Line #76 VideoGame/BowMaster


1	[[quoteright:282:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bow_master.png]]
2	''[=BowMaster=]'' is a series of UsefulNotes/AdobeFlash WebGames by Lost Vectors, a single developer. The original ''[[http://www.lostvectors.com/bowmaster/ BowMaster]]'' was developed over three years and released in 2005. ''[[http://www.lostvectors.com/prelude/index.html BowMaster: Prelude]]'' followed in 2006. Both games follow NoPlotNoProblem principle and are basically a series of areas where you play as the eponymous bow master.
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4	The third, ''[[https://www.kongregate.com/games/lostvector/bowmaster-winter-storm BowMaster: Winter Storm]]'', was released nearly a decade after the first two, in 2014. The large time off resulted in an improvement to every aspect of the game, from graphics, to the addition of three abilities usable by the player character, to the addition of a rough plot.
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6	The demo for a fourth game called ''Bowmaster Legacy'' [[https://www.lostvectors.com/bowmasterlegacy/ came out]] in December 2021.
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8	!! Trope Arrows:
9	* AccidentalAimingSkills: Trebuchets can sometimes hit flying units. Having a bunch of them firing at the same time helps to achieve this.
10	* AirborneMooks: Dragons. They appear as small dragons mounted by riders in ''Prelude'', while they show up in varying sizes in ''Winter Storm''.
11	* AllMonksKnowKungFu: The heroic version of the ninja unit is called a Monk for some reason.
12	* AntiFrustrationFeatures: In ''Winter Storm'', any allied unit near you will not get hit by a harming arrow, but will still be healed by a healing arrow. This means you can stay near your troops without risking friendly fire.
13	* ArrowsOnFire: The flame arrows, which you may be using a lot to exploit weaknesses.
14	* AttackItsWeakpoint: Every enemy has a weakpoint that makes it take more damage. Some are obvious (PrettyLittleHeadshots...), others are so small you're better off killing them bit by bit.
15	* AwesomeButImpractical:
16	** Shot modifications can end up being this. They not only cost large amounts of mana, but they end forcing the arrow in question into a longer cooldown, which might range from "worth it" to "crippling" depending on the arrow in question.
17	** The Light Dragon. On the one hand, he's fairly tough, has a homing attack that deals heavy damage, and [[OurDragonsAreDifferent is a dragon]]. On the other hand, he only attacks once every three blue moons, is prone to wasting attacks on absolutely nothing, and costs a metric ton of gold to get.
18	** Many of the more elaborate and flashy arrows are this compared to their basic counterparts, often costing much more mana than the basic one but having a lesser effect. The Fairy Bomb is a good example, requiring you to level up the regular Cure arrow and releasing a cloud of wisps that heal allies; sounds cool on paper, but then you realize that the basic Cure arrow heals much more, costs less mana, and has a lower cooldown, making the Fairy Bomb fairly inadequate in comparison until you level it up a few times. The only advantage it initially has is being able to heal yourself.
19	* BadPowersGoodPeople: The Holy Warlock has the same powers as the evil one, that is to say a barrier and an AnimateDead spell.
20	* BeehiveBarrier: Warlocks cast these over themselves and allies, but they give out after a few hits.
21	* BoringButPractical: Maxing out the basic arrows in all games is this. They deal a good amount of damage and getting a headshot will down an enemy quickly, as well as costing no mana and having a fast reload. There are times where other arrows like bomb arrows would come in handy more, but the plain arrows will always be usable.
22	** Other no-mana mundane arrows count, such as pierce, because they still have effects, said pierce hitting multiple enemies in one shot or not being deflected by anything, and don't cost any mana to activate.
23	* BoomHeadshot: Headshots deal bonus damage to all the enemies that have heads. However, the enemies like Orcs will soon start wearing helmets which'll deflect an arrow before getting shot off.
