Pocket Tanks

Pocket Tanks is a semi-freeware 2-tank artillery game. It's based on a game called Scorched Tanks, which itself is based on a game called Scorched Earth. It features numerous weapons and expansion packs. Currently, with all expansions, the total number of weapons available is 250. Unlike the most tank artillery clones, the objective of this game is not to destroy the opponent. Instead, each player gets to choose 10 from the 20 randomly chosen weapons at the start of the game. The player who has more points when all weapons are fired, wins the game.

Tropes used in Pocket Tanks include:

• Abnormal Ammo - Pretty much most of the arsenal. Did I mention tanks can shoot fleas?
• Always Accurate Attack - Cheap Shot.
• Amazing Technicolor Battlefield - There are weapons that remove dirt, create dirt in various colors, color existing dirt, and apply thin layers of color to existing dirt; so 80% of the maps end up being this by the time the fight is over.
• Area of Effect - Several. Including Fire&Ice, Napalm, Flamethrower, Shockwave, and Quicksand. Popcorn and Burnt Popcorn are semi-examples when used properly.
• Awesome but Impractical - Mass Driver. It's a gigantic meteor that causes 200 damage with a direct hit - one of the strongest single hits currently possible in-game. It also hits a completely random spot on the map.
  • Golden Bullet. It fires a series of 'blanks' that do Scratch Damage at various angles, and one of them will be randomly chosen as the Golden Bullet, which does HUGE amounts of damage and knockback.
  • Sky Strike is a lesser example, being both cool and highly damaging, but requiring a direct hit.
  • Lead Balloon is one of the highest damaging weapons in the game, but it flies like, well, a lead balloon.
• Artificial Stupidity - AI just doesn't know well what weapons to pick.
• Bee-Bee Gun - Beehive and Stinger.
• Beehive Barrier - Bubble Wrap.
• Blow You Away - Tornado.
• Blown Across the Room - Most weapons will move the target somewhat, but a select few will send their ass clear to the other side of the map. One weapon, Backfire, actually invokes this as a huge jump that unburies the user, but leaves them in a random spot.
• Boring but Practical - Single Shot.
• Bubble Gun - Bubble Blast.
• Charged Attack - Hot Potato and Phase Missile.
• Deadly Walls - Great Wall and Crazy Wall
• Death or Glory Attack - See Awesome but Impractical above.
• Dishing Out Dirt - PLENTY. Some examples include Dirt Flinger, Dirtball, and Mudpie.
• Emergency Weapon - Anything that comes in handy when buried under dirt.
• Everything's Better with Spinning - Gyro Glue, Spinner, etc.
• Fixed Damage Attack - Several, including Sniper Rifle and Cannon Ball, which either do 100, or miss. Laser, Super Laser, and Phaser have the same effect, but wildly different other properties. Cheap Shot also does 20 damage, no questions asked.
• Floating Platforms - Elevator, and Showdown invoke this. Also, several weapons negate the effects of gravity on dirt that they dislodge, creating these.
• Flechette Storm - Many, MANY, of the weapons split into multiple projectiles at some point. Notable ones include: Streamers, which launches an incredible amount of bouncy projectiles for a short time; Lodestones, which launches homing flechettes; Burning Coals, whose projectiles burst into flame when near the enemy; and Nanobots, whose projectiles hover around the enemy, shooting lasers.
• Follow the Leader - An improvement to Scorched Tanks indeed.
• God Mode - Tanks can't be destroyed.
• Joke Item - Lemon.
• Kill It with Fire - Flamethrower, Napalm, Meltdown; it goes on.
• Kill It with Water - There's even more of this than there is fire.
• Let's Fight Like Gentlemen - Showdown is an interesting example. It lifts both players onto platforms at the same height in the air, regardless of starting height or if either player was buried.
• Lethal Joke Item - Burnt Popcorn. Does 10 damage on a direct hit, but if it's shot near an enemy in a crater the splitting sub-munitions and splashes of napalm can deal hundreds of points worth of damage. Similarly, Fireball, Popcorn, Fuzz Ball, Static Ball, and Buzzsaw can all deal more damage with multiple near misses than a direct hit.
  • Also, Solar Flare drops its projectiles over the entire map, dealing as much damage to the user as the target and thus being pretty pointless. However, if the user is buried under dirt or some other protection...
• Limited Move Arsenal - Each player gets ten attacks per battle, and that's it.
• No Arc in Archery - Completely averted. Nearly every single weapon is launched in an arc. And the ones that don't, either come from above (Solar Flare, Glue Storm, Mass Driver), or are justified (Laser, Super Laser, X-Ray Cannon). And, well Cheap Shot.
• Slap-On-The-Wrist Nuke - Mega Nuke and Mega Reaction are substantially weaker than their non-mega counterparts. The advantage is they have a larger area of effect.
• Spin Attack - Mower and Spinner.
• Splash Damage - Nearly every weapon in the game.
• Trippy Finale Syndrome - See Amazing Technicolor Battlefield above. Add in that weapons exist that create floating platforms, and while dirt that has nothing beneath it will fall, certain weapons let dirt hover. By the end of the fight, chances are you're either on a flat, empty nothing, or a crazy, multicolored Platform Hell.