Xenoreactor Overload

You are an AI-controlled mobile weapons platform tasked with infiltrating the Xenoreactor facility and disabling its cooling systems, thereby sending it into overload! Slowly upgrade yourself and gain powerful weapons as you fight your way through a sprawling, semi-random series of levels on your quest to overload the Xenoreactor!

A game made in five days for the Pygame Community Spring Game Jam.

Source code: https://github.com/Binary-Ninja/pygame-spring-jam-2024

Controls

Use WASD or the arrow keys to move your tank around.

Move the mouse to aim your weapon and left-click to fire.

Press number keys 1~6 or scroll the mouse wheel to select your current weapon.

Press E or right-click to use your coolant injectors to drop your heat by 20.

F5 toggles full-screen mode.

F6 toggles Advanced View, which shows the FPS in the bottom right corner of the screen and also shows the lines of sight to the various enemies. Useful to help your aiming and to see when you are about to get shot.

Press Escape at any time to quit the game.

Tips and Tricks

Enemy tanks and turrets only move and fire when they have a direct line of sight to you.

Your heat value gradually decays as you cool off naturally (you cool off slower when moving and/or firing).

The further away your mouse is, the more accurate your shots will be and the less they will spread out.

If you find yourself in a hot situation, try ducking behind a wall to break line of sight and cool yourself off. If you can't escape, don't forget to use your coolant injectors! Keep a cool head and you might come out alive.

Built-in timers are included for speed runs. Confident in your skills? How fast can you beat the game? An average player who knows what they're doing should take about 60-80 minutes. Can you get below 45?

There is no pausing the game. Enemies don't move when they can't see you, so you can safely hide in a corner forever. The speed run timers will still increase though, so if you want to go fast, you'll need to do it in one shot.

The boss battle isn't that hard. Just keep blasting it while steadily using your coolant injectors and you will come out on top.

There is a secret level. Can you find it?

Other Things

You can build from source to get the program on your system. Xenoreactor Overload was built on Python 3.12.2 and uses Pygame Community Edition 2.4.1. There are no other dependencies.

There is no sound because there is no atmosphere. Why are there explosions? Because the oxidizer is contained in the explosive crates and weaponry, of course.

Pygame Discord name for jam judgement: @BinaryNinja