1980s style game
Prison City is a 2D action platforming game developed by Programancer, published by Retroware, and released in 2023 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch.
In this game, you play as Hal Bruzer, a former cop who has to infiltrate Detroit and battle rogue techno-terrorists.
The game takes inspirations mainly from Shatterhand and Power Blade, but there are also influences of Mega Man in there.
Prison City contains examples of the following tropes:
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The Sewers level features sewers that are large enough for Hal to jump around in with plenty of headroom to spare.
- All the Worlds Are a Stage: The second DCP Headquarters level features most of the elements from the previous stages, and adding a few new ones.
- Athletic Arena Level: The Stadium level takes place in a stadium, complete with sports-themed enemies.
- Battle Boomerang: Hal's main form of attack is chakrams that come back to him after being thrown.
- Blackout Basement: Sections of Power Plant are in a blackout so you could only see electrified surfaces. A power plant section in DCP headquarters is very much the same.
- Bonus Stage: There are three bonus stages. One has Hal destroying a car, one has him navigating an underwater environment, one has Hal juggling a ball.
- Bottomless Pits: Falling off the screen is deadly in classic difficulty.
- Checkpoint: Visible checkpoints are present in levels. Upon activation, you spawn from those after dying.
- Conspicuous Electric Obstacle: The Power Plant level has three types of electric obstacles. The first is electrified fences, the second blue electric surfaces, and the third one is pair of nodes that move back and forth, periodically emitting electricity. depending on the room, the electricity in some surfaces is timed while in other places, it is toggled by electric boxes.
- Cores-and-Turrets Boss:
- Tech Engine, the very first boss, consists of two cores that shoot the player with plasma balls.
- Voltaic Nodes, the boss in the power plant level, consists of several cores on rails.
- Hellevator, the boss of first DCP headquarters level, is a core that shoots Energy Ball projectiles, and several laser turrets.
- Crate Expectations: The game is full of crates. Smaller crates can be destroyed and contain items, larger crates are just an obstacle. The Factory level has the most crates.
- Degraded Boss: Two of the earlier bosses, Voltaic Nodes and Tech Engine, re-appear in the second DCP headquarters level in lesser form.
- Elevator Action Sequence: The boss fight in the first DCP headquarters level takes place on an elevator.
- Energy Ball: A rotating twin ball of energy acts as an uncommon stage hazard. Jumbotron also attacks using energy balls.
- Exploding Barrels: The Factory level has orange barrels that explode when hit, hurting the player next to them.
- Eye Beams: The final boss shoots lasers out of its eyes.
- Flame Spewer Obstacle: Diagonal flame emitters are present in the Factory level and the second DCP headquarters level.
- Flash of Pain: Enemies and obstacles flash orange for a moment when hit.
- Friendly, Playful Dolphin: In one stage, you come across a dolphin who will give you the Warden's Keycard. It later appears on one of the TV screens to cheer you on in the penultimate battle with Chief Payne.
- Gusty Glade: The Preserve level has a few sections where player is pushed in the direction of wind while in the air.
- Heart Container: There are health upgrades scattered throughout the game, giving a permanent maximum health boost. There are also permanent energy boost containers.
- Hyperactive Metabolism: Picking up food heals instantly.
- Inconveniently-Placed Conveyor Belt: The Factory level has a lot of conveyor belts above lava pits or just in very inconvenient locations. A few carry crates though.
- Invincibility Power-Up: There is a power-up that gives Hal a short period of invulnerability.
- Knockback: Hal is knocked back a bit when hit.
- Lava Pit: The Factory stage has pits of flaming and damaging lava.
- Locomotive Level: The intro stage takes place on a train.
- Mandatory Unretirement: Hal was called back from retirement by his mentor, "the Chief".
- Mercy Invincibility: Hal is briefly invulnerable after getting hit.
- Modular Difficulty: There's a custom difficulty mode where you can adjust things like number of lives, whether the Bottomless Pits are lethal or not, how aggressive enemies are etc.
