Video Game / Shadowgrounds

Shadowgrounds is Top-Down Shoot 'Em Up developed by Frozenbyte software (creators of Trine) and originally released in November of 2005 in Finland and Germany, making its way to the rest of Europe and North America in the ensuing months. It became available on Steam in May of 2006.

It is the year 2096. The place is a terraformed Ganymede, site of the small but successfully colony of New Atlantis and a highly secure military facility. You are Wesley Tyler, former security officer who now works as a mechanic at the local repair station following a major accident at the plant he used to work at. He's hard at work one night fixing a truck, but after a mysterious power outage, Tyler takes his two technician friends to the nearby power facility. Two dead technicians later, Tyler's landed himself in a full-on Alien Invasion.

The player proceeds to rescue survivors, acquire successively bigger and nastier guns and attempts to find out the truth behind the alien attack.

The game could be played alone or cooperatively.

A sequel, Shadowgrounds: Survivor, was released in 2007 and tells the story of several other people trying to survive the same invasion: IGTO Space Marine Luke Giffords, Pest-control worker Bruno Lastmann, and IGTO Special Forces Sniper Isabel Larose. As the name might suggest, it added a Survival Mode to the proceedings.

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This game provides examples of:

• Action Girl: The Corporal you rescue early on.

• Always Night: Apparently, Jupiter's light is insufficient.
• Apocalypse How: Class X-2. The second occurrence was stopped at the last minute.
• Anti Matter: "Gifted" to us by the aliens, who did not at the time realize the danger it posed.
• Anti-Villain: The aliens are basically atoning for their mistake of giving antimatter research to other alien races, and only attacked Ganymede when communications broke down.
• Artificial Stupidity:
  • If Brutes lose sight of the player for more than a few seconds, they'll fall back into their normal patrol route. It's a very handy way to eliminate them one at a time with Railgun shots to the back, then retreating when the other Brutes come looking for revenge.
  • There's also some really odd things that don't draw aggro from enemies, such as shining your flashlight in the room. Hell, you should be standing inches from an enemy, flashlight pointed right at them, and they won't notice you as long as their back is turned. They apparently can't see through windows, either.
• Benevolent Precursors: Played with. On one hand, the aliens spread the knowledge of anti-matter throughout the universe to help other races. However, this was before their research into anti-matter destroyed their homeworld and the majority of the alien race. To prevent this from happening again the aliens are willing to wage war on lower races before they can destroy entire systems in their use of anti-matter.
• Cat Scare: Happens to a scientist who thinks the aliens are breaking into his secured lab, when it's only his hamster.
• Checkpoint: If killed, you return a safer location within the level.
• Computer Virus: A virus was uploaded to the ISERcom systems, and gets purged by rebooting the mainframe.
• Cutscene Drop: Only a few inches.
• Deadly Gas: The Grenade Launcher's Secondary Fire shoots a gas grenade.
• Death of a Thousand Cuts: The bosses.
• Deflector Shields: On some enemies, though they really just act like more health. Certain weapons such as the flamethrower will go right through them.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Tyler's Paralyzing taser from the Plasma Rifle upgrade. It has a very small range and reach but will paralyze all but bosses, even Shielded Brutes, excelling in taking care of enemies which generally comes in small numbers. With good aim one can take care of the toughest enemies only with the taser and a pistol.
• Do Not Drop Your Weapon: Played straight with humans, and justified with enemy weapons being surgically attached.
• Enemy-Detecting Radar: Functions as a motion tracker.
• Energy Weapon: The Laser Rifle, as well as the Lightning Gun. The laser rifle fires distinct bolts of energy which are significantly slower than bullets. Unless you use the alternate firing mode.
• Evolving Weapon: Collect randomly-dropped "Upgrade parts" to buy upgrades for weapons. Each weapon has unique upgrades, but one of them is always a Secondary Fire.

