Gun Bros

"Don't be a T.O.O.L., enlist today!"

Gun Bros is a Top-Down Shoot'Em Up available for free on phones running iOS or Android. A lower-quality version can be found on Facebook.

It's The Future, and the evil forces of T.O.O.L. are on a mission of galactic conquest! But never fear, the Gun Bros, agents of F.R.A.G.G.E.D., are on the job, huge guns in hand and cigar chomped firmly in mouth.

The player controls either Percy Gun or Francis Gun and proceeds to lay waste to hordes of Mooks, accompanied by the AI using whichever brother not picked. The player uses twin touch-based "thumbsticks" to control movement and shooting, respectively. The player can equip two different guns and switch between them at will, and use "Smartillery" powerups when things get ugly.

The game is divided up into waves, 50 per mission, or "revolution". Each world contains multiple revolutions, and there are multiple worlds. Each successive wave, revolution or world yields greater rewards but also tougher foes. You earn Experience Points and glowing purple Xplodium crystals as you play. Leveling Up increases your maximum health, and you can increase the Xplodium you receive by clearing waves without taking any damage, thus increasing your "Xplodium multiplier". Dying resets this multiplier but not your overall progress- you can begin from the last wave you reached. When you return to the menu, you can then refine your Xplodium for cash to purchase new guns, armor and powerups.

The game can be connected to your Facebook account, which allows you to recruit your friends' Bros to aid you in battle, thus replacing the default AI bro who is stuck with starting gear. Doing so also earns you bonuses. There are also daily challenges for rewards, asking that you Play Every Day.

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Tropes used in Gun Bros include:

• Action Bomb: The T.O.O.L. suicide bombers. They've been tortured into insanity by their helmet video feeds endlessly looping romantic comedies.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: However, the clothes confer useful stat boosts.
• Angry Black Man: Francis.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Flame-wielding Mooks are heavily armored in the front, but vulnerable from behind.
• Bald of Awesome: Both Bros, at least by default. You can give them various stat-boosting hairstyles.
• Badass: In spades.
  • Back-to-Back Badasses: A frequent occurrence.
  • Badass Beard: Percy sports one, linked to his Badass Mustache for the full wrap-around combo.
  • Cool Shades: The Slick Shades, which combined with the rest of the Slick gear turns your Bro into a super spy.
  • Eyepatch of Power: The piratical "ARRR!" hat comes with one of these.
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom: A certain armor gives the Bros these.
  • Lantern Jaw of Justice: Ayup.
  • World of Badass: The Bros are in good company, living in a cracked-out sci-fi galaxy populated by Space Samurai, Ninja, zombies, mercenaries, super spies, cowboys, pirates, deadly football players, superheroes, Some supersoldiers who dress like angels, a crew of work overseers who look like demons, Masked Luchadores, and goddamn Santa Claus. This is not even counting the Badass Army of Space Marines that F.R.A.G.G.E.D. is merely a tiny division of.
• Bash Brothers: Guess.
• BFG: And then some. Your starting pistols, the Whippersnappers, are bigger then the Bros' heads and they just get bigger from there.
  • The update added the Kraken missile launcher which seems to be the ultimate end all be all gun, which costs 1400 warbucks, which would take ages to earn through challenges, and if you were to buy warbucks for it, it would cost around $200. The description is epic, though.

"If annihilation had a portrait, it would be of you, holding this gun, screaming, as every living enemy within a mile as vaporized in an instant, leaving behind only smoldering boots, a T.O.O.L. helmet, and regret."