24	* CartoonBomb: Catapults can be upgraded to throw these, which explode after a while into mushroom clouds. On occasion, a gigantic one will spawn at the beginning of the level, and it's up to you to stop the fuse or keep it going.
25	* CosmeticallyDifferentSides: Averted in that the Evil Army has more variation in its unit types (five different types of dragon, for starters), but played straight in that the units you can send are model swaps of the enemy units, down to the spells.
26	* DemBones: Skeletons are the basic enemy mooks in the games.
27	* DiscOneNuke: The Slice and Blunt arrows in ''Winter Storm'' can be unlocked as early as level 3, and you'll probably be getting a lot of mileage out of them well into the late-game. Slice Arrows deal massive damage, especially for the point in the game where they're unlocked, and inflict further bleeding damage on targets to chip down tougher foes, while Blunt Arrows stun enemies for a comically long amount of time. Both types are also incredibly cheap to level up.
28	* ElementalRockPaperScissors: it's opposites in terms of weakness. Fire vs. Ice, Healing vs. Poison, Dark vs. Light, and Air vs. Ground. For most of the time, weak enemies only take more damage from the elements, but sometimes, such as shooting at a dragon's projectile, it will result in more unique effects.
29	* EmptyLevels: Winter Storm lets your hero gain experience and level up, but these don't actually ''do'' anything aside from unlocking upgrades for you to purchase. You can gain experience at lightning speed later in the campaign, but every character level beyond 25 doesn't mean much.
30	* FatalFireworks: Fireworks can randomly spawn across the battlefield at the beginning of a level. Lighting the fuse with any form of fire damage will cause them to shoot into the sky after a short delay, while also launching any nearby units into the air with them and creating colorful explosions that also deal massive damage. You can also set up your own firework traps using the Fireworks Arrow.
31	* FighterMageThief: Despite all three being ranged, the Destructor (a huge guy wearing armor), the Mage and the Hunter fall into this. The Destructor's special ability is a huge bomb, the Mage is ChainLightning, and the Hunter can set traps.
32	* FriendlyFireproof: Averted. This is not because of the enemies being tricky or allies being dumb, but because [[UnexpectedlyRealisticGameplay you're firing into a mix of allies and enemies most of the time, making it harder to avoid hitting friendly units.]] On the plus side, aside from civilians, you don't get any real penalty from accidentally killing friendly units aside from losing them. ''Winter Storm'' at least [[AntiFrustrationFeatures allowed arrows to pass through allies at close range]]; the previous games were not so generous, meaning that you pretty much needed to be standing on high ground far away from your army if you didn't want to end up shooting them in the back of the head.
33	** Strangely enough, units' attacks are FriendlyFireproof, even the SiegeEngines.
34	* GeoEffects: Just about every level features a tower or tree that you can climb to avoid melee attacks. It's not always the better choice though, as some arrows are more effective if fired from ground level.
35	* GiantMook: The orcs and dragons are the most obvious examples of this trope (Large dragons dwarf even your Light dragon). Averted with the Skeleton Giant and Spider Queen, which count as separate units.
36	* GiantSpider: There are both the "regular" horse-sized spiders that are some of the fastest units in the game and can even leap to quickly close the distance, and the Spider Queen, which is bigger than the buildings you take refuge in, and continuously makes new spiders.
37	* GratuitousNinja: There are ninja. You can buy one for your army. The ingame info on the friendly ninja even says "[[LampshadeHanging He's awesome]]".
38	* GroinAttack: The codex outright tells you to aim for the crotch when shield-bearing units are guarding. Additionally, one of the Stone Golem's weak points is located in its crotch, which also happens to be a much easier target than its joints when it's attacking.
39	* HalfTheManHeUsedToBe: Killing an enemy with "blunt" (which is also dealt by bombs) or "slice" damage can result in the target being ripped in half instead of playing the usual death animation.
