Neon Chrome is a top-down twin-stick shooter with roguelite elements released in 2016 by 10tons, Ltd. Set in a giant artificial corporate-owned habitat called Neon Chrome, things go awry when the Overseer commits a purge, killing a vast majority of Neon Corp and instituting martial law over the complex. Players control the Unknown Hacker, who assumes control of cybernetically-enhanced mercenaries, called "assets," to fight a proxy war against the Overseer and overthrow Neon Corp - or seize control entirely.
Players chose from three randomly generated characters, with different classes, abilities, and randomized starting loadouts. Each run consists of a few procedurally generated stages divided into groups called "levels," each with a boss at the end. Credits collected on runs can be used to permanently upgrade the stats of future characters, and scattered throughout Neon Chrome are secret areas, and unlockable weapons and abilities.
Has a stealth prequel/spinoff in JYDGE.
Neon Chrome contains examples of:
- Asteroids Monster: The purple robotic spiders split into smaller robots on death. They come in "Double" and even "Triple" flavor, which split into double or triple the number of miniature spiders.
- Ambiguous Situation: The Unknown Hacker's motivations and goals are unknown, though the end of the first run reveals them to be not all that altruistic.
- Big Bad: The Overseer, who goes mad with power. Being neurally connected to the entire city probably doesn't help.
- Big Brother Is Watching: The Overseer is looped in on every system in Neon Chrome by an immersion chair, just like the one the protagonist uses to control assets.
- Bullet Hell: The game can cross into this on higher Levels and Overseer Levels.
- Character Class System: Takes the form of five "roles:" Assassin, Corporate Soldier, Cyber Psycho, Hacker, and Techie.
- Chemically-Induced Insanity: The "Psycho Darts" special weapon can inflict this on enemies, making them attack their allies.
- Combat Medic: Some special enemies project a field around themselves that rapidly heals anyone near them. The most common are fittingly called "Sawbones."
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: The Overseer was one.
- Critical Hit: Dictated by the Luck stat, naturally.
- Crosshair Aware: Enemies that attack with rockets or railguns will show a red line where they're aiming.
- Cyberpunk: The game's overall tone and aesthetic. Neon Chrome itself is a Blade Runner esque pyramid.
- Dual Boss: A possible boss fight in the fifth Level is two Shelob spider tanks.
- Die, Chair, Die!: A lot of the props and objects lying around levels are destructible.
- Energy Weapon: Come in three flavors: plasma, ion, and laser.
- Evil, Inc.: Neon Corp, who ran Neon Chrome as a futuristic company town.
- Exploding Barrels: Giant orange cylinders full of unknown explosive material.
- Fragile Speedster: Assassin characters move fast, have high crit damage, and vanish in shadows.
- Full-Circle Revolution: Killing the Overseer means whatever asset makes it to the throne room takes his place. The only effect this has is to make Neon Chrome even worse.
- Gatling Good: The Minigun, of course.
- Glass Cannon: The Techie role starts with more energy but less health. Their regenerating shield helps, though.
- Incendiary Exponent: Some exploding barrels leave persisting flames, there's a flamethrower, flame grenades, and a cybernetic implant that sets enemies who receive critical damage on fire.
- Interchangeable Antimatter Keys: Provided the colors match, any key will open any door, and vanish on use.
- Jack of All Stats: The Cyber Psycho role has a relatively banal boost to health and melee damage and lacks a special ability, making them less specialized than the other four roles, but they have extra slots for cybernetic upgrades.
- Magnetic Weapons: The railgun appears in the tradition of the Quake III: Arena sniper weapon.
- Meet the New Boss: Every Overseer after the first just as depraved, aside from jacking up Neon Chrome's defenses more than the last guy so they don't get killed and replaced.
- Mighty Glacier: Corporate Soldier characters do extra damage and takes less damage from frontal attacks, at the cost of movement speed.
- Money Is Experience Points: The only real use for credits is enhancing character's intrinsic stats.
- More Dakka: Ballistic weapons usually have the highest rate of fire, and there is a minigun as well.
- New Game Plus: Killing and replacing the Overseer increments the Overseer Level by one, which increases the game's overall difficulty while increasing odds for good loot and opening up new secret areas and unlockables.
- Obvious Rule Patch: The orange troops, whose only form of attack is launching grenades, are immune to explosions to prevent them from blowing themselves up. Their allies do not enjoy this protection, and seeing them blown up by their orange comrades is a common sight.
- Police State: If Neon Chrome wasn't before, it is now that the Overseer is cracking down on dissent.
- Random Drop: New weapons of incrementally increasing power drop from large Ammocore crates and locked crates only openable by Hacker characters.
- Roboteching: Homing missiles, usually launched only by bosses.
- Roguelike: Of the "lite" variety. Death is permanent, but credits can be used to permanently upgrade future characters, and reaching a level once per Overseer Level opens a shortcut to that Level from the starting area.
- Regenerating Shields, Static Health: The Techie role's signature ability.
- Shout-Out:
- The Asset's names are taken from a pool of first and last names, some of which reference characters from pop culture and science fiction.
- The spider tank boss is named Shelob, after the giant spider from Lord of the Rings.
- Slow Laser: Laser type weapons, which favor accuracy and damage over rate of fire compared to ballistic weapons.
- Spider Swarm: Spiders of the robotic variety are common enemies, and can attack in numbers. Exacerbated by the purple variety that split into smaller machines when destroyed.
- Spider Tank: The first boss, Shelob. Can later reappear as a Dual Boss.
- Stuff Blowing Up: Grenades, mines, rockets, launched by the enemies or you.
- Techno Wizard: The Hacker role, who has extra energy for special weapons, can hack certain containers and terminals, and has an adorable drone familiar.
- The Nameless: The protagonist is never given a proper name - the pause screen refers to them as "The Unknown Hacker."
- There Was a Door: Thin walls can be breached with a melee swipe, facilitating this style of play.
- Villain Protagonist: After the first run is completed, future playthroughs represent the Unknown Hacker throwing assets against Neon Chrome's defenses in an endless loop, to seemingly no end aside from their own amusement.
- Weapon of X-Slaying: The game is balanced this way. Plasma weapons have a damage bonus against fleshy opponents, while Ion weapons have an equal bonus against robots. Both have a lower base damage than ballistic or laser weapons.
- We Have Reserves: The Unknown Hacker has a nigh limitless supply of assets in stasis.