• Bottomless Magazines: Just keep shooting, bro.
• Chainsaw Good: The Bros can use the a circular Buzzsaw weapon, while Haven's basic enemy, the Buzzkill, uses a chainsaw.
• Death From Above: You can call in various forms of support strikes, ranging from the "Shock and Awesome" air strike, to an orbital beam from F.R.A.G.G.E.D. HQ, to a full-on nuclear strike.
• Deflector Shield: The "Green Shield" Power-Up protects your bro by teleporting incoming fire into Another Dimension. Exactly which, they're not sure, but "they can't be happy about it."
• Energy Weapon: Several guns, like most spread guns and the Energy Gauntlet weapon, as well as the newly added laser gun.
• Evolving Weapon: Guns acquire "mastery" as you use them, Leveling Up three times total, each conferring and experience bonus and an increased chance to deal Critical Hits.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin
• Expy: Percy Gun sort of looks like a bald Hulk Hogan.
• Fire-Breathing Weapon: The Bros can use the Super Scorcher flamethrower, while mooks like the Toaster and Toolbox make use of a similar weapon.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: T.O.O.L. grew from a band of criminals into an NGO Superpower bent on galactic domination.
• Gatling Good: The XL Grinder, a five-barrel minigun. If that isn't enough, try the XXL Mulcher, two tri-barrel gatlings stuck together. Still need More Dakka? Then invest in the XXXL Liquifier- a whopping three tri-barrel gatlings in one mucho shooty package.
  • An update added the Quad Blender, which is four goddamn gatlings in one. Cue the carnage.
• Guns Akimbo: How the Bros use any pistols. They also do this with explosive crossbows and machete launchers.
• Fun with Acronyms: Hoo boy: the Freakishly Rugged Advanced Genetics Galactic Enforcement Division (F.R.A.G.G.E.D.) versus the Tyranical Oppressors Of Life (T.O.O.L.).
• Heavily Armored Mook: The aforementioned Flame-wielding Mooks. Wait for them to try and flame you, then circle around and shoot them In the Back For Massive Damage.
• Healing Shiv: Healing explosives. Available in grenade, stack of plastic explosive, and nuke sizes.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: It's stated that the Bros never wear their standard-issue helmets. Armor is most definitely not useless, though, so you can avert this right off the bat by equipping one of many useful Cool Helmets.
• Incredibly Lame Pun: Mostly involving the word "Bro", like "Brohawk" "Brofessional" and "Bro-Ops"
• Improvised Weapon: The Atlas rocket launcher was born when Francis ripped the main gun off a destroyed tank during one fierce battle, proceeding to fire it from his shoulder.
• Lethal Lava Land: Cerberus Prime, the first world you fight on.
• Made of Explodium: Ironically averted with Xplodium Ore. The barrels on Cerberus Prime? That's another story.
• Mooks: The forces of T.O.O.L, whose troops are explicitly stated to be expendable.
• Nice Hat: Almost any headgear that isn't a Cool Helmet. The remainder are various hairstyles like the Brohawk, the Dreadknots, and the Bro Fro.
• No Damage Run: Clearing a wave without taking damage will increase your Xplodium multiplier. Clearing multiple waves this way can be very profitable.
• Nuclear Option: "When your back is against the wall, why settle for anything less?"
• Play Every Day: Daily "Bro-Ops" challenges. Invite your Bros to complete them, and you get more rewards. Also, you can get more coins refining coins longer then instantly. The ones that last longer (there are 10 min and 30 min ones, but then 24, 48, even 72 hours) get you the most coins. Buying Premium refineries using Warbucks lets you get more coin in less time.
• Reward From Nowhere: Each wave, a reward will appear somewhere on the map, indicated by a green question mark at the edge of the screen. It's usually an Xplodium crystal, but it can be an XP bonus or, rarely, a health boost.
• RPG Elements: You gain Experience Points and Level Up to get more maximum health, while your guns become more likely to land a Critical Hit.
• Screaming Shooter: On the title screen, and in one trailer.
• Shout-Out: The "Sonic Broom" headpiece gives the Bros Guile's hair.
  • A weapon called the Pulse Rifle makes mention that it's very good at taking out drooling E.T.s on derelict mining vessels.
  • The description for a tri-barrel shotgun called The Boss notes that you will show them who's boss, like a boss.
  • The WTF7000. Much like the gun it's named for, it's useful for taking out large groups of enemies.
  • The "Stealth" armor set includes a pair of tricloptic goggles very reminiscent of Sam Fisher's. They confer useful stat boosts.
• Silliness Switch: Gun Bros isn't a very serious game. That's before you start wearing a wedge of cheese on your head, or dress like a Pirate (complete with Pirate Parrot!), or Santa Claus, or a Masked Luchador, or any number of other outfits- all of which give you some kind of stat bonus, sometimes significantly so.
• Spread Shot: Beginning with the humble dual shot gun that can't shoot straight forward and increasing in both Dakka and ludicrousness to the seven-shot spread WTF7000, this game is not short on spread guns.
• Super Prototype: The Bros are currently F.R.A.G.G.E.D.'s only field agents.
• Super Soldier: The Bros, being genetically enhanced and all.
• Smoking Is Cool: The Bros almost always have lit cigars, only a select few armor pieces remove them.
• Stuff Blowing Up: Often, thanks to Exploding Barrels and a selection of rocket launchers available to the Bros.
• Testosterone Poisoning: Much of the flavor text portrays the Bros as being improbably manly, as you've probably discerned by this point. Case in point, their favorite headgear- the Man-danna. "Shirtless" is a wearable item.
• Top-Heavy Guy: The Bros.
• Two Man Army
• Universal Currency: Two. Coins can be obtained from refining Xplodium, while Warbucks must be earned from challenges. Many better items can only be purchased with Warbucks. Warbucks can be converted into coins, a rate of 500 coins to the buck. Both types can be purchased through the magic of micro-transactions.
• Zombie Apocalypse: The newly-added planet Bokor is a planet-sized toxic waste dump crawling with the unruly dead.
  • Unruly innocent dead, as described by the in-game briefing.