40	* HarmlessFreezing: Enemies can be frozen solid with no issues if they have the time to thaw. Generally they won't have that time.
41	* HealingShiv: The healing arrows. You shoot somebody and it heals the same way other arrows deal damage, meaning that shooting somebody in the head with one will increase its ability.
42	* HealThyself: Wolves in ''Winter Storm'' will retreat and rest to heal up when low on HP.
43	* HeavilyArmoredMook: Large dragons in ''Winter Storm'' are covered in armored scales that reflect arrows shot at them, unless you aim for very specific parts of their body.
44	* HumanPincushion: Units that take arrows keep them until death. Especially visible on bosses who've tanked a rapid shot or two.
45	* HunterOfHisOwnKind: Ninja, Warlock, Dragon, and wolf will all be slaying their kin when they fight with you. It even outright says the ninja is enacting vengeance against his clan for unknown reasons.
46	* HyperDestructiveBouncingBall: The Destructor's special arrow is a bomb that bounces off units causing an explosion each time until the final, even bigger explosion. Note, however, that it also damages allies - and more importantly, [[ExplosiveStupidity yourself]].
47	* ImprobableAimingSkills: Easiest with auto-aim, but there are rewards for doing this. A good example of an easy one is getting your arrow deflected and hitting another enemy in the head with the deflected arrow. There are many others (qhooting a far-off enemy tends to get coins, and any coins shot out of the air are worth double), and part of the fun is pulling them off. There are also unrewarded cases that just feel awesome, such as shooting a boulder out of the air.
48	* LiterallyShatteredLives: An enemy can be [[HarmlessFreezing frozen solid]], but you have to either use a bomb or kill them before they will shatter apart in the ice. Freeze up a flying enemy, however...
49	* {{Multishot}}: A shot modifier available for certain arrows in ''Winter Storm'' lets you fire multiple arrows in a spread, at the cost of increased mana cost and cooldown.
50	* OneHitMultiKill: Several arrows can be used to do this, notably the piercing and bomb arrows. Once the rapid fire mod is maxed out, you can send half a dozen of any arrow into a crowd in a single click.
51	* OneManArmy: The hero. He doesn't even need any army to take down all of his enemies, he could just use his bow. This is downplayed in ''Winter Storm'', as some objectives either require or heavily push for the use of an army. If you don't get one of those, though, feel free to go at it solo.
52	* MetalSlime: The Earth Golem, surprisingly enough. [[HumanShield Tall as half the screen]], [[MarathonBoss huge amount of life]], [[BossInMookClothing has a devastating]] (almost) AlwaysAccurateAttack, [[OhCrap often show up in pairs]]... but they give thousands of gold and experience, and a maxed-out sextuple rapid shot with an electric arrow will fell even two of them in seconds.
53	* MissingSecret: In earlier builds of ''Winter Storm'', the Skeleton Giant would never spawn, leaving the player with an empty slot in the Bestiary.
54	* {{Mook}} / RedshirtArmy: The basic units on each side are basically this. They most likely will be dying a lot, more due to your arrows than their enemies' ferocity, but make no mistake, they are competent and they will at the very least hold back the enemy, if not deal a hefty amount of damage.
55	* MoreDakka: Some maxed-out modifiers send out six arrows at a time, with the total amount limited only by your mana and the cooldowns.
56	* NoArcInArchery: "zero gravity" arrows do this, for extra mana it will be "unaffected by gravity" and fly straight. The rest of the time this trope is averted.
57	** It's possible to lob arrows at a target point, this avoids friendly fire but is slower and less accurate.
58	* NobleWolf: One of the unit choices in Winter Storm, most useful for grabbing artifacts. It's also decently tough and, if its health runs low, it can run back and heal itself.
59	* PersonOfMassDestruction: By the end of the game, your character can call up fire/hail/thunderstorms, snipe dozens of units in a row from across the map, fire dozens of arrows seconds and commands an army containing dragons and necromancers.