• Exploding Barrels: Often in densely-packed clumps for extra boom.
• Fetch Quest: Rescue civilians in New Atlantis, then fetch the soldiers in the various outposts
• Fire-Breathing Weapon: The Flamethrower, of course. It can be upgraded to dump unlit fuel on the ground, allowing you to light it at will and create a fire trap.
• Freak Lab Accident: In the first story's background, where Tyler takes the blame since he was on the security team.

• Gameplay Ally Immortality: During Escort Missions, making them, well, not really Escort Missions. In a pinch, you can use you invincible allies as impenetrable shields.
• Gang Up on the Human: Usually aliens attack you, but sometimes get distracted by turrets or allied troops. Not for long, though.
• Gatling Good: The minigun is devastating, but makes you move very slowly while in use. On the other hand, it can be deployed as a Sentry Gun.
• Harder Than Hard: Two additional Difficulty Levels if you complete the game. This only adjusts health, and doesn't affect other parameters.
• Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence: All over the place. They're there to serve as most of the stages' boundaries.
• Interface Spoiler: The load game screen shows how many missions there are in all.

• Kaizo Trap: After the final boss battle, it's possible to die after the cutscene showing the enemy being defeated.

• Mini-Mecha: Tyler fights some. All of them mount twin gatling guns.
• Multi-Mook Melee: Though not on the scale of, say, Alien Shooter.
• Musical Spoiler: Heavy metal is always a sign that a battle is about to start. This is fine, except for one part, where what would be a harrowing battle with invisible Scytheworms is given away by the pounding music that strikes up as soon as you walk in, before.
• No Kill like Overkill: The shotgun's assault fire. Two or three shells takes care of most basic enemies. Assault fire blasts all twelve rounds in the magazine off in quick succession.
• Notice This: Pickups are always framed by highly visible green brackets.
• Non-Action Guy: The scientists.
• Nuke 'em: Described as a "functional equivalent." The alternate fire of the Rocket Launcher spews all four rockets in one go, coupled with a uranium core. Makes a sizable boom.
• One-Man Army: Tyler develops into this over the course of the game. It even gets lampshaded towards the end.
• One Bullet Clips: Literal with the Railgun before its ammunition upgrade. Averted only for a few weapons.
• One-Word Title
• One World Order: The Earth government, called IGTO.
• Overheating: Can be removed for two weapons.
• The Paralyzer: The Pulse Rifle's Secondary Fire acts like a Static Stun Gun.
• Permanently Missable Content: If you miss one of the more powerful weapons (either by choice or accident), you don't get a future chance to grab it.
• Point of No Return: Within some levels.
• Poor Communication Kills: Attempts by the aliens to warn humans about the danger of Anti Matter technology were interpreted as threats. As such, the aliens used hostilites as a last resort for large scale combat. Only after the game's protagonists weren't hampered by the attacks did they resort to an extremely detailed explaination.
• Portmantitle: "Shadow" + "Grounds"
• Randomly Drops: Upgrade parts used to upgrade weaponry.
• Saving the World: Obviously this is what you're trying to do, but so are the aliens! See Twist Ending below.
• The Scapegoat: Since Tyler was a security guard when the lab explosion happened, he was demoted to technician.
• Secondary Fire: Each weapon has one, as an upgrade.
• Sentry Gun: Tyler uses a few small deployable ones in the first game to protect an outpost from incoming aliens.
• Shout-Out:
  • Many to Aliens, most obviously the assault rifle being called a "Pulse Rifle" and looking a lot like one, too.
  • There's also a big one to Independence Day in the form of A small alien ship being researched by humans for a lengthy period of time and then being used to infiltrate a mothership.
• Short-Range Shotgun: Averted, it has full range like other bullet weapons, but could still miss by being aimed short (via free camera mode)
• Sniper Rifle: The Railgun functions as one, with the added benefit of penetrating multiple targets. It can be upgraded to have rebounding shots.
• A Space Marine Is You: Tyler, even if he has been demoted.
• Standard FPS Guns: Pistol, Pulse Rifle, Shotgun, Grenade Launcher, Flamethrower, minigun, Rocket Launcher, Railgun, Laser Rifle, Lightning Gun.
• Status Effects: The pistol's Secondary Fire is a low-damage shot that slows enemies. Isabel's pistol can be upgraded to do this with every shot, with no damage reduction.

• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Think two shotgun blasts is fun? How about the entire magazine in rapid succession? Enter the Shotgun's Secondary Fire. Suffers from Awesome, but Impractical, as most enemies won't survive half that much buckshot.
• Ten-Second Flashlight: Which scares off the weak bug enemies and reveals the cloaked Scytheworms.
• Twist Ending: The aliens were trying to save us from their antimatter gift. They only resorted to deploying bio-engineered troops when we ignored their warnings. When that failed too, their only remaining option was to beg us not to activate the anti-matter bomb. It worked. Still, nice job killing almost an entire colony, aliens.
• Unintentionally Unwinnable: A door won't open later if you spawn at the wrong checkpoint. Word of God recommends using the console, but the worst result for purists is to restart the level.

Survivor has examples of:

• Bullet Time: Isabel's Special Attack. It's called "Killing Spree" and keeps a running tally of how many kills you make for the twelve seconds it stays on.
• Colossus Climb: Luke's special attack. Time freezes while he takes down Brutes using this method and a pistol.
• Deadly Gas: Bruno can throw grenades that release a cloud of gas that saps health from enemies.
• Double Unlock: Leveling up your characters give them access to new skills and upgraded for their weapons, if you have sufficient skill and upgrade points, that is.
• Enemy-Detecting Radar: A returning feature from the first game, but this time around you must buy it with skillpoints.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Isabel mentions that she counts her kills to help keep calm. When playing as her, there's a counter tracking her kills. She even says "Don't interrupt me, I'm counting!" when first radioed by McTiernan.
• Gatling Good: Acts as Bruno's best weapon, and unlike Tyler from the previous game, he isn't slowed by it at all.
• Grenade Launcher: A purchasable Secondary Fire option for Luke's pulse rifle.
• Husky Russkie: Bruno, from the sound of it. Also possibly a Cool Old Guy, given that he's 49.

• Mini-Mecha: Isabel gets to drive one that's mounted twin gatling guns (like in the first game), but Isabel's also gets a Grenade Launcher for good measure. If you choose Luke or Bruno for the final levels they also get a crack at it.
• Multi-Mook Melee: These often take the place of Boss Fights.
• The Paralyzer:
  • The Secondary Fire for Luke's pistol acts like a Static Stun Gun.
  • Isabel can throw stun grenades.
• RPG Elements: Earn Experience Points, Character Levels, spend the resulting skillpoints on increased health, critical hits, etc.
• Sentry Gun: Bruno gets to operate a huge one with a Gatling gun and Grenade Launcher.
• Sole Survivor: Each main character is a respective sole survivor of their own area.
• A Space Marine Is You: Played completely straight with Luke, who is in fact a Space Marine.
• Status Effects: Isabel's pistol can be upgraded to cause an effect that slows the enemies with every shot.
• Ten-Second Flashlight: Averted; unlike the first game, you can use flashlight as much you want.
• Universal Poison: Isabel's pistol can be upgraded to inflict this, dealing damage over time.
• Weapon-Based Characterization: Survivor's characters have a much more limited arsenal than Tyler from the previous game, but each set is suited to that character's appearance and battles.
  • Luke is a marine, therefore he primarily uses the pulse rifle.
  • Bruno's apparently just an exterminator (regardless of the size of the bugs in question) but wears fuel canisters around his belt and his nickname is "Napalm", so: Flamethrower.
  • Isabel is a sniper and primarily uses the Railgun.

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