Video Game / Lumberwhack: Defend the Wild

Lumberwhack: Defend The Wild is a Real-Time Strategy game by Koloss. Interactive LTD where the player controls the animals of the forest to take down a huge corporation of lumberjacks that are trying to destroy the forest.

Players control Koko Kornelius the monkey while summoning animals using food. Food replenishes over time and can be collected from trees in the form of bananas or dropped by enemies in the form of ham. Enemies can also drop acorns, which are one of two currencies, and completing levels rewards you with leaves as another currency.

Victory occurs when the animals destroy the logging truck after beating all the lumberjacks, and defeat occurs if the lumberjacks cut down the player's home tree or if Koko is killed.

The game can be played here, found on the Apple App store here or found on the Android App Store here

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Tropes featured in this game:

• Advancing Boss of Doom: In levels with toxic factories, the Logging Wrecker Trucks count as this. It's active and vulnerable to damage from the get-go, and will slowly keep advancing forwards if not blocked with your units and can destroy units and trees quite fast.
• Anti-Frustration Feature:
  • Using Mr. Beaver to cut down a tree and make it fall on the enemies does not count against your score. Meaning that if you had trees cut down by the beaver but none cut down by lumberjacks, you'll still get a perfect score for the level.
  • Ambush enemies like Commando Jack and Shadow Sawer never appear until the first large wave, meaning that you can safely get your troops to the front line with no delays before then.
• Anti-Grinding: Repeatedly doing a level will net you smaller amounts of leaves.
• Artistic License – Biology:
  • The first unit you obtain is the "Almost-Bright Ape", which is really a monkey since it has a very visible tail.
  • The banana food pickups grow on trees that resemble oak trees rather than actual banana trees.
• Back Stab: Backattack Gator's method of attacking is coming in from behind the enemy side and attacking them from behind, meaning that enemies in front of it have no way to retaliate.
• Bad Santa: The Fake Santa enemies are lumberjacks dressed up as Santa Claus complete with bag of "gifts". They attack by pulling fireworks out of their bag for a heavy damage ranged attack.
• Boxing Kangaroo: Subverted. Like his namesake suggests, the Kickaroo uses kicks to attack enemies and doesn't punch.
• Coconut Meets Cranium:
  • Koko Kornelius' main attack is throwing coconuts at lumberjacks. He can temporarily improve the power and attack rate via the "Coconut Boost" skill.
  • In addition, the "Head Cracking Coconuts" skill drops a pile of coconuts on the ground, which turns Almost-Bright Apes that touch it into ranged units that throw coconuts at incoming lumberjacks.
• The Computer Is a Lying Bastard: Like in Plants vs. Zombies, you're treated to a screen of the enemies that would appear during the level. However, during the level itself, you will tend to encounter enemies that aren't shown in the preview screen.
• Contractual Boss Immunity: The Logging Wrecker trucks are completely immune to any knockback, negative status effects like bleed, poison, freeze or stun, and cannot be instantly killed by the pelican attracted by Fishy Leftovers.
• Critical Status Buff: The Rhino 3000's Elite Skill "Enraged 3001" gives it a huge boost to attack damage and rate if its HP falls below 60%.
• Difficult, but Awesome: The Stag is a very powerful healer when sufficiently leveled but is expensive at the cost of 180. It can heal up nearby animals but not itself, and one stag tends to be insufficient as the Lumberjacks will quickly pile up the damage and bleed on your frontline unit. However, if you manage to get a second stag to join in while keeping the first one alive (which is no easy task), their usefulness jumps tenfold as they can not only outheal the enemies' damage on the frontline units, but can also heal each other which gives them far more lasting power.
• Dungeon Bypass:
  • The Animals have the Backattack Gator, who appears and attacks from behind the enemy side instead of your home tree. This makes him extremely good at killing weak ranged or support enemies that stay in the back lines such as Sharpshooters, Bushwhack Medics, Explosive Jacks and Fierce Foremen.
  • The Lumberjacks have Commando Jacks which parachute down past your defences and start cutting down your trees behind your front lines, and Shadow Sawers which enter the battle by teleporting to an area past your front line.
• Endless Game: Survival Mode involves you against an infinite army of lumberjacks that progressively grow stronger, and it ends when either Koko is killed or the home tree is cut down.
