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Snake vs Invaders
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About the game
In most shooters you dodge the bullets. Here you do the opposite: you are a snake, and the bullets are your weapon. The invaders fill the top of the screen and keep firing at the planetary shield at the bottom. Your tail sweeps across the field, and any bullet it touches is knocked back at the enemy. The faster and wider your sweeps, the more of them you send home, and the sooner the rows of invaders fall to their own fire.
The game is presented as a story told in short radio messages between a colonel and Sir Snake, an unlikely defender with a big idea. It is a bit ridiculous and it knows it. Between the jokes there is a real game: ten stages, each with its own twist (rain, walls, a mirage, fireworks, a curtain of enemies), and a score that unlocks upgrades such as longer shields, a longer tail, piercing shots and artillery as you collect it.
There are small rules that make it deeper than it looks. You can ram an enemy at the cost of part of your tail. If you move the mouse too fast, time speeds up to limit your reach. The enemies shoot less when your shield is low, which sets up a real risk and reward choice. baturinsky made the game for js13kGames 2019.
Playing it here
Click Play, pick a stage in the menu and move the mouse over the game area. The game only runs while the pointer is inside it, so keep the cursor in the window. The first messages explain the controls. Right click turns on Active Pause, in which time only moves while you do, a good way to read the dialogue or plan a sweep. Your best score for each stage is kept in your browser.
Controls
| Input | Action |
|---|---|
| mouse movement | steer the snake; its tail deflects bullets |
| right click | toggle Active Pause |
| click on a stage in the menu | start it |
A few things worth knowing
Sweep, do not chase. Wide, smooth arcs send back more bullets than short jabs.
Mind the shield. Bullets that reach the bottom of the screen wear down the planetary shield, and the score you get is higher when the shield is high.
Ram when you must. Hitting an enemy destroys it but costs some of your tail, which grows back over time.
Credits and licence
Snake vs Invaders was created by baturinsky and is released under the MIT licence. It uses no third-party code, images or sounds. The licence text is linked from this page.