is a Web Game by fazecat where you play as the heroic Paladog. Set in a far future where animals have replaced humanity, the peaceful animals unite under Paladog to repel the evil creatures attacking Critterland.Unlike most 2D army games, your character lacks a home base, and instead uses Paladog's HP as your HP bar. Paladog has a holy Aura that buffs friendly units within, giving them a Status Buff and allowing them to perform a Special Attack that's more powerful than their regular attacks.
Has been released for the iOS and Android, with extra content containing a new playable character, Dark Dog.
Can be played here.
Tropes featured:
- Absurdly High Level Cap: 200. Of course, some abilities have 20 levels, and can only be upgraded every three levels...
- Action Bomb: One of the mooks is a humanoid with a bomb for its head, take too long to kill it and it explodes doing massive damage. There's also another variant with a C4 and Timer on its head, these hurt even more and have more health.
- A Dog Named "Dog": Bear the Royal Guard, Defensive Tortoise, Monkey the Pirate, Elite Rhino, Penguin the Wizard, the Pink Dragon, and Paladog (arguably). Hood the Rabbit and Rooky the Kangaroo are the only exceptions to this.
- After the End: The gods eradicated humanity for its sins and allowed animals to rise to sentience.
- Animated Armor: One of the enemy types, the shield-bearing variant doesn't attack but can absorb a lot of damage, while the axe wielding type can take hits and dish them out. Just like Defensive Tortoise and Elite Rhino respectively.
- Attack! Attack! Attack!: Paladog is the only unit who can turn around.
- Babies Ever After: In the ending, Paladog marries the princess and they have puppies... six sons and six daughters.
- Badass Adorable: Just about every one of your units.
- Bears Are Bad News: Bear the Royal Guard is a tough fighter.
- Beary Friendly: Bear the Royal Guard is your ally.
- Beary Funny: Bear is also a funny character.
- Bewitched Amphibians: The second boss, Frog Witch will temporarily turn Paladog's troops into useless frogs.
- Black Knight: Dark Dog. He's an Evil Counterpart to Paladog with darkness and evil powers thanks to having corrupted by evil, but after he's defeated and redeemed, he fights against the demonic invasion.
- Blown Across the Room: During a boss level, once the enemy Base is defeated and the boss appears, it will Knock Back all your units a good distance while stunning them. Paladog is immune.
- Boring, but Practical: Spamming Mouse the Street Fighter against bosses is actually quite a viable tactic against most of them, since a good number can only hit or affect one or a very limited number of units at a time.
- Boss Fight: At the end of every 12 levels is a boss unit, who's much stronger and tougher than normal mooks and has special abilities of their own:
- 1st Boss: Zombie King, who summons groups of zombies in threes in an attempt to overwhelm you.
- 2nd Boss: Frog Witch, who temporarily turns your troops into useless frogs.
- 3rd Boss: Soccer Skeleton, who punts troops a good distance back while stunning them.
- 4th Boss: Mummy King, who summons groups of mummies in threes in an attempt to overwhelm you.
- 5th Boss: Ghost King, who Teleport Spams around the area freely to attack reinforcements or Paladog.
- 6th Boss: Nom Nom Duck, who eats units to One-Hit Kill them no matter their strength.
- 7th Boss: Ghost Paladog, who attacks with his version of the Fists of Fury, and can only be harmed by Paladog's spells.
- 8th Boss: The White Dragon, who uses icy breath to freeze groups of Paladog's troops.
- 9th Boss: The Succubus, who blows kiss projectiles that poison Paladog and his troops should they hit.
- Final Boss: The Dark Lord, who uses his scythe to One-Hit Kill groups of Paladog's troops and cause HP to One to Paladog.
- Boxing Kangaroo: Rooky the Kangaroo punches enemies with his fists, and his Critical Hit is basically Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs.
- Cartoon Bomb: Monkey the Pirate uses these.
- Colony Drop: The Meteor Mace.
- Cool Horse: As you would expect, Paladog rides one.
- Critical Hit Class: The core game mechanic is that the units only unleash their Special Attacks while in Paladog's aura, ranging from more damage to knocking enemies back to hitting everything on the map. The easiest way to win is building nothing but archers, as a group of archers in the aura becomes less Death of a Thousand Cuts and more Wave-Motion Gun.