60	* QuantityVsQuality: Two mutually-exclusive upgrades you can get are Focus, which increases your damage output but also increases your arrow cooldowns (making it more important to land precise shots for high damage), and Frenzy, which does the opposite (letting you spam arrows at the cost of each one being less powerful).
61	* RainOfArrows: This is not only a command you can use to focus your archer units, but also if you choose the "frenzy" upgrade path (which sacrifices power for faster arrow reload) you can do this yourself. It's helpfulness tends to vary from "helpful and deadly" to "wasting time".
62	* ResurrectiveImmortality: [[ImpliedTrope implied]], as it's stated the dragon, ninja, and warlock units are all the same person, if they go down in battle they come back assuming your unit has space.
63	* ReviveKillsZombie: The basic skeleton enemies take damage from healing arrows instead of being healed by them; the Skeleton Giant doesn't, though. Poison Dragons also take damage from healing arrows, though that's more due to ElementalRockPaperScissors.
64	* RightMakesMight: The enemy units on your side seem stronger than those who are still part of the evil army. This is due to them having a leveling system; as you use them in battle, your army will level up uniformly, while the enemy's levels are randomly assigned, meaning that late-game you will have level 10 grunts and pikemen trading blows with enemies that often range around level 4-6 on average.
65	* {{Roboteching}}: Some of the basic arrow types in ''Winter Storm'' can gain a Homing modifier, allowing you to shoot arrows that home in on enemies in mid-air. The normal arrow even gains a ''Multi-Homing'' modifier, which fires an arrow that ''[[RecursiveAmmo splits into multiple homing arrows]]''.
66	* SecretArt: Each character class in ''Winter Storm'' has an arrow type that is exclusive to that class: the Hunter can lay spike traps that are manually triggered by the player, the Destructor fires a bouncing bomb that deals area damage on each hit, while the Mage shoots a ChainLightning arrow that deals its full damage to numerous enemies with a fairly long arc range.
67	* SiegeEngines: Catatpults and trebuchets are available for hire, with the catapult throwing bombs when upgraded.
68	* ShieldBearingMook: In ''Winter Storm'', there are skeletons and soldiers who have large shields. They deflect projectiles aside from "piercing" arrows, but don't cover their entire body (see GroinAttack).
69	* ShoutOut: The Blunt Arrow in ''Winter Storm'' is tipped with [[ComicBook/GreenArrow a boxing glove]].
70	* StrippedToTheBone: In ''Winter Storm'', units killed by poison and fire damage will leave behind [[PoisonIsCorrosive bleached]] and charred skeletons respectively.
71	* SuckingInLines: The Earth wave arrow if it hits a unit instead of the ground, will form a floating sphere of lava before exploding into boulders all over the battlefield.
72	* {{Trick Arrow}}s: What makes the game more interesting. Everything ranging from bombs to flak to thunder clouds will be compressed into an arrow and shot at the enemy. Half the fun is using them all.
73	* UnusableEnemyEquipment: In ''Prelude'', most enemy types are {{Palette Swap}}s of your own; however, eventually they start fielding dragons and elementals, for which your trainable units have no counterpart.
74	* UselessUsefulSpell:
75	** As of the latest version of ''Winter Storm'', the Unit Build Point upgrade (increases the number of army units you get) is bugged and does absolutely nothing beyond the first point, meaning that you're stuck with an "army" of about 10 troops. Have fun.
76	** Poison and earth damage tend to be this, as there are no enemies that are weak to either, and in fact, many enemies are ''resistant'' to one of the two.
77	* XRaySparks: Killing an enemy with electric damage results in this visual effect, followed by the victim [[ReducedToDust disintegrating into ash]]. This also applies to ''Stone Golems'', though there's obviously nothing to see inside.
78	* YinYangBomb: Hitting fire with ice or vice versa will cause a small explosion.

Context VideoGame / BowMaster