SpaceHuggers
Version: 1.0 Web: https://github.com/KilledByAPixel/ SpaceHuggers
Fancy playing a time-killing platformer with a footprint as small as 13kb? We have one! Actually, there’s a competition at https://js13kgames.com where you can find some decent and playable games crafted to be that small. We picked SpaceHuggers, which is a classic side-view platformer that sees you playing a rebel soldier who needs to eliminate evil guys and their outposts from distant planets. Alien terrain, simulated star field in the sky, several suns... everything looks so beautiful despite being an low-res indie game!
SpaceHuggers fits into a single .html file (it’s 17kb, but shrinks down to 13kb when zipped), so we were anxious to see how many details fits there. Quite a lot as it turns out! The game drops you into a Lode Runner-like world with ladders, mazes and movable objects.
Many terrain tiles can be blown either by shooting or ramming through. SpaceHuggers has an unlimited number of live-generated levels, so if you’re skilled enough, you can play it forever. In order to complete a level, you’ll need to find and kill all the bad guys, and capture all the flags. Bad guys have two ranks: green soldiers and blue commanders. The latter possess extra health and are more dangerous. Shoot them all with a chain gun, throw a grenade, or just roll over them to inflict melee damage. Grenades cause a large amount of damage and start a fire, so that if you happen to be too close to the explosion, you can get burnt. The solution is to use the roll feature (press X) for brief invulnerability and putting out fire. Bots don’t roll – they seem to be quite dumb and slow. In contrast, you have more than enough weapons and re-spawn takes to complete the mission, so it all contributes to the game’s appeal.
We were surprised by the smooth and precise character controls, realistic physics (gravity and explosions, for example) and variegated level structures. Of course, those bots could be a little smarter to make the levels harder to complete, but we realise that such an improvement would further increase the game’s size.