ALIEN WAVES

A browser-native co-op roguelike shooter for 1 to 16 players. Pick a role, drop into the arena, and survive 20 escalating alien waves. About 22 minutes per run. Plays right in your browser, no install needed.

What is it

Alien Waves is what happens when Brotato meets a real co-op lobby. Same cozy run length, same stat-card chaos, same itemized madness, but now your friends are actually on the field with you. The server is authoritative Godot at 60 Hz, clients run smooth at 60 FPS over interpolated 20 Hz snapshots, so even chaotic 16-player rooms feel responsive.

How to play

1. Open the game in your browser.
2. From the lobby pick a role: DPS, Tank, Healer, or Engineer.
3. Join a public room or spin up a Solo run with up to 3 AI bot teammates.
4. Move with WASD. Aim is automatic toward the nearest threat. Use Space to trigger your role active.
5. Survive waves. After each wave the shop opens for 20 seconds, then the next wave starts.
6. Every level grants you 4 stat cards to choose from. A 10 second auto-pick keeps the pace honest.
7. Reach Wave 20. Beat the boss. Brag.

Roles

Four asymmetric kits. Same shared item and stat-card pool, very different feel.

DPS (pink)

Ranged projectile gunner. Glass cannon with the highest base damage in the game.

• Weapon: rapid projectiles, baseline 10 damage, fastest auto-fire cooldown.
• Passive: +5% crit chance baked into the role.
• Active: none. Pure shooting kit. Stack damage, attack speed, crit, projectile count.
• Best for: players who want max kill count and clear screens of zerg-rush aliens.

Tank (orange)

Melee bruiser with a cone sweep that hits multiple aliens at once.

• Weapon: melee cone swing, 0.85 second cooldown. Range is fixed, items boost width and damage instead.
• Stats: 200 HP, 12 armor, 0.5 HP regen. Soaks far more punishment than any other role.
• Active: Taunt aura. Forces nearby aliens to lock onto you and pulls aggro off your team.
• Best for: players who want to be the wall their team hides behind.

Healer (green)

Support with a piercing heal-ray and a passive aura.

• Weapon: heal-ray that locks onto the lowest-HP ally in range and damages aliens it passes through (4 dmg pass-through DoT).
• Stats: 80 HP (squishiest role), 2.0 HP regen (highest in the game), 275 speed (fastest).
• Active: Pulse Aura. AoE burst that heals nearby allies. Stacks well with aura-radius items.
• Best for: keeping a 16-player chaos lobby alive past Wave 15.

Engineer (cyan)

Builder. No auto-attack. Your damage comes entirely from your placed structures.

• Weapon: none. You do zero auto-damage.
• Stats: 110 HP, 6 armor, generous 280 unit pickup magnet.
• Active: Build Mode. Place turrets, mortars, drones, and tier 4 perks unlocked through level-ups.
• Each level-up grants +1 building cap per type, so deeper runs let you field bigger fortresses.
• Best for: players who want to design a base, not aim a crosshair.

Combat loop

• 20 waves total. Soft scaling kicks in past Wave 5, hard scaling past Wave 10. Late waves push alien HP up to 3.5x and damage up to 2.9x.
• Boss waves telegraph a 2.5 second AoE ring before the slam. Skilled players can dodge by reading the marker.
• Boss fire phase flashes yellow-white. That is your "leave this floor tile right now" signal.
• A 5 second grace period covers the boss intro so you can read the room before the fight starts.

Progression systems

Stat cards (level-ups)

Every level offers 4 random cards drawn from a shared deck. Pick one, the other three vanish. 10 second auto-pick if you stall. Stack the same line repeatedly for a clean build, or spread for survival.

Alien-tech shop (between waves)

Three items per visit, tiered Common, Uncommon, Rare, Legendary. Tier scales both cost and magnitude. Reroll for gold. Luck stat tilts the tier roll. SVG card art for every item.

World pickups

Aliens drop XP orbs and gold coins. Tougher aliens drop HP life-wells (+10 to +20 HP) and tiered relic stat items. Everything magnetizes once you walk into pickup range.

Solo and co-op

• Solo tab: 0 to 3 AI bot teammates. Bots are role-aware. Healer bots seek the most-wounded ally, Tank bots seek alien clusters, DPS bots position behind the nearest tank, all bots dodge active boss AoE telegraphs.
• Public rooms: up to 16 players. Asymmetric roles let mixed compositions matter. A 4 healer 12 DPS run feels nothing like a 4 tank 12 engineer run.
• Adaptive Swarm: a Director system tracks how the lobby is performing and recommends mutation and composition shifts each wave (chrome plating, antennae, rocket aliens, sensor overlays). Better play means tougher swarms.

Controls

• WASD: move.
• Space: trigger role active (Taunt for Tank, Pulse Aura for Healer, Build Mode for Engineer).
• Mouse: aim is auto-targeted, but cursor matters for shop and card UI.
• Esc: settings tab.
• Auto-fire is on. You do not click to shoot.

Tech

• Godot 4.4 client and headless server, GDScript 2.0.
• Authoritative 60 Hz physics on the server, 20 Hz snapshots to clients with smooth 60 FPS interpolation.
• Node.js 20 + TypeScript matchmaker on the side.
• HTML5 export, hosted on itch.io. Plays in any modern desktop browser.

Tips for new players

• Pick Tank if your friends are squishy. The taunt aura saves runs.
• Pick Healer only if at least 2 other players are in the lobby. Solo healer is rough.
• Engineer wants Luck and Cooldown cards early. Buildings carry the run.
• DPS wants Damage and Attack Speed first, Crit second. Range last.
• Always reroll the shop on Wave 5 and Wave 10. Tier scaling thresholds make rerolls worth it.
• Watch the boss telegraph ring. Walking out of it is free survival.