Crimsonland

Infobox VG |title = Crimsonland


developer = 10tons Entertainment
publisher = Reflexive Entertainment
engine =
released = 2003
genre = Top-down shooter, Run and Gun
series=
modes = Single player, 2 Player
ratings = ESRB: Mature (M)
platforms = Windows
media =
requirements =
input = Keyboard, mouse

Crimsonland is a shoot 'em up style computer game, released in April 22, 2003. The player must defend himself against thousands of aliens that surround him. This objective is accomplished using a variety of weapons, perks and bonuses. [cite web |title=Crimsonland Forums |url=http://www.10tons.org/crimsonforum/viewtopic.php?id=96 |accessdate=2008-05-11]

This 2D game utilises a top down view with scrollable screen. The player moves around using the keyboard and aims with his mouse, similar to early PC arcade games such as Abuse. The game also borrows much of its style and gameplay from the 1982 William's arcade game Robotron. Crimsonland 2 is reportedly in the making.

Gameplay

In Crimsonland, there are several aspects of gameplay.

Perks

As more aliens are killed, the player character gets experience points. When a certain amount of "Exp" has been acquired, the character gains a level, allowing the selection of an additional perk. As the character gains successively higher levels, more experience is needed to gain a level, and get more perks.

Perks come in many forms. Some perks improve reload times, while one makes the player character for 30 seconds before killing him. When a level is gained, generally five perks are randomly chosen to be made available, although some perks such as Perk Expert will modify how many and which perks can be displayed. Some perks have prerequisites, such as gaining a weaker version of the perk first.

Weapons

Crimsonland boasts a wide array of weapons. There is a total of 25 weapons, along with a few secret ones. As levels are completed in normal difficulty Quest mode, weapons are occasionally unlocked. The most basic weapon in the game is the pistol, which is the starting weapon in most levels of the game. Killed enemies occasionally drop weapons, typically a random weapon from the pool of currently unlocked weapons, to be picked up by the player, or not, according to preference. The chance of this happening is very high if the enemy is killed by a pistol shot, but is otherwise quite low if another weapon is used.

All weapons have a reload time, depending on how powerful they are. The pulse-gun, for example, has virtually no reload time, but isn't very effective against hordes of enemies.

Some weapons have an impact on the player characters' speed. If the player obtains the "mean minigun", the character will move very slowly, but will have lots of fire power. Also, all weapons have a different amount of ammo in storage. A rocket launcher, for example, only has five rockets before it reloads, while an assault rifle has 25 rounds.

Each weapon that is unlocked is shown in the "Weapons Database" inside of the game. All the weapons have a number with them. A strange occurrence in this is that some weapons have skipped numbers in the game, and that two of these are the already discovered: "Blade Gun" and "Shrinkifier 3k".

Bonuses

Throughout the game, the enemies will drop certain bonuses which help the player character live longer, kill more enemies and gain a higher score.

Modes

Crimsonland v1.9.8 features a wide array of modes for the single player and two player game.

*Quest: This is essentially the "campaign" mode of the game. Originally, the game had 4 episodes, with 10 levels in each one. In September 9, 2003, a new version was released that added more weapons, perks, and a new 5th episode to the game. Each episode has a different terrain type, such as grassy, or ice. Each level has a limited number of enemies that will spawn before you win.

*Survival: In this mode, the player's objective is to stay alive to achieve the highest score possible. The pistol is the starting weapon, though a different weapon will drop from one of the first enemies killed. As the game progresses more and different types of monsters begin to appear. This mode continues until the player character's death. It is the most commonly played game mode and constitutes the main focus of the game.

*Rush: This mode, like Survival, continues until the character's death. With the assault rifle as the starting weapon, the player must hold off a constant waves of enemies as long as possible. There are no perks, upgrades, or weapons available, but the assault rifle has no reload. In this mode, the goal is to stay alive as long as possible. This is a very fast mode with games typically lasting less than a minute.

*Typ-O-Shooter: A unique mode in which the enemies come in with words over their heads. Type in the words and the player character will fire his shotgun in an attempt to kill the enemy.
*Tutorial: This mode instructs in the play of Crimsonland, including the use of perks, how to fire weapons, move around, etc.

*The last freeware version 1.4 of Crimsonland supports only 2 modes.

Enemies

In Crimsonland, there is a wide array of enemies. All of the enemies have a random color and size. Most of the time, the larger ones are harder to kill. Some enemies are also invisible, while others shoot projectiles. There are also "hives", that produce enemies. A rare kind of enemies are "trigger" enemies, when a designed stronger enemy dies, all "trigger" enemies belong to it die too (2.9, Ghost Patrols). The following is a list of enemy types:

*Aliens - Normal Aliens, Red Speed devils (Small, fast, red, killer aliens)
*Zombies - Zombie-Producing Zombies (Zombie Masters), Normal Zombies
*Lizards - Normal Lizards, Lizard Kings (hard to kill lizards)
*Spiders - Plasma-Shooting Spiders, Tiny Plasma-Shooting Spiders, Dividing Spiders (Spideroids), Normal Spiders
*Invisible Enemies - Normal Invisible Enemies (Ghosts). Only seen in 3.4 Hidden Evil (Quest mode)
*Nests - Tiny Plasma-Shooting Spider producing nests, Normal Alien producing nests, Normal Spider producing nests, Lizard producing nests.

Mini Games

There is only one mini-game, called Alien Zoo Keeper, which is a secret. The objective in the game is to clear the area of aliens by putting 3 aliens of the same colour in a row. The producer said this game was not finished.

Mobile Games

The Russian mobile games developer Herocraft [http://mobilegames.blogs.com/mobile_games_blog/2007/07/herocraft-annou.html announced] the start of development of a mobile version of Crimsonland called Crimsonland: Mobile Massacre. The English version was released in March of 2008.

Trivia

On several holidays the Crimsonland splash screen has included easter eggs, including snow on Christmas with a Happy Holidays message scrolling across the top.

References

External links

* [http://www.10tons.org 10tons Entertainment website]
* [http://www.reflexive.net Reflexive Entertainment website]
* [http://crimsonland.reflexive.com Crimsonland official website]
* [http://www.10tons.org/crimsonforum Official Crimsonland Forum]