Outpost 60

The outpost won its last battle. Barely.
The defenses lie in pieces and the creatures are coming back.


OUTPOST 60 is a modular defense game where you don’t aim: you build the machine that aims. Patch radars into guns, cannons and mortars, route signals through logic modules, keep your generators running, and watch your contraption hold the line (or not).

- 12 missions, 21 modules, 6 kinds of mutants
- Every wave can be beaten in more than one way
- Save your circuit as a PNG (C) or the last 10 seconds as a GIF (G) so you can share your progression !

Best played with a mouse and a keyboard. Click once on the title screen to turn the sound on. Press H in game for help.

The "old tech" feel is also present within the project itself, where I've simulated a framebuffer just like in the old days of CPU rendering. There’s also a strong Pico8 vibe, which help a lot not having to dig some questions.

Made in 72 hours for Ludum Dare 60 (theme: Old Tech).
Game by yourykiki, music by Callio.
Using pico8 palette and font

If you need some handholding, I've added the Quick start section below. Also, don't skip the briefings, they contains hints about the ennemis that will attack ! You can re open with key (B).

Quick start

The rack and the cables

Every module has ports at the bottom. Drag from one port to another
to plug a cable; right click a port to unplug it. Hover a port to read
its name.

A port's color tells what it carries (cable colors are just there to
tell cables apart). Bright = output, dark = input.
You can only plug an output into an input of the same color.

Color	Signal	Example
Green	a contact: one hostile and where it was seen	DETECT → GUN
Pink / purple	a radar scan, for the screens	DETECT → SCOPE
Light / dark blue	a number	GUN AMMO → GAUGE
Orange / grey	on or off	THRESHOLD → GUN RELOAD

A blinking NC means a module is not connected yet. The red switch in
a module's header turns it off to save power. A generator gives 100
power; every module drains some.

Your first circuit

*A DETECT finds a hostile and sends its position (from its green
CONTACT port) to the GUN, which fires at it. The GEN-H powers both.*

That's all mission 1 needs: plug the green CONTACT output of the DETECT
into the CONTACT input of the GUN, then press Space.

Reading the DETECT

*The DETECT is a pulse radar: it only sees a hostile when its pulse
sweeps over it. Between two sweeps the position gets old.*

- RANGE knob (drag it up or down): how far the pulse goes. A short
range sweeps more often, so positions are fresher and fewer shots
miss. A long range sees hostiles sooner.
- First tag, which hostile to point at: NEAR the closest,
DANG the one that will hurt the most, WEAK the one with the
fewest hit points left. Click to change.
- Second tag, which size to watch: ALL, or only SML,
MED or BIG. Click to change. Two DETECTs with different
sizes can feed two different weapons.
- Ports, from right to left: CONTACT (green, to a weapon), SCAN
(pink, to a screen), SEEN (orange, on while a hostile is in sight).

Seeing what happens: SCOPE and TARGET

*The SCOPE (left) draws the radar sweep and every echo. Its MARK inputs
put a reticle on a contact. The TARGET (right) shows the hostile a
contact points at, and how old the information is.*

Screens don't shoot, but they tell you why your weapons miss: if the
age is high, shorten the range or add a PREDICT between the DETECT and
the weapon.

Weapons

Each weapon has a CONTACT input (what to shoot), three on/off inputs
(ENABLE, RELOAD, BOOST) and two number outputs (AMMO, HEAT).

- GUN: fast, 40 rounds, short reach, useless against armor.
- CANNON: slow, 6 heavy shells, long reach, goes through armor.
- MORTAR: slow, hits every hostile around the impact.
- The LFT / CTR / RGT tag picks the mount the weapon sits on.
- R reloads by hand. A weapon never shows its ammo: plug AMMO into
a GAUGE to read it.

Reloading on its own

*AMMO goes to a GAUGE (to read it) and to a THRESHOLD set to 10. Below
10, the THRESHOLD output (orange port) turns on and triggers RELOAD.*

Reloading takes 2 seconds without firing. In later missions, wire the
DETECT's SEEN output through logic (NOT, OR) so you only reload when
nothing is in sight.

Overclocking

*BOOST on: the GUN fires twice as fast (OC on its panel) but heats up.
Here HEAT feeds a THRESHOLD set to 70: BOOST stays on while the gun is
below 70 heat, then stops before it overheats.*

At 100 heat a weapon locks (HOT) until it has fully cooled down. An
overclocked weapon also drains twice the power.

Tips

- Read the briefing (B): every mission explains its new trick.
- Lost? Your circuit stays as it was. Change one thing and try again.
- Press P to pause and S for slow motion to see what goes
wrong.