Versus Umbra is a video game developed by Arkuni in Adobe Flash released in 2011. It's a 2D shooter in which you control a playable character and shoot all foes. The game features lots of weapons and a perk system. There are four modes of play:
- First Strike: The main campaign in which you control Adrian who simply has to save the world from an invasion.
- Point of View: The first side campaign in which you control Derick who has to find an algorithm.
- Cold Rescue: The second side campaign in which you control Fenrir who has to rescue his friend.
- Reversed Survival: The bonus mode in which you control Bane who must fight opponents in the Shredian arena as the difficulty increases.
This game provides examples of:
- Absurdly High Level Cap: There does not seem to be a level cap. You earn the last achievement for levelling up when you reach 40 in First Strike and 20 in side campaigns. While with side campaigns you're likely to get that last achievement, in First Strike it's possible to beat the campaign at level 16 and Paradox mode at level 32. All perks are unlocked at level 61 in First Strike and level 41 in side campaigns.
- Advancing Wall of Doom: The grinder in First Strike chases you through the entirety of 2-5 and kills you in one hit if it gets you, though it's possible to destroy it with good enough weaponry.
- Ambiguous Gender: It's not clear what Bane's gender is due to them wearing a cape. The arena host even uses "his or hers" during a conversation with them.
- An Ice Person: Fenrir, the protagonist of Cold Rescue, is the only character with an ice weapon and wears cooling armor.
- Another Side, Another Story: Two additional campaigns can be played through after buying them (at least when they were still buyable, now they're free) with new characters and stories, those being Point of View and Cold Rescue.
- Bee Afraid: Armored bees appear as foes. They're not too strong, but you usually encounter several of them at once and they're fast.
- Big Head Mode: The Big Heads relic does what it's supposed to, though it doesn't affect hitboxes.
- Boring, but Practical: The Quick-Sphere, your starting weapon in First Strike. It doesn't deal much damage and isn't as flashy as the other weapons, but it's fast, has infinite ammo, and even gets knockback and better criticals with version ups.
- Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: When Adrian asks why Michael landed him so far off the objective on Nevaga, he responds that he's sure it's related to monkeys, nipples, and monkey-nipples.
- Chainsaw Good: The M.O.D. Device is a weapon which places two portals and 20 chainsaws moving between then infinitely, harming all enemies which make contact. It's even described as "The 2 very best things combined into one multidimensional organic dismemberment device."
- Challenge Run: Each level (except for the final one of each campaign) has a challenge in which you beat the level while satisfying a condition like not jumping or only using the starting weapon. Clearing a challenge grants a part of the secret schematic.
- Clothing Damage: The Loose Lines perk gives a 15% chance per second to remove enemy armor, stripping them to their underpants. Armorless enemies take 50% more damage.
- Cool Shades: Derick is the only character who wears Black Glasses, and while they reduce damage taken by 0%, he boasts they keep the pesky sun from damaging your eyes.
- Critical Hit: You have a small chance to get a critical hit which deals 100% more damage. Uber Critical Hits, unlocked by getting the perk with the same name, have a 30% chance to deal 100% more damage on top of that.
- Critical Existence Failure: Averted as enemies show damage with bruises or cracks, but there is a skill with the name that's literally the same as the trope name which makes critical hits 25% more effective.
- Deliberately Monochrome: The CPU-intensive Greyscale relic does what it's supposed to - make the battle black, white, and grey.
- Difficulty Levels: You can select either normal or hard mode when starting a new save file.
- Double Jump: The Bunny Jump perk allows the player character to jump in the air.
- Dressing as the Enemy: The Armor Snatcher steals enemy clothes and puts them on Derick from Point of View, giving him a disguise as foes stop attacking him, even if it's temporary.
- Endless Game: Reversed Survival is an endless mode in which your goal is to kill as many foes as possible while they keep getting tougher.
- Evolving Weapon: With enough kills, a weapons version goes up, usually making it deal more damage or get some other improvement, often changing its appearance as well. Most weapons have a level version of 5 or 10, but the Soul Harvester can be leveled-up infinitely.
- Fartillery: The Chemical Warfare relic makes the player character fart every time he jumps. It comes in handy as the enemy takes 3 damage each second it's in the fart's radius.
- Floating Limbs: Human characters have floating hands and feet.
- Flying Saucer: Several foes fly in saucers, firing either bombs or lasers from them. The Generic Evil General who appears in all campaigns has his own saucer which fires both bombs and lasers.
- Good Colors, Evil Colors: Most protagonist and allies wear red clothes, while human enemies wear blue clothes and/or have blue hair.
- Hammerspace: Lampshaded when Adrian thought Michael would put a parachute in his infinitely deep pockets, together with weapons, gadgets, and lunch.
