This is the first Java applet edition of SwampLord released. SwampLord is a strategic one player animated board game. The player, as the SwampLord, controls both the Swamp Creature as well as the set of Claws. There are no timers involved in this game, so take your time in planning your strategy. The object of the game is to defend your Swamp against the mobs of Evil Real Estate Agents (aka EREA).
Each section of Swamp is 15 by 9 squares. Each square is either water (blue or shaded) or land (white). Each board, or portion of the swamp, is randomly created for each game and mob. Your home in the middle of the Swamp is always to the west, or the left of the screen. The plants growing near the shores are there only to delay the greenhouse effect on the planet, and have no effect on the play of the game.
You guide the Swamp Creature. The Swamp Creature can go to any square of land or water that is unoccupied. Place the beacon by clicking on the destination square. The Swamp Creature will then try to reach the beacon using the shortest possible route, using only unoccupied squares.
When the Swamp Creature moves from water to land, the square of water that it steps up from becomes a square of land. Similarly, when It goes back into the water, the last square of land it was on turns to water. The physics involved in this transformation is too involved to be discussed here.
The Swamp Creature is an endangered species. In fact, It is the only one left in the swamp. If you lose your Swamp Creature, you lose your Swamp and the game.
The Evil Real Estate Agents want to develop your swamp to make a few quick bucks. The Agents come in mobs of one to nine individuals. Each EREA will try to move closer to your Swamp Creature each time the Swamp Creature moves, but the Agents will not go into the water. The agents are relatively stupid, and you can predict their moves in reaction to your own.
You start the game with a column of 8 Claws on the west (left side) of the screen. The Claws are used to capture the EREA that are on land directly to the east (to the right) of the claw. To activate a Claw, click on the Claw. Claws will only operate on land in a straight west to east (left to right) direction. The strategy of the game is build the horizontal levees and activate the claw when there are one or more EREA on the levee.
WARNING: if your Swamp Creature is on the levee when you activate the Claw, you will lose the game. For a practical demonstration of levee building, choose "Demo" from the Game menu. You may activate each Claw only once per mob.
Your Swamp Creature needs a Lifeforce above zero to operate. Your Lifeforce guage is on the left side of the screen. If the Lifeforce falls to zero, the EREA will invade and the game is lost. Each time an Agent moves to a position that is next to the Swamp Creature, Lifeforce will be lost. The amount of Lifeforce drained per EREA is dependent upon the number of Agents left on the board. That is, the last EREA is able to drain much more than if it was just one of nine. When a Claw gets an EREA, the Lifeforce that was taken by that Agent is regained. When you eliminate the last Agent of a mob, you regain all of your Lifeforce.
After a mob of EREA has been removed by the Claws, a new section of the Swamp will appear with a new mob of Agents. The number of Agents in a Mob varies with each Mob, and each game. With each mob removed, you also lose the last Claw used.
The hats at the bottom of the screen represent the number of EREA left to capture. Eliminate all the hats to win the game.
Start a new game by clicking the "New Game" button. Clicking "New Game" will end the current game, if any.
Eliminating mobs of EREA requires two steps: building levees, and luring the Agents onto the levees. When building a levee, it is usually best to work with islands, squares of land that the EREA can't reach. Turn a peninsula into an island early in the game, when possible.
The EREA will always move to any square of land that is closer to the Swamp Creature. You can first lure the EREA away from the area that you're building a levee, then lure the Agents onto that levee.
Developing a feel for the game, as well as developing strategies takes time. Enjoy, but beware of the laughing fish.
Regardless of what you might think after playing this game many hours, it is possible to win. Compared with the original SwampLord and SwampLord 2, SwampLord 6 is easy to win, mainly because it is posible to win, while the first two versions were simply not designed to win. It is indeed an honour to scratch your name onto the Hall of Mud.
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This is a shareware program. If you like and use this program, please send five bucks. If you don't like it, let me know why and I will try to fix it. If you are anywhere in between, send me an anonymous, but colorful post card with the statement, "Laughing fish are eating my furniture, too".
Benn Blincoe laughing fish HC 72 Box 27211 Benton, CA 93512---------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright ©1993, 2003 Benn Blincoe version 3.75j021214
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