.

Kills pay for themselves. Each tank you destroy returns a few more shots, so a good aim keeps you supplied.

Stay out of the tanks' line. They aim at you too, and your health is the other limit on a run.

Credits and licence

Aquatic Beast Force was created by Julian Dinges (Thunraz) and is dedicated to the public domain under the Unlicense. The licence text is linked from this page, and the project is on GitHub.