- Dark Is Evil: Dark Dog initially starts out as a dog who's been corrupted by the evil forces. However, once's he's beaten...
- Dark Is Not Evil: ...he does a Heel–Face Turn and helps to save the kingdom.
- Degraded Boss: Several level bosses re-appear as normal enemies in later levels, complete with all their abilities.
- Eating the Enemy: The Nomnom Duck boss basically eats troops in one hit. He's quite vulnerable to mice spam, however, since he can only eat one unit at a time with a long cooldown.
- Epic Flail: Elite Rhino's weapon.
- Escort Mission: Of the escort-the-caravan variety.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The Pink Dragon.
- Evil Counterpart: Many of the enemies are basically The Undead with similar abilities to that of Paladog's troops:
- Mouse the Street Fighter: Weak melee units, being close-ranged enemies with low health.
- Hood the Rabbit: Most of the ranged units. They're even less durable than the melee units, but have range to compensate.
- Bear the Royal Guard: Spearmen skeletons and Mummies both use a mid-ranged attack and can take a pretty good beating before going down.
- Defensive Tortoise: Rock Monsters and shield-bearing armored knights cannot attack, but can take incredible punishment and are resistant to pushback.
- Monkey The Pirate: Puking Zombies attack with a Zombie Puke Attack that deals small splash damage around the target it hits.
- Elite Rhino: Most Giant Mook enemies have powerful melee and lots of health.
- Penguin the Wizard: Beholders have a rapid-fire ranged attack that deals a great amount of damage.
- The Pink Dragon: The White Dragon boss. It looks very similar to the Pink Dragon, but uses ice breath to freeze troops instead of fire breath.
- Paladog himself has two. Ghost Paladog, who uses his Fist Of Fury and can only be harmed by Paladog himself, and Dark Dog, the Black Knight counterpart to his Paladin.
- Flunky Boss: All bosses come with an endless stream of mooks that enter from behind them, but the Zombie King and Mummy King take this further by summoning zombie and mummy mooks respectively as their "attack".
- Forced Transformation: The second boss Frog Witch will turn your front units into frogs, temporarily making them useless and unable to fight. Up to 5 can be transformed at a time, so countering with a Zerg Rush will make life easier.
- Fragile Speedster: Mouse the Street Fighter is the fastest unit in the game, the cheapest to produce and also the most fragile. Rooky the Kangaroo is slightly slower, but more durable.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: The critters are stated in the backstory to be Incorruptible Pure Pureness who couldn't get their minds manipulated by The Legions of Hell. Then the mobile release features Dark Dog, who was explicitly stated to have been corrupted by evil (before his Heel–Face Turn).
- Giant Mook: Quite a few.
- Glass Cannon: Hood the Rabbit has extremely low HP but can dish out lots of damage when in numbers. Monkey the Pirate and Penguin the Wizard also have low HP, but the former can deal good damage to grouped enemies while the latter can deal heavy damage plus freeze, if he's in Paladog's aura.
- Good Old Fisticuffs: Rooky the Kangaroo.
- Gratuitous English: It's readily apparent that English was not the creator's first language.
- The Grim Reaper: The Dark Lord certainly has the look, wearing a black cloak and wielding a Sinister Scythe. And he also has the ability to One-Hit Kill huge groups of your troops.
- Heel–Face Turn:
- Mouse the Street Fighter is a reformed gangster. He was the first to join Paladog once the war started. At the end of the game, he opens a highly successful cheese factory.
- The Black Knight Dark Dog who was corrupted by evil reforms and becomes a playable character once he's beaten.
- Herd-Hitting Attack: Several maces and unit skills.
- Heroic Dog: Paladog himself. A less obvious one would be Dark Dog after he is reformed.
- Hold the Line: Destiny mode.
- Hooks and Crooks: Monkey the Pirate has a hook hand.
- HP to One: The Dark Lord's scythe attack does this to Paladog if it hits him, instead of being a One-Hit Kill.
- Humans Are Bastards: Humans filled the world with so much evil that the gods were forced to destroy the world and create a new one with critters as the dominant species. Under the rule of the critters, the world becomes a utopia almost entirely devoid of violence for a thousand years... until The Legions of Hell invade it because they couldn't manipulate the critter's minds like they could humans.
