Featuring the world's angriest octopus.
Octogeddon is a 2018 indie game published by All Yes Good. It was developed by George Fan, of Insaniquarium and Plants vs. Zombies fame.
The game opens with an mutant octopus named Octogeddon casually watching videos on the Internet from its undersea grotto. It comes across a cooking video during which, to its horror, the cook prepares an octopus-based dish. This sets off Octogeddon's Hair-Trigger Temper, and the cephalopod decides to retaliate by destroying the Statue of the Liberty in New York City. It then begins its quest for vengeance and destruction.
The game has elements of a Shoot 'Em Up, but has its own unique quirks as well: the player controls the titular Octogeddon and must defeat hordes of enemies by attacking them with its tentacles. Soon, the player will unlock DNA from various animal species, which can replace a single tentacle with parts of other animals like snakes, crabs or roosters. Each of these animals have unique properties: snakes can shoot poison around, crab claws deal huge damage to close opponents, etc. The player can select several tentacle options at the start of each levels. After the end of each chapter, Octogeddon will also find a new animal buddy which can accompany it on its quest but won't take a tentacle spot.
There are two kinds of levels: underwater levels in which Octogeddon is completely static and can only be rotated by the player, and land levels in which the octopus will move left or right while spinning. Each chapter starts with 3 underwater levels followed by 3 land levels.
The game borrows several elements from Fan's previous works Insaniquarium and Plants Vs Zombies, most notably the gain of new items at the end of most of the levels which can be selected for use in the later levels of the game. Octogeddon also shares its art designer with Plants Vs Zombies, and as such, the graphics of the two games are very similar.
This game provides examples of!:
- Animal Gender-Bender: The Chicken tentacle shoots explosive eggs. It upgrades into the Rooster tentacle, which...shoots twice as many eggs. Never mind that a rooster is a male chicken, which obviously does not lay eggs.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: A giant, angry mutant octopus with ice-shooting penguins heads, crab claws and turtle shells (among others) for tentacles, to be precise.
- Baguette Beatdown: The Enemy Mime in Paris has an attack during which it strikes Octogeddon with a gigantic baguette.
- Battle Boomerang: One of the bosses uses one to fight Octogeddon. Of course, this boss is fought in Australia.
- Bee-Bee Gun: One of the DNA the player can collect if the Bee DNA, and the resulting tentacle will shoot small, bees which will home on the nearest enemy.
- Clamshell Currency: Catfish Carl's shop, which is visited after the Game Over, uses seashells as currency.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Granted, seeing someone cook octopus tentacles while being an octopus themselves can be quite jarring, so we can give Octogeddon a pass on that one. But as for the others... Destroying the Tokyo Imperial Palace because some Kaiju movie had a Godzilla-like monster deliver a Curb-Stomp Battle to a gigantic octopus...? That might be overreacting.
- Electric Jellyfish: Several electric jellyfishes can appear in various levels. They are invincible and slowly approach Octogeddon. Unless blown away with the Elephant tentacle, they will zap and paralyse Octogeddon for a few seconds.
- Enemy Mime: A giant robotic one appears as a boss in Paris.
- Expy: Catfish Carl, the shopkeeper, is basically a fish version of Crazy Dave.
- Floating in a Bubble: The animal buddies move around floating in a water-filled bubble during the land levels.
- Flunky Boss: The Big Boss Bass enemies will summon smaller robotic fishes to attack Octogeddon while they themselves circle around it. Mecha-Octogeddon can also summon these.
- French Accordion: Accordions are used in the sea levels when Octogeddon is headed to Paris to destroy the Eiffel Tower.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Octogeddon will get extremely angry at the drop of a hat. Some theater play stars a dumb Funny Octopus? Let's destroy the Sydney Opera House in retaliation!
- Heart Container: Catfish Carl will give Octogeddon an extra health heart as a fidelity bonus after each set number of items bought from his shop. Just like every object one gets from his shop, it will stay in place in every subsequent game.
- Hearts Are Health: Octogeddon's life bar is represented by hearts. Also, white submarines and planes with heart symbols can replenish your health when hit.
- Infernal Background: Each and everytime Octogeddon gets triggered, flames appear in the background while it roars in anger.
- Humongous Mecha: Amazingly enough, The White House is mounted on a very American one named the Mech Force One. It can send missiles, nukes and the Liberty Bell at Octogeddon to get rid of it.