- I Fell for Hours: 1-4 and 4-3 in First Strike have Adrian falling from a great height and killing enemies during it.
- Laugh Track: Discussed. At one point, Adrian watches Buddies. When Michael calls it one of the terrible shows with a laugh track, Michael responds that the laugh track is an awesome feature as it tells when the show is supposed to be funny.
- Level-Up Fill-Up: You don't start with it, but getting the Restoration Job perk allows you to restore health and power each time you level up.
- Magikarp Power: The Soul Harvester is a pretty weak weapon at first and each level up only increases its power a bit, but it's the only weapon in the game that can be levelled up infinitely rather than only 9 times. So if the player farms experience with this weapon, it will end up being actually powerful.
- Mayan Doomsday: There's an achievement called "Happy 2012" earned for killing 2012 enemies. The game came out in 2011.
- Mercy Invincibility: Taking damage results in the player character turning invincible for a short amount of time. The Punching Bag increases the amount of said time by 1 second.
- Microtransactions: During the game's first few years, two-side campaigns and a bonus survival mode, four weapons, eight relics, plus other content could only be bought with a Mochi Games account. In 2014 their servers shut down though, and now all content is available for free.
- Min-Maxing: Can be done by getting the Healthy Learner and Powerful Learner perks as soon as possible, and leaving Relatively Healthy and Relatively Powerful for last.
- Money Multiplier: Starting the game again in Paradox mode makes it so that for every 2 enemies you kill, your Inventium Multiplier (how much you earn) goes up by 1. However, getting hit reduces it back to 1.
- Mook Maker: There are enemies in vehicles which spawn bees or bombs indefinitely until you kill them.
- New Game Plus: Clearing the game allows you to play Paradox mode, in which you gain additional Inventium as well as a higher level cap and keep all levels, perks, and items from the previous playthrough, but start over from the beginning with stronger enemies. After beating Paradox mode, you can begin it again.
- One-Hit Kill: The Slayer perk gives a 10% chance/second to insta-kill an enemy. M1 Garand also gets a 20% chance/second to insta-kill an enemy after reaching version 5. The M.O.D. device also insta-kills enemies with less than 50 HP after reaching version 5.
- Overly Long Name: Fenrir says that he thinks the gladiators are using a use-weak-armor-and-weapons-first-and-then-gradually-build-up-the-arsenal tactic. He lampshades that it's too long by saying he needs a shorter name for it.
- Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: Fenrir says, right before beginning the final level of Cold Rescue, "Battle log, take 2: Action!"
- Recursive Ammo: Version 5 or higher Phatman shoots bombs which split into four scatterbombs. Version 10 raises that to eight scatterbombs.
- Red Shirt: Point of View has several privates who are supposed to help Derick. They all look the same and typically die at the start of the mission.
- Red Sky, Take Warning: The final planet in First Strike, Nivaga, has a red sky.
- Regenerating Health: Health is recovered by 2 points per second. The Regeneration perk, as the name implies, raises it to 3.
- Shout-Out: The costume relic allows the player character to take the design of characters from other media, including:
- Hank from Madness Combat.
- Clank from Ratchet & Clank.
- The Vault Boy from Fallout.
- Gordon Freeman from Half-Life.
- Shows Damage: Damaged characters almost always have bruises, scars, or cracks (the last one if they're mechanical).
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Colth, the second planet in Point of View, is mainly made of ice and Derick comments it's bloody cold.
- Smart People Wear Glasses: Michael, the inventor in First Strike, is the only person in the game to wear glasses.
- Taking You with Me: The Bomb. It blows up your character to deal massive damage to opponents, though it's fairly useless as you can't clear levels with it.
- The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: Nivaga in First Strike. Red sky, black ground, full of caves, and level names like "Satan's Backyard" all point to it being the final planet.
- Tournament Arc: The planet Shredian hosts several tournaments and levels taking place on it have our protagonists taking part in them.
- Underground Monkey: The orange monsters from the beginning that bite return later on as stronger, green monsters.
- Unrealistic Black Hole: The Invalidator shoots miniature black holes which simply suck in all enemies within a certain radius.
- Video Game Flamethrowers Suck: Averted, the Afterburner is a flamethrower that deals good damage at a fast pace and has a large range which gets even larger with level ups.
- Wave-Motion Gun: The Ragnarok is a weapon that shoot a huge blue laser beam.
- Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing: Once you have really high HP, the Static Field perk which electrocutes enemies for 60% damage they inflict upon you, and likely other things to boost overall defense, it becomes possible to beat levels simply by standing in one spot and letting retaliation do all the work. You even earn experience for the currently equipped weapon!
