"Sipho is an action survival game with an intricate building system. Grow your own creature and take over the local ecosystem.''
Sipho is an action-roguelike game released publicly on November 13th, 2018.
You play as one of five species of siphonophore-like creatures, building your body with a variety of zooids, each having their own function. The game has two modes: Campaign, where you battle your way through a variety of procedurally generated levels, and Aquarium, which allows you to build creatures and levels to your heart's content.
Sipho contains examples of:
- Achilles' Heel: The Venomous Pit boss has Spikes and Squirters as its only mean of attack... both of which can be easily avoided using one of the ranged combat zooids.
- Action Bar: The lower-right corner of the screen shows what abilities you can use at a given time and what controls they are linked to.
- Anti-Escape Mechanism: The Sizzler disables enemy abilites, which is useful for making it so that smaller and faster zooids can't dash away.
- Anti-Grinding: Each level only contains a limited amount of enemies, so it's impossible to gain excessive amounts of Nutrition from one level.
- Bag of Spilling: At the start of a new epoch, your nutrition is removed, leaving you to build you zooid back up over the course of the game.
- Bee-Bee Gun: The Swarmer zooid resembles a hive and creates small bugs that cause gradual damage to zooids they are attacking.
- Boss in Mook Clothing: After the first two levels, "Alpha" zooids start appearing that have a size more comparable to bosses than anything else in their level. In epochs, they even grant mutations similarly to the bosses.
- Boss-Only Level: All of the bosses are confined to their own unique levels.
- Cooldown Manipulation: Several of the mutations increase or decrease the cooldown time of various zooids.
- Damage Over Time: Several zooids release poison that slowly damages any zooids that end up within the poison.
- Equipment Upgrade: Some of the mutations only effect a specific zooid, effectively upgrading that zooid for the remainder of the run.
- Export Save: Aquarium layouts are shared via exported text.
- Final Boss: Frakir is the final boss of a given epoch, having a unique breed core appearance and using zooids from four of the breeds (Vagorian zooids aren't included due to having been added in an later update).
- Fragile Speedster: The Buginis breed starts out with cheap movement zooids and structure zooids that increase the energy capacity to allow for more use of them... but these structures are the most fragile ones of their size.
- Grappling-Hook Pistol: The Grabber is a utility zooid that acts as an organic grappling hook that can be used for both movement and combat.
- Lovecraft Lite: The Cra'Than breed takes a clear inspiration from Lovecraftian horrors, with a grotesque appearance and creepy name... but they can not just be killed as easily as any other breed, but can be played as once unlocked.
- Mana Drain: The Energy Leech zooid does exactly what the name implies; it drain energy from any enemy zooid it attaches itself to.
- Mucking in the Mud: The Muck zooid creates a cloud of goo that slows anything within.
- Natural Weapon: All of the combat-effective weapons in the game are in the form of zooids that are a part of the creatures in the game.
- New Game Plus: After defeating the final boss, the run starts over... now with both you and your enemies gaining mutations that improve various types of zooids.
- Power Pincers: The Seanus' starting combat zooid is the Claw, which looks like a pair of snapping pincers. This is especially evident with the Guardian of the Depths, which has two Claws located on arm-like protrusions.
- Sandbox Mode: The Aquarium mode allows you to freely place level features and build your own zooids with no restrictions. The description on Steam outright calls it a sandbox mode.
- Sea Mine: Fittingly for a game that happen entirely within liquid environments, the poison bombs created by the Miner zooid are orbs with glowing protrusions that resemble a naval mine.
- Splash Damage: The starting Vagorian combat zooid, the Burstopod, launches a large, slowly moving bomb that explodes to deal damage to anything nearby.
- Static Stun Gun: Judging from the zapping sound and lightning-like visuals it makes, the ability-disabling Sizzler zooid acts through some sort of electric charge.
- Technicolor Toxin: The poison created by some zooids is a bright purple color.
- Unlockable Content: Only the Advena breed is available to play at the start. The other breeds have to be unlocked by collecting DNA after killing creatures of that breed.
- A Winner Is You: When you beat the final boss, all you get is a message congratulating you on destroying the ecosystem (and an achievement on Steam) before going into the next epochs.
- Womb Level: The levels associated with the Cra'Than have a visceral aesthetic, with red water, skin-colored obstacles, and tentacles squirming around.
- Zerg Rush: The Breeding Grounds and Pass of Mhajh'tha bosses gain their danger from creating a large volume of small zooids that can easily overwhelm the player.
