Almost Loaded is a hypothetical Adobe Flash Web Game created by Ironcommando. Just like many other flash Deconstruction Games like Achievement Unlocked, Upgrade Complete, and Steamshovel Harry, this one spoofs an aspect of gaming: Loads and Loads of Loading!
The game starts out with a standard flash loading bar that suddenly slows to a crawl at 20% completion, and then the game zooms into the loading bar. It's up to you to summon digital helpers/increase bandwidth/increase your loading stats to make sure it gets to the end. However, you soon find out that you have opposition in the form of Unloaders, programs that are trying to prevent your game from loading!
This "game" displays the following tropes:
- Advancing Boss of Doom: The Final Boss of the "game". It will keep trying to push your loading bar backwards no matter how hard your loading ability is. You need to beat it before it pushes your loading bar beyond 0%, at which you get a Non-Standard Game Over where the "game" fails to load.
- Airborne Mook: Flying Unloaders cannot push your bar backwards, and exist solely to attack and kill your ground units that can't attack them. Except for...
- Anti-Air: One of your ground units sports these and can shoot down flying mooks... but it is near-useless against ground Mooks except the Brutal Unloader, who's so huge that even upward-firing guns can hit it. The Final Boss and Superboss also qualify as "big enough".
- A Winner Is You: Win and you get to see the Main Menu screen and the title! Which include the Credits, and the Sound test.
- Barrier Warrior: The Guardeon and their Evil Counterpart, the Defencer. They project a damaging barrier in front of them that blocks shots and damages enemies it touches. However, these are useless against Airborne Mooks and lobbed-shot attacks by Blasters/Bombers.
- Cast from Hit Points: Programs will divert your bandwidth for a certain time when being created, causing you to progress slower. This may seem bad at first, but their pushing ability will help in the long run if they are not deleted.
- Color-Coded Armies: Loaders are blue in colour, Unloaders are red.
- Crippling Overspecialization: The AA Loader and Flak Unloaders can attack aerial enemies but can't hit most grounded ones... except Power Loaders and Brutal Unloaders and the Final Boss and Superboss.
- Deconstruction Game: Of Flash pre-loading bars!
- Emergency Weapon: You can attack enemies by clicking on the bar to hit with a weak area attack.
- Evil Counterpart: The Unloaders to your Loaders:
- Giant Mook: Brutal Unloaders. Slow speed, but has a lot of health, great anti-ground and anti-air abilities, and can push your bar back with ease. However, he's so big that even the AA Loader can attack him.
- The Goomba: Chump Unloaders. Low speed, weak health (at the lowest Deletion power, it takes 3 clicks to kill one), no special abilities, but they come in numbers.
- Mooks: Unloaders. They serve to halt or even push back your loading progress.
- Life Meter: The loading progress bar, no less.
- Regenerating Health: Your life meter gradually increases by your Loading Speed, provided that you aren't diverting part of it to do other operations.
- Loading Screen: The entire game itself takes place here.
- Loads and Loads of Loading: Parodied here, and even serves as the backstory! Something screwed up your bandwidth to a crawl and you need to get your "game" to load properly, no matter how slow it takes!
- Non-Standard Game Over: The Superboss can give you one by throwing away the entire interface if not beaten in time.
- RPG Elements: You get stats like Bandwidth (Progress speed per second, used for pushing the bar forwards as well as creating units), Security (Defence, makes you get pushed back less by enemy attacks, as well as alerting you earlier to incoming enemies), and Debugging (Attack, allows you to kill the Unloaders faster).
- Stone Wall: Guardeons. These can push the bar forwards but not as well as Pushers, and their attack is weak. They are primarily used for shielding and absorbing damage from grounded enemies while your ranged units attack from behind.
- Suicide Attack: The Chump and the Swarmer Unloaders will collide into your loading bar, destroying themselves and halting your load progress. The Suicide Unloader will also do the same, but hits your load progress backwards by a HUGE amount!
- For your side, you have Chippers, which also help to push your loading bar forwards and detonate on an Unloader that comes close, and Sacri-Loaders, which act like the Suicide Unloader except that they hit your load progress forward by a huge amount.
- Superboss: After beating the Final Boss, instead of clicking the "Play" button that appears, you can click the weird-looking square at the top-right corner, which will fall down and transform to attack your units. From outside the bar, no less! Since the game is already loaded, it may not seem like it can destroy you- unless you fail to beat it in time, in which case it takes the loading bar and play button and throws them away
- Time-Limit Boss: The Optional Boss.
- Worker Unit: Pushers, which have no attacking power, but are very good at pushing the load bar forwards, decreasing the cost of buying/upgrading units, as well as auto-gathering extra experience dropped from defeated Unloaders. Unfortunately, they are also easily killed and need to be at the frontlines in order to push. They also serve as Starting Units.
- Zerg Rush: Swarmer Unloaders come in large groups, and require a Herd-Hitting Attack to effectively destroy.
