In Pondemonium, you control Charlie, a quirky catfish, who is rampaging through a maze-like pond, blasting frogs, dodging bullets of pure frog spit (nasty!!!), and turning the wetlands into a warzone. Inspired by Battle City, but slimier, sillier, and significantly more aquatic.

No tanks.
No rules.
Just pond violence.

🏆 Can anyone beat 25,650?
Drop your score in the comments and claim your spot!

🥉 15,000+ = Survived
🥈 20,000+ = Hunter
🥇 25,000+ = Apex
💀 30,000+ = Unnatural

• Art 'n' graphics: me
• Animations: me
• Code: me
• Concept: me
• Music & SFX: not me

This is a submission to the 'Core Mechanics Challenge 2025 Winter' game jam.  I'm hoping to win (new shoes that cost about 25 €). 😊😋😁

Requirements:
Top-down tank combat | Battle City - like game

✔     Player controls a tank in a top-down arena
Tank looks like catfish, which is a lot more fashionable and we got a pond style top-down scene.

✔      Tank can move in four directions and shoot projectiles 
And when destroyed, it even flips upside down. Commitment to realism.

✔      Enemy tank spawn and move toward objectives 
Frogs spawn in waves of 2, 3, or 5. They shoot at you and can destroy walls. Rude.

✔      Projectiles destroy enemies and break certain terrain 

Bubble walls can be popped by frog spit and your own “bubblets.” Yes. Bubbles + bullets = bubblets.

✔      Player loses when their tank is destroyed or base is destroyed
Yup. You said it, mister!

✔      Level ends when all enemy tanks are defeated
Frogs, but yes!

Optional features:

✔      (medium) Difficulty modes - Add at least two difficulty modes that meaningfully alter mechanics, not just numbers
Normal and hardmode. Hard Mode limits bubblets, lives, and reduces power-ups. It meaningfully changes how you play.  “Go hard or go home.” I'd say! Interpret that however you like. I'm still single btw. 

✔     (medium) Boss Level - add at least one Boss level with distinct enemy and behavior and its own goal
Meet Bruce. Bruce has… a drooling issue. We’re all adults here, so we will simply defeat him without judgment. Because maturity. And if you really think about it, don't we all have a bit of a drooling issue deep inside of us?

✔      (medium) Pausing With State Freeze - add ability to pause the game. When paused - nothing should move or change. 
Press ESC and see what happens! Did you just close fullscreen mode? Oh. Well, press it again!

✔      (medium) Have 3+ mechanically different power ups!
⚡ Electric shields made out of pure eel energy. Run straight through enemies to instantly defeat them while taking zero damage. Lucky drop? Congratulations, you are speedrunning now!
🫧 Glue bubbles! Freeze enemies in place and strip them of all dignity (last one is not visually represented, but it's implied).
🔄 The uno reverse, which can shorten your road to epic victory.
💚 Little tiny adorable extra lives, just like irl, if you're a cat. Meow.
+ Bonus points on every pick-up!