• Evil Counterpart: Like many Castle Defence games, there are some enemies that play a similar role to your units.
  • Bushwhack Medics heal their allies just like how The Stag does.
  • Sharpshooters and Gunslingers attack your units from afar with projectiles, similar to the Almost-Bright Apes with Head Cracking Coconuts.
  • Fierce Foremen can temporarily buff their allies' attack and speed, just like the Rock-and-roar Lion.
  • Explosive Jacks throw explosives that deal Area of Effect damage, similar to the Occupied Beehive skill.
  • Commando Jacks and Shadow Sawers use a Dungeon Bypass, allowing them to damage and stall reinforcement troops from your base similar to the Backattack Gator's function.
• Fake Ultimate Mook: The Logging Trucks that you have to fight at the end of each level once all the lumberjacks are cleared. They can ram your animals and trees for a hefty amount of damage and knocback+stun (on animals), but can only target one unit at a time at an abysmal attack rate, and if you managed to clear out all the lumberjacks it probably means you have a sizeable animal army that's more than capable of taking the truck down with great ease.
• Gaia's Vengeance: The game is about animals taking revenge on lumberjacks who have captured them and are trying to cut down their forest, by outright attacking and killing said lumberjacks. You play as the side of the animals.
• Giant Mook:
  • Giant Choppers are well, giant-sized lumberjacks. They have a lot of health and deal high damage with knockback. Thankfully, they aren't very fast.
  • The Big Rig Blade is a tree-sawing vehicle with giant amounts of health and is immune to knockback. It also deals huge damage and causes bleeding with its saw.
• The Goomba: Cutter Jacks are the most basic enemy in the game, having average speed, low HP and low attack power.
• Gratuitous Ninja: The Shadow Sawers are basically Ninja lumberjacks with poisoned saws as weapons. They can appear anywhere on the path to attack, bypassing the frontline defences.
• Green Aesop: The entire game is basically about stopping deforestation... via killing the humans doing it.
• Hard Levels, Easy Bosses: The "boss" at the end of a level is the Logging Truck which is very easily taken down via having a huge number of animals. In contrast, the levels themselves are chock-full of irritating or dangerous enemies that attack in a Zerg Rush.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: The entire premise of the game is the humans capturing the animals and deforesting the forest. The animals aren't pleased at all.
• An Ice Person: The Snowtail Leopard is capable of freezing enemies with its attacks. There's also the Freezing Snowball skill that allows Koko to throw a Spread Shot of deadly snowballs that freeze enemies too.
• Incredibly Durable Enemies: As the level number in a world increases, so does the lumberjacks' durability. Eventually even the basic lumberjacks can take a good beating before going down.
• Instant-Win Condition: If the Logging Truck is taken down, you win the level now matter how badly you and your animals were doing. Of course, it's an invulnerable unit most of the time.
• Invincible Minor Minion: Downplayed with the Logging Truck, it can attack animals that get too near and cannot be damaged initially, but it becomes vulnerable once all the Lumberjacks are killed or if it reaches the home tree. The level ends in victory if it's taken down.
• King of Beasts: The Rock-and-roar Lion. He uses a Mighty Roar that buffs animals, making them move and attack faster. Buying his Elite Skill also allows him to encourage animals into having higher Knockback Evasion chances.
• Lethal Joke Item:
  • The Fishy Leftovers are exactly as effective as a bunch of dead fish. The pelican that swoops down to gobble them up will also grab any lumberjacks that are nearby the pile of dead fish for a One-Hit Kill.
  • The Freezing Snowball skill. They're snowballs that are thrown in a Spread Shot of 2-10 spread among nearby enemies and freezes them, but they also deal an high amount of damage per snowball. If all snowballs are thrown at a single enemy, it will outright one-shot weaker ones.
• Lightning Bruiser:
  • The Swiftpaw Tiger is incredibly fast, deals good damage, and has a moderate amount of health. His weakness is that he tends to go down fast since the front line tends to be easily Zerg Rushed, and like all other deployable units he can only attack one enemy at a time.
  • The Rhino 3000 has high amounts of health, deals great damage, and moves quickly too. His Elite Skill makes him attack harder and faster at below 60% of his health. The only downside is that he's the most costly unit in the game.
• Long-Range Fighter:
  • Koko's basic attack is a long-distance coconut throw and he should be kept away from enemies since you lose if he goes down. However, the Suspicious Brew skill turns him into a Close-Range Combatant for a short while, removing his coconut throw but giving him more health and a melee attack that can hit groups of enemies.