- Kangaroos Represent Australia: Three guesses on which animal species can bee seen fleeing from Octogeddon during his rampage on Sydney. Also, this world's boss is Kongaroo, a jumbo-sized robotic kangaroo, which wields a Battle Boomerang to make things even more stereotypical.
- Light 'em Up: The Firefly tentacle can not only reveal cloaked enemies, it will also damage them by shining its light upon them.
- Mix-and-Match Critter: Octogeddon starts off as a normal octopus with octopus tentacles, but with all the DNA it acquires it can replace those with crab claws, turtle shells, rooster heads, and many, many more.
- Monumental Damage: Each of Octogeddon's rampages culminates with the destruction of an incredibly famous landmark, like the Eiffel Tower or the Statue of the Liberty.
- Nuke 'em: Octogeddon's enemies are rather trigger-happy with their nuclear stuff, sometimes launching dozens of them at once during the "Nuclear Waves". However, they do not cause much destruction, so its not too much of an issue.
- Painful Pointy Pufferfish: Spike the Pufferfish is one of the aquatic buddies Octogeddon can acquire. It can puff up to tremendous sizes, destroying every nearby enemy with its spikes.
- Pelican Package Pouch: The Pelican tentacle can swallow up enemies and store them in its beak before shooting them away.
- Piranha Problem: Robotic piranhas are featured among the enemies Octogeddon comes across in the underwater levels. These annoying foes circle at high speed around it before lunging at the octopus.
- Psycho Electric Eel: Volt the Electric Eel. This adorable fish can unleash a huge electric shock stunning every enemy on screen. The attack will also reveal every cloaked enemy which was onscreen.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: While Octogeddon itself is far from being conventionally cute, its animal buddies really are adorable.
- Sea Hurtchin: Ursula the Urchin is an animal buddy which can fire a flurry of spikes all around her, damaging every enemy they strike.
- Sea Mine: During the Bonus Stages, the animal buddies must dodge a plethora of sea mines descending upon them at high speeds.
- Shout-Out: There are many to George Fan's previous games Insaniquarium and Plants Vs. Zombies.
- The system of the new DNA Octogeddon can get at the end of many levels is remarkably reminiscent of the way of getting new pets and new plants from both these games.
- The new animal buddies Octogeddon gets at the end of each chapter are hatched from an egg, just like in Insaniquarium. All of them also are aquatic creatures.
- As stated above, Catfish Carl is a blatant reference to Crazy Dave, the shopkeeper from Plants Vs. Zombies. Also, just likes Meryl's Fish Emporium from Insaniquarium, his shops uses seashells as currency.
- The Goldfish tentacle produces money, just like the guppies from Insaniquarium. They are also both colored the exact same way.
- Sizable Snowflakes: The Penguin tentacle shoots gigantic snowflakes which freeze enemies, slowing them down.
- Spit Take: Octogeddon's reaction to the theatre play making fun of octopi is spitting its coffee. And then it goes to raze the Sydney Opera House in retaliation.
- Super Window Jump: The terrified humans escape the buildings attacked by Octogeddon this way. Amazingly, despite jumping from the highest floors of six- or ten-story buildings, they do not splatter on the ground - they land perfectly safely and run away as his they jumped from the lowest step of a staircase.
- Swordfish Sabre: The Sawfish head can slice enemies with its rostrum. When rotating, it even moves and sounds like a real chainsaw.
- Tentacled Terror: Octogeddon is a mean-looking, giant octopus with a Hair-Trigger Temper which goes on rampage in various cities around the world, causing major destruction wherever it goes. It can enhance its tentacles with DNA from various other animals to make them even deadlier.
- Threatening Shark: ROBOT-sharks, to be precise. They continuously circle around Octogeddon, constantly getting closer to it. Since the player has to rotate Octogeddon around to aim, their moving pattern makes them quite bothersome to hit. Winged, flying variants appear during the on-land levels, too.
- Uncle Sam Wants You: The famous poster is seen on many buildings in the D.C. level with "We want YOU to fight Octogeddon'' as the slogan.
- Washington D.C. Invasion: The final level involves the Octogeddon destroying Washington D.C. and The White House.
- Wave-Motion Gun: The White House and the Stomp-A-Tron X will fire such a weapon at Octogeddon while hovering above it.
- Weaponized Landmark: The Final Boss is actually the White House itself, equiped with both a Giant Mecha and Laser Beams.