- I Know Madden Kombat: The third boss, the Soccer Skeleton. He basically kicks your units like a soccer ball, sending them flying back a good distance and stunning them- even the Defensive Turtle is not immune. However, he can only kick one unit at a time.
- Immune to Flinching: Paladog is immune to flinching or getting pushed back at all. This is helpful to know.
- Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Most of the Critters are said to be this- to the point where The Legions of Hell decided to all-out attack since they couldn't corrupt the Critters like they did with the humans. Subverted by Dark Dog, who did get brainwashed by the evil forces.
- Intangible Man: When ghost enemies first reach you, they phase out and keep moving past you. When they reappear, they start attacking, cutting off your reinforcements.
- Keystone Army: Units outside of Paladog's aura will die very quickly.
- Kicked Across The Room: The Soccer Skeleton boss will punt all units he attacks, sending them flying back far and stunning them, messing up your front lines and stronger units. However, he doesn't attack too quickly and can only kick one unit back at a time.
- Killer Rabbit: Hood. Less literally, Mouse the Street Fighter. There's also Nom Nom Duck, who looks like a cartoony duck head, and it one-shots even the strongest troops by eating them whole.
- Kill It with Fire: The Fire Mace is essentially a sawed-off shotgun.
- King Mook: The zombie king. His only attack is to summon zombies at you. Ditto for the Mummy King, whose only ability is to summon mummies at you.
- Kung Fu-Proof Mook: Ghosts, turn intangible when they first reach your front-most troops, rendering them invulnerable to attacks, and only re-appear once they get past said frontmost troops.
- The Legions of Hell: Your enemies.
- Level Grinding: Ooooh yes. Fortunately, there are items and abilities to increase the amount of experience and gold you get from killing monsters (and items that increase the probability of finding those items).
- Lightning Bruiser: Bear the Royal Guard and Elite Rhino become this after a few upgrades, especially inside Paladog's aura.
- Luck-Based Mission: Destiny mode. What spells and even units you can use are randomly determined (and you can only have up to eight stored). Even worse, the units don't wait in your aura where they can use their skills.
- Magikarp Power: Hood. At the beginning of the game, he's a decent enough ranged unit. By the end, once you've invested in skills like increasing the frequency of CriticalHits and lowering attack cooldowns, massed of rabbits becomes harbingers of destruction that damage every single enemy (including the enemy base) with the arrow equivalent of More Dakka.
- Mighty Glacier: A huge number of Mooks are very durable and hit hard, but have a slow rate of attack. Exaggerated by the Nom Nom Duck- its attack is slow, but it basically eats Paladog's troops in one hit, and up to twelve by the Final Boss whose attack speed is slow but will One-Hit Kill huge groups of Paladog's troops.
- Mirror Match: Ghost Paladog, Paladog's Evil Counterpart. He uses Paladog's Fist of Fury mace, and to top it all off, can only be damaged by Paladog himself.
- Ninja Zombie Pirate Robot: Pirate skeletons, ninja skeletons, skeletons in pink bikinis...
- Not Completely Useless: Mouse the Street Fighter gets heavily outclassed by other units later on, but is useful as a cheap, easy-to spam decoy unit against Nom Nom Duck and certain other bosses, who have a slow rate of attack.
- One-Hit Kill: Two bosses have the ability to kill your units in one hit. The Final Boss in particular can one-shot multiple units in one go.
- Only I Can Kill Him: Ghost Paladog can only be harmed/damaged by Paladog himself, all of Paladog's minions will simply pass through and ignore him, although they can still be hurt by the boss.
- The Paladin: Paladog, naturally.
- Pirate: Monkey the Pirate and some skeletons.
- Praetorian Guard: Bear the Royal Guard is well, a Royal Guard, and a pretty capable fighter. The enemy spearmen are presumably this to the Dark Lord, being Bear's Evil Counterpart.
- Private Military Contractors: Monkey the Pirate is a mercenary.
- Punny Name:
- The rabbit, Hood, and Rooky the Kangaroo.
- Obviously, Paladog.
- Random Number God: Do not forget him in your prayers, you will need his help on certain missions.
- Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Rooky the Kangaroo's Special Attack.
- Real Men Wear Pink: The Pink Dragon is the toughest unit you can field, and was chosen by the other dragons for his bravery.