  • The "Head Cracking Coconuts" skill allows you to turn the Almost-Bright Apes into these. By dropping the pile of coconuts, any Almost-Bright Ape that touches the pile will become a ranged coconut thrower with added damage.
  • Spit Cobra has low HP and a ranged poison attack. Naturally they should be kept at the back lines.
  • Enemies like Sharpshooter and Explosive Jack attack from the backlines with gunshots and bombs. They're also very fragile, meaning that Backattack Gator can make short work of them.
• The Marvelous Deer: The Stag has strange powers (or just a rare mutation) that gives him the power to heal other animals. He's also the mystical sort of character, with his Flavor Text showing that he can commune with the forest spirits.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: The Stag's healing powers are believed to be either mystical or just a mutation. We're not quite sure either way.
  "Some folks say he has mystical powers, others that he is a rare mutation."
• The Medic: The Stag has supposedly mystical powers that allows him to heal other animals. His Elite Skill also allows him to heal bleeding status as well.
• Mighty Lumberjack: Pretty much what almost all the enemies in the game are. They even come in different variants too, such as Jogger Jacks who move and attack quickly, Commando Jacks that parachute from the sky past your defences, and even Shadow Sawers who are Ninja Lumberjacks. Fortunately, they're not as mighty as the wildlife, if you play right.
• Mook Commander: Fierce Foremen have the ability to boost nearby lumberjacks via a shouting ability.
• Mook Medic: The Bushwhack Medics are an early-game enemy that deal weak damage, but can heal enemy forces. Naturally, you want to take them out as fast as possible.
• One-Hit Kill: The Fishy Leftovers. The leftovers don't do anything, but when dropped on the ground they will cause a pelican to swoop down and eat it up... as well as any unlucky Lumberjacks in the pelican's path.
• Panthera Awesome:
  • The Swiftpaw Tiger is a fast-moving and moderately powerful unit with decent health. If his Elite Skill Shape Shift is bought, he turns into a panther which is even faster and has a chance to cause enemies to bleed on attack.
  • The Snowtail Leopard is a snow leopard with high attack damage, good speed, and the ability to freeze enemies with his claws.
• Power-Up Magnet: The Banana Magnet skill allows Koko to collect all bananas on the trees at one go when used.
• Rhino Rampage: The Rhino 3000. He's described as a battle tank and is a Lightning Bruiser in combat. His flavor text shows that he has the mentality of an automated tank, no less.
• Robo Speak: Not only is the Rhino 3000 described as a battle tank, he also apparently talks like one too:
  "Scanning for a target. Grunt! Target Acquire. Activating attack protocols. Abort! Abort! Target is none[sic] hostile! Grunt! Activating stand-by mode. Awaiting orders. Gnn-Grunt-Oiir!"
• Rock Beats Laser: The Lumberjacks with chainsaws, guns, explosives, trucks and sawing machines can be easily taken down by hostile wildlife that use nothing but natural and improvised weapons.
• Status Effects:
  • Stun, which is caused by the Kickaroo's Stunning Boots Elite Skill as well as several lumberjack attacks.
  • Bleed, which is caused by the Swiftpaw Tiger's Shape Shift Elite Skill as well as several lumberjack attacks. This deals periodic damage over time.
  • Poison, which is caused by Spit Cobra that deals damage over time. Can be upgraded to also slow down enemy attack rate.
  • Freeze, which is caused by Snowtail Leopard's attacks as well as the Freezing Snowball Skill. This prevents the Lumberjack from moving for a short while.
• Stone Wall: Punchbag Panda. He has no attack but has a giant amount of health and can even gain resistance to bleed.
• Unstable Equilibrium: If you manage to amass enough animals to quickly take down any incoming lumberjacks before the jacks can deal lasting damage, you've essentially won. Likewise, if the number of lumberjacks builds up too much to the point where they'll easily massacre any animal sent at them, you've pretty much lost. Furthermore, the more trees the jacks cut down, the less food resources in bananas you'll be able to collect.
• Weak, but Skilled: The Almost-Bright Apes are the weakest units you have and don't deal much damage, but they're cheap and also the only units who are smart enough to use tools like coconuts and bamboo which gives them varied options while increasing their damage output to a respectable amount.
• We Cannot Go On Without You: If Koko Kornelius dies, the level automatically ends in defeat no matter how well you and your animals were doing.