- Mook Maker: A ceiling-mounted machine encountered in the intro stage and Rooftops creates three small flying enemies at a time.
- Motion Parallax: To add onto the Retraux aesthetic, the backgrounds have parallax scrolling; although done in a cleaner way due to the advancement of display rendering technology.
- No Animals Were Harmed: A disclaimer in the credits says, "No dolphins were harmed in the making of this video game."
- Non-Lethal Bottomless Pits: In lower difficulties, falling off the screen puts the player back where he last was.
- No OSHA Compliance: The Factory and Power Plant levels are very unsafe to navigate, requiring to run through electric traps over bottomless pits.
- Offscreen Start Bonus: In the first level, going left instead of right will lead to useful items.
- One-Wheeled Wonder: One of the enemy types in Highway is riding a one-wheeled vehicle.
- Post-Defeat Explosion Chain: Bosses often go down with multiple smaller explosions. Larger enemies also produce multiple explosions when destroyed.
- Power-Up Magnet: Hal's boomerangs can return items for him.
- Retraux: The game deliberately resembles 8-bit games, albeit with better parallax scrolling and color palette.
- Rewarding Vandalism: Destroying crates is often rewarded with items.
- Saw Blades of Death: The second DCP Headquarters level features saw blades that move along the ground or ceiling.
- Shout-Out:
- The boss of the highway stage is a reference to Mad Max: Fury Road. Its name is even Fury Rhoads.
- One blink-and-you-miss-it tidbit at the beginning of the battle with Fury Rhoads is a billboard that says "Mom's Spaghetti".
- The beginning of the DCP Headquarters level has X-ray screens, like the ones in Total Recall (1990).
- The Cold Storage boss is a reference to Pong with the battle being played out in a similar fashion.
- Dying inside a lava pit makes Hal perform a thumb up gesture, like the T-800 Model 101 gave in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
- One bonus level has Hal trying to defuse bombs in an underwater level with the life-sapping seaweed, a nod to the infamous 1989 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles video game.
- The first phase of the second-to-last boss fight references the Final Boss fight from Code Name: Viper.
- Before the second-to-last boss battle, Chief Payne says, "Freedom is the disease, and I'm the cure, Hal," a reference to a line said by Sylvester Stallone, "You're the disease, and I'm the cure," from the 1986 film Cobra.
- Slide Attack: Normally, sliding does nothing against the enemies. However, using the slide against a footballer enemy defeats it instantly.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Cold Storage takes place in an icy location. It also has slippery floors.
- Smart Bomb: The grenade item clears the screen from enemies.
- Smashing Hallway Traps of Doom: The Factory level features crushers that periodically smash the surface.
- Spike Balls of Doom: Spiky metal damaging balls appear in Sewers as an environmental hazard.
- Spikes of Doom: Spikes appear as a stage hazard. They take a form of icicles in Cold Storage and thorns in Preserve.
- Stalactite Spite: Large icicles start falling when Hal gets under them.
- Super Not-Drowning Skills: Hal can stay under water as long as he needs to without drowning.
- Talking Animal: In Preserve, it's a talking dolphin that hands you a keycard.
- Temporary Platform: Some rocket-powered floating platforms, as well as the fragile ice in Cold Storage, fall when stood on.
- Toggling Setpiece Puzzle: In Power Plant, shooting a lever makes it flip, altering the stage hazards. Some need to be set in certain way in order to proceed.
- Vent Physics: Floor fans make Hal hover when he is above them.
- Video-Game Lives: The game has a lives system.
- Video Game Sliding: Hal can slide for a short distance, briefly speeding him up and letting him navigate through narrow gaps.
- Walk, Don't Swim: Hal can't swim. He can run under water.
- Warm-Up Boss: Tech Engine, being the first boss, has relatively simple attacks. It occasionally shoots Energy Balls while the ground becomes quickly damaging. It mostly serves as a tutorial to see if the player has mastered the basic mechanics of the game.
- Weather-Control Machine: Preserve has a machine that controls the weather. The message says it's malfunctioning so throughout most of the outdoor sections, the weather is stormy.
