History VideoGame / ScorchedEarth

* SplashDamage: Almost every weapon (even the default Baby Missile) is powerful enough to kill an unshielded tank with a direct hit; you generally only take damage from a near miss. Note that the game provides a setting allowing you to scale damage radiuses to various sizes, depending on the amount of destruction you want.

* MyRulesAreNotYourRules: The AI generally plays fair, but has access to a triple-turret tank that the player does not.

* ArtificialBrilliance: The magnetic shield always deflects shots upward. The AI is capable of lobbing a shot to come down near the ground next to your tank close enough that the shield pulls it upward...directly into your tank.
* ArtilleryGame: At its core you still have to guess a shooting angle and velocity on each shot, but the wide variety of powerups and game settings really mixes it up. Individual battles can also play out in either "sequential" (player 1 aim/fire, player 2 aim/fire), "synchronous" (all players take their turns aiming, then everyone shoots at the same time), and "simultaneous" (real-time) modes.
* CriticalFailure: Except for the "Heavy Shield", there's a small chance that a given shield will fail to absorb or deflect an incoming shot, allowing its user to get killed by the incoming attack.
* DeathFromAbove: The "Vertical guidance system" causes a projectile to drop ''straight down'' onto its designated target area, even accounting for wind. Combined with a MIRV or "Death's Head"... well, ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill. And then there are random meteorites and lightning strikes, though they're typically not as lethal.

* PreAssKickingOneLiner[=/=]PreMortemOneLiner: There is also a file containing taunts the tanks can make before firing.

* ShoutOut: Many of the One Liners, in both PreAsskickingOneLiner and last words:
** "This screen ain't big enough for the both of us!"

** [[Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay "Hasta la vista, Baby!" and "I'll be back..."]]

* TropeMaker: For Turn-Based Artillery Shooters (with ''VideoGame/{{Worms}}'' as the TropeCodifier)

* FamousLastWords: The game chooses one at random from a text file that users are free to edit.

* ShoutOut: Many of the One Liners, in both PreAsskickingOneLiner and FamousLastWords:

** [[Film/{{Terminator}} "Hasta la vista, Baby!" and "I'll be back..."]]

** [[TheDoors "This is the end, my only friend..."]]

[[http://www.scorched3d.co.uk/ Scorched3D]] is the free [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin 3D]] FanSequel available for all widespread OS and even included in Gentoo and Debian/Ubuntu Linux repositories.

The spiritual predecessor of games like [[VideoGame/{{Worms}} Worms Armageddon]] and VideoGame/{{Gunbound}}, Scorch (as it is known to fans) is the self-proclaimed "Mother of All Games", with a very simple presentation that is nevertheless addictive.

[[http://www.scorched3d.co.uk/ Scorched3D]] is the free [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin 3D]] sequel available for all widespread OS and even included in Gentoo and Debian/Ubuntu Linux repositories.

* PreAssKickingOneLiner / PreMortemOneLiner: There is also a file containing taunts the tanks can make before firing.

** [[TheSimpsons "Eat my shorts!"]]
** [[DirtyHarry "Make my day."]]
** [[MobyDick "From Hell's heart I stab at thee..."]]
** [[{{Terminator}} "Hasta la vista, Baby!"]] (and "I'll be back...")

''Scorched Earth'' is a popular shareware artillery video game, originally written by Wendell Hicken using Borland C++ and Turbo Assembler, in which tanks do turn-based battle in two-dimensional terrain, with each player adjusting the angle and power of his or her tank's turret cannon before each shot.

Things get interesting with a wide variety of power-ups players can purchase in between rounds, including [[HealingPotion batteries]], DeflectorShields, warheads that can [[GeoEffects destroy the ground beneath your enemies (or create new ground on top of them)]], [[KillItWithFire napalm]], and conventional explosives of various sizes and stability. Love that Funky Bomb!

* DeathFromAbove: The "Vertical guidance system" causes a projectile to drop ''straight down'' onto its designated target area, even accounting for wind. Combined with a MIRV or "Death's Head"... well, ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill.
** And then there are random meteorites and lightning strikes....

* GameBreakingBug: Depending on which version of the game and which OS the user plays. For example, one bug caused the "battery" item to ''deplete'' HP instead of restoring it, forcing many an AI to retreat and self-destruct.
* GeoEffects: Most explosions destroy terrain by default, but there is a decent variety of dirt-''producing'' weapons (Dirt Balls and charges) that can be used to bury opponents; and a good variety dirt-clearing weapons, which can be used to dig through terrain without harming the user or their opponents.

* OneHitKO: Though a direct hit from just about any weapon will destroy an unshielded tank, a direct hit from a Sandhog or Napalm can destroy a tank even through heavy shielding.

* SelectiveGravity: The player can control whether or not loose terrain falls to the ground during gameplay, which changes the usefulness of dirt-producing weapons.
* ShoutOut: Many of the One Liners.
** PreMortemOneLiner:
*** "This screen ain't big enough for the both of us!"
*** [[TheSimpsons "Eat my shorts!"]]
*** [[DirtyHarry "Make my day."]]
*** [[MobyDick "From Hell's heart I stab at thee..."]]
*** [[{{Terminator}} "Hasta la vista, Baby!"]]
*** [[Film/ApocalypseNow "I love the smell of napalm in the morning."]]
** FamousLastWords:
*** "I'll be back..."

* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: Some of the weapons are ''extremely'' devastating: The aptly-named "Death's Head", for example, can simultaneously destroy most of the terrain on the field ''and'' all players in one use, including the person who fired it.
** Against an unshielded tank, even the Baby Missile (the free, default weapon) can kill with a single direct hit. All the more powerful weapons (That is, anything that actually does damage) are thusly various flavors of overkill.

** Tank deaths are completely random, and based on weapon effects. One tank can die with a very small and sad sizzle, while the next can take out a mountain (and anyone on it) with a full [[SphereOfDestruction nuke-sized blast]].
* UnstableEquilibrium: Players that do well and get more kills are awarded more money, to buy better equipment. Being able to buy better equipment, especially shields, makes a player much harder to kill and makes it much easier to kill other players. A player that loses will have to be damn creative with the weaker weapons to catch up... but if they were that good, they probably wouldn't be losing.

** It's entirely possible (though rare) to penetrate an enemy's shields without destroying them. With napalm, this means you basically cook them from inside their own shield.

** It's entirely possible (though rare) to penetrate an enemy's shields without destroying them. With napalm, this means you basically cook them from inside their wn shield.

The spiritual predecessor of games like [[VideoGame/{{Worms}} Worms Armageddon]] and {{Gunbound}}, Scorch (as it is known to fans) is the self-proclaimed "Mother of All Games", with a very simple presentation that is nevertheless addictive.

''Scorched Earth'' is a popular shareware artillery video game, originally written by Wendell Hicken using Borland C++ and Turbo Assembler, in which tanks do turn-based battle in two-dimensional terrain, with each player adjusting the angle and power of his or her tank's turret cannon before each shot.

*** [[ApocalypseNow "I love the smell of napalm in the morning."]]