- Rhino Rampage: Elite Rhino. After the end, he decides to curb his aggression.
- Spirited Competitor: Rooky, who is always looking for stronger opponents. This battlefield provides an appropriate trial.
- Sadistic Choice: Leveling up can feel like this, as you must choose between three randomly-selected abilities to upgrade.
- Sinister Scythe: Used by the Dark Lord, and it One Hit Kills large groups of Paladog's troops randomly in one go.
- Shout-Out:
- The television enemies attack by having a Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl emerge from the screen and swipe at you.
- One of the mooks is pretty much a Beholder expy.
- Special Attack: Every unit has one but it only happens while in Paladog's aura. From dealing more damage, to doubled defense, to increased range to damaging every single unit on the level.
- Spell My Name with a "The": The Pink Dragon, possibly.
- Squishy Wizard: Penguin the Wizard isn't very durable, but can cast a powerful ice spell that freezes enemies.
- Stealth Pun:
- The Defensive Tortoise is the resident Stone Wall. In other words, he's turtling.
- The shopkeeper is a pig who's really into earning money. In other words, he's literally a greedy pig.
- Stone Wall: The aptly-named Defensive Tortoise. While in Paladog's aura, it takes even less damage.
- Succubi and Incubi: The second-to-last boss is a succubus who blows toxic kisses at Paladog and his troops to poison them.
- Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: The bone-throwing skeletons wear pink bikinis.
- Throw Down the Bomblet: Monkey The Pirate's specialty is to throw bombs that deal Splash Damage from afar.
- Turns Red: The enemy base sends out a wave of GiantMooks on reaching half HP.
- Turn Undead: One of the Maces allows Paladog to use this, it has a chance of instantly killing enemies and it affects a large area.
- Unexpected Gameplay Change:
- Every third level shifts from the usual type, be it Escort Mission or a lane-based Ao S type.
- Dark Dog's gameplay is very different from that of Paladog's.
- The Undead: Pretty much everything you fight are undeads in one way or another, the exceptions probably being the witches, devils, and Action Bomb units.
- Warm-Up Boss: The Zombie King. His ability is one of the less dangerous boss abilities in the game (summoning a group of 3 easily killed zombies) although this does allow the skeleton ninjas in the back to tank damage. But with Hood's Special Attack which penetrates all the enemies in front, even they die quickly once Hood is amassed enough.
- The War Sequence: Battlefield mode.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The ending shows what happened to Paladog and each of his various troops.
- Mouse the Street Fighter gave up the gangster life for good and started a cheese factory named Star Mouse Cheese (Parody of Starbucks). The factory was a success and made the best cheese in Critterland
- Hood the Rabbit started to plant trees to grow back the forests that were destroyed during the war.
- Bear the Royal Guard trains everyday to prevent another war from breaking out. His sparring partner? A panda eating a dumpling
- Rocky the Kangaroo went on a trip to look for stronger opponents. He can also now shoot balls of energy from his fist
- Defensive Tortoise went back to his home sea (Despite being a tortoise) and told the stories of his adventure to his friends.
- Monkey the Pirate recieved the treasure map he was promised for joining the war, and set sail to find it.
- Elite Rhino is undergoing training to change his aggressive character.
- Penguin the wizard laid down the ice mace and returned to study.
- Pink Dragon returned to his home the land of dragons.
- Paladog married a princess, had 6 daughters and 6 sons, and lived happily ever after.
- Darkdog returned home and paid respect to the grave of his friends. After paying a silent tribute, he continued on his journey to get rid of any evil that might still exist.
- We Cannot Go On Without You: No matter how many units Paladog has, and no matter how well they're doing, if Paladog falls, the level is lost.
- Wingding Eyes: X's in the eyes when you die.
- Winged Soul Flies Off at Death: Happens whenever units of any side die, this is a good indicator to tell that they're actually dead and not just "knocked down".
- World of Funny Animals: Arguably, the entire world has become this.
- Zerg Rush: Basic enemy tactic for the most part, the player can do it too by amassing huge numbers of troops. Certainly effective against bosses that can One-Hit Kill your units or otherwise disable them in some manner, but only one at a go.
- Zombie Puke Attack: Certain zombies use a vomit attack that deals Splash Damage, essentially making them the Evil Counterpart of Monkey The Pirate.
