Alien Showdown

Alien Showdown is a top-down shooter similar in vein to games like Smash TV. You control a man who has crash landed on an alien planet, and must battle the marauding forces to survive by sealing up their nesting craters. Each stage contains an open field with a specific number of craters that must be destroyed to advance.

How to Play
The title screen consists of only two options: "Play" and "How to". "Play" starts the game, while "How to" shows a small legend of enemies, weapons and controls. Mouse click on either option to start.

You have a health bar that is depleted when damaged by aliens, or hit by a grenade blast. Once the bar is depleted, the game is over. You may choose the "Play Again" option to restart the game or submit your score.

The game also features a time bar, but rather than end the game, it will deduct from your score once the stage is completed. Completing the stage with lots of time left will offer a huge point bonus.

Control
Move your character with the arrow keys.

Aim by placing the mouse cursor on the screen toward what you wish to shoot. The mouse cursor will become a black crosshair when on the game screen.

Fire your weapon by clicking the mouse.

Deploy a grenade by pressing the control (CTRL) key.

Power-ups
Your standard weapon is a simple quick firing pistol and 5 grenades. The game contains a couple weapon power-ups randomly dropped by defeated enemies. All of them have a usage limit.


 * Machine Gun: Grants you a very fast firing machine gun. You can hold down the mouse button for full auto-fire. Ammo is depleted quickly. Icon is a gun in a green orb.
 * Shotgun: Gives you a shotgun that scatters a strong burst fire that can tear through multiple enemies. Grants you 10 shots. Icon is a gun in a red orb.
 * Grenade: Refills your grenade cache to 5. You can never carry more than 5 grenades at any time. Icon looks like a small bean.
 * Health: Restores a small portion of lost health. Icon is a red cross in a green orb.

Enemies

 * Green Slime: Killed in one shot, move at a standard pace.
 * Blue Slime: Killed on one shot, move at a standard pace, but will freeze you if they come in contact with you. Being frozen slows down your movement speed for several seconds.
 * Mom Slime (Pink): Large slimes with a slow movement speed, but take multiple shots to kill. The slimes themselves are harmless, but attack by deploying "Son Slimes".
 * Son Slime (Yellow): Small slimes deployed by Mom Slimes. They move extremely fast, but was very easy to kill. One shot from your normal weapon can take out multiple Son Slimes.
 * Nest Craters: Large craters throughout the stage that deploy all sorts of slimes. They can only be destroyed by grenades.

Tips
Power-ups do not vanish from the screen, so don't put yourself into harm's way attempting to grab one.

Grenades will drop somewhere around wherever your crosshair icon is placed. Make sure not to be caught in the blast yourself.

Do not waste grenades. As you can only carry 5 at a time, it's best to use them only on craters. Make sure you use up your supply of grenades before grabbing a new grenade power-up, unless the level is over.

Weapon power-ups will immediately overwrite each other, and do not stack. Make sure you've used up the ammo in your current gun before grabbing another power up.

It's best to leave craters that are grouped in the same general area alone when you start a stage. Try to destroy enough so you won't be surrounded on all edges. Check your map screen to see where the remaining craters are located.

Since you can move around before the start of each stage, take this time to move to a corner or wall, to lessen possible areas of attack.

If craters are fairly close together, you can often toss a grenade in between them to destroy them all at once.