Clash n Slash

"Clash N Slash" is a popular video game released by Enkord in 2005. The game was featured in shareware form on many Flash websites, leading to an impressively broad exposure for a comparatively simple, 2-dimensional space shooter.

Graphics

Clash N Slash, despite being rather traditional in its 2D format, features reasonably well-embellished graphics at a relatively modest cost to processing power: the game will run comfortably on a 400MHz processor with 64mb of RAM (according to its developers). The space-based subject matter allows for a highly stylised, cartoonish feel to the game, which doubtless helps in economising on processing costs.

Gameplay

Clash N Slash is a 2D space shooter, akin to "Asteroids". The player controls a spaceship in orbit around a quaint-looking planet, armed with one of a variety of weapons. Within seconds of a level's beginning, the periphery of the screen fills up with UFOs, enemy starfighters, space detritus (including meteors) and various other hazards to the planet's wellbeing, all closing in rapidly toward the centre of the screen. The player must use his or her ship's weaponry to destroy the enclosing threats before they crash into his ship and/or planet. Should the ship sustain irreparable damage, a new ship will be launched after some delay to replace it. However, sufficient damage to the planet will result in game over. Both will slowly heal themselves if left undamaged over time. The ship's movement and the weapon are controlled exclusively using the mouse cursor.

Upgrades may be purchased periodically for both the player's ship and his planet. Upgrades are usually earned by destroying a certain number of objects with the ship's weapon, and are accessed by a simple right-click anywhere on the screen. Typically, planetary upgrades either reduce the damage the planet sustains per hit, speed its regeneration or reduce the time it takes to launch a new ship. Ship upgrades generally augment various attributes of the ship's weapon (eg. rate of fire, accuracy, reload time).

More anomalous upgrades include: periodically firing nuclear missiles from the planet, detecting hidden powerups, and increasing the score gleaned from each enemy destroyed.

There are six weapons available, each of which has two augmentations.

The entire game has sixty levels in total, all of which are structured to constantly bring in new features of the game (weapons, enemies, powerups) one at a time, making for a gentle learning curve.

There are five bosses across the game, at levels 20, 40, 58, 59 and 60.

External links

* [http://www.enkord.com/ Enkord, developers of Clash N Slash]