Volcanic Giraffe team here. And we are making Protolife. Originally made for Ludum Dare 38 game jam, themed 'A Small World', we've took inspiration in the Petri dish, which is used to grow cultures of cells (such as bacteria) or small mosses. We also tried to mix in a bit of good old Conway's Game of Life and some other cellular automata principles as gameplay mechanics, and a distinct feature: buildings made of singular blocks. Here's that original entry: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/protolife After 1 year of development we are almost ready to present you the game that has grown out of that prototype. Petri dish has become a planet, and the infection turned out even more deadly, but we kept and improved all of the features people loved most. I hope all of you, from folks who've supported us at Ludum Dare to people who just discovered this game, will like this 'slight graphics update', as we initially called the Steam release. Glad to see you here and stay tuned for more updates! Cheers, icxon

[ 2018-03-03 22:15:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

15 years since the first colonization parties landed on Gagarin-5. 15 years of tedious yet satisfying work on making this planet our home. I miss these years now.
It all happened in mere days. The corruption spread across our lands, waves of crimson doom washed away our mushroom farms, and giant worms devoured our cities. As far as I know, only few thousands of people were able to escape into the emergency bases. Now the thing.. is dormant. It sleeps during the day, and grows only slowly over the night, filled with tumors, blights and rolling, nauseating pink lights.
This small opening seems to be our only chance to fight back, to clean the planet. And we are sure to take it.

Gameplay

Stand to defend a distant human colony against the growing lifeform that devours everything in its wake. Build complex defenses from the simplest element possible – a single block, save few remaining settlements and clean the planetary surface from the corruption in this original tower-based RTS. Initially built for a Ludum Dare 38 game jam, it was completely redesigned, got a graphics update, tons of new content, but still works around a simple idea: build towers from blocks, contain the enemy, survive the night onslaught and strike back.

Key features

• Unique approach to building process: Every tower is constructed from patterns of simple blocks. Build your defense grid piece by piece the way you like it, upgrade, combine, optimize space and resources to survive against the overwhelming odds.
  
• An enemy unlike usual RTS adversaries: Growing, living entity designed to exploit every small weakness in your defense. The more space it takes from you, the more powerful it becomes.
  
• Freedom of strategy and flexible defense perimeter: Go for quick low-tier tower rush or bunk with well-defended artillery posts, then collect your blocks and rebuild the defenses on the spot — just mind the free space and resources left.
  
• Direct control over the builder: Or two? Dynamically switch between several battlefronts and dominate over the enemy.
  
• Over 30 levels with variative gameplay and win objectives.
  
• Random missions generator with an adjustable difficulty level and special rewards.
  
• Custom towers editor where you can construct your own powerful weapon.
  
• Remappable keyboard or gamepad controls. Please note that the game was not designed for mouse control.