Contrivity
Spawn into the hostile quantum laboratory and destroy wave after wave of oscillations in this endless, top-down arena shooting game with a variety of randomly-selected weapons.
Play in the browser now with the following simple keyboard controls.
Game
Controls
Use arrow keys to attack and w a s d keys to move.
Zoom in with ctrl and +, then click or focus on the playing area to activate the game controls.
Play
Requirements
CPU clock speed with at least 512 MHZ*.
Keyboard or a key-mapped device with the aforementioned keys from the controls section.
Memory storage with at least 256 MB*.
Modern web browser with JavaScript enabled.
*These are minimum specifications with in-game performance varying across browsers and devices. Opened browser tabs and background system processes may have adverse effects on in-game performance.
Explanation
This game was designed as a fun, minimalist, relaxing shoot-em-up game to unleash carnage upon zombie-like enemies without stress triggers from challenging objectives, player death, realistic visuals or sound.
It's heavily-optimized with a proprietary game engine using vanilla JavaScript, HTML and CSS to ensure optimal functionality across the widest range of modern web browsers and computers as possible.
As with all art forms, there was some inspiration from others.
The attention to detail and high framerate from the Zed Time system in Killing Floor 2 inspired the inclusion of a high-quality bullet time "slow-mo" system triggered once at random after each weapon switch.
The frantic twin-stick arena shooting controls and simplistic shapes from Geometry Wars inspired the core gameplay premise with limited 8-directional, arcade-style movement and minimal graphics using only circles and lines.
The pick-up-and-play gameplay style with quick pacing changes from the WarioWare series inspired the inclusion of rapid, randomized weapon switching between short-lived waves of enemies to reduce boredom from repetition.
There are 12 in-game weapons so far in Contrivity with many more carefully-crafted weapons planned for future updates.