Space Huggers
Run, gun and blast through destructible alien outposts. Made by Frank Force (KilledByAPixel).
Arrow keys to move and jump. Mouse to aim, click to shoot. Gamepad supported.
How to play
- You are a rebel soldier clearing enemy outposts on procedurally generated planets.
- Move and jump with the arrow keys and aim with the mouse.
- Almost all terrain is destructible, so you can shoot your own routes through walls.
- Clear the level to move deeper into the outpost.
Playing it better
- Shoot the floor and walls. Making your own cover is usually safer than using what is there.
- Keep moving sideways while firing. Standing still is what gets you hit.
- Drop through destroyed floors to skip fights you do not need to take.
- Use height. Enemies are much easier to handle from above than from the same level.
About Space Huggers
Space Huggers is a run and gun platformer by Frank Force, originally built for the js13k competition and later released as an open source project under the GPL. The competition origin is part of the appeal: the whole game, levels, physics, particles, enemies and audio, was squeezed into an extraordinarily small footprint, which is why it loads almost instantly.
The mechanic that sets it apart is destructible terrain. The level is not scenery, it is material. Floors, walls and ceilings can be shot away, which means a level has no fixed route: you can tunnel down, blow a hole in a wall to flank a group of enemies, or destroy the ground under your own feet to escape. Once you start treating the terrain as a tool the difficulty drops sharply.
Combat rewards movement. Aiming is done with the mouse while the arrow keys handle running and jumping, so you can fire in one direction while moving in another. Enemies punish standing still, and the particle heavy explosions make it easy to lose track of yourself in a crowded fight, so the safest habit is to keep drifting sideways and take height wherever it is available.
Levels are generated rather than authored, so runs stay fresh and no route can be memorised. It plays with a keyboard and mouse and also supports a gamepad if you have one plugged in, and because the source is open it is a genuinely useful read for anyone curious about how much game can fit into very little code.
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Common questions
Who made Space Huggers?+
Frank Force, also known as KilledByAPixel. It is open source under the GPL-3.0 licence.
Is the terrain really destructible?+
Yes, and using that is the core skill. You can shoot new routes through most of the level.
Can I use a gamepad?+
Yes, gamepad input is supported alongside keyboard and mouse.
Is there a two player mode?+
The upstream project includes local co-op support, so a second player can join with a gamepad.
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