Only One
Only One
A square arena, you in the middle, and you alone. Foes walk in from all four edges: first the foot soldiers, then from the third wave archers who shoot clear across the screen. Your only weapon is a sword, and it follows the mouse: wherever the cursor points, that is where the swing turns and cuts. The reach is short, so you have to let an enemy come close and time the swing.
Health is three hearts in the top left. Every body that reaches you and every arrow that lands takes one. Out of hearts, the wave restarts and the live-foe counter in the top right resets. There is a satisfying trick though: strike an arrow flying at you and it deflects back into its shooter. Archers die to deflected arrows far more readily than to the blade itself.
Clear a wave and a denser one arrives. There are eight, and the final one rings you with dozens at once. The engine taunts you with pseudo-epic lines like “Thou art the last alive”, but the idea is simple: hold out and never let them close the ring.
This is Only One (MIT) by Cemal Gönültaş from the 2023 js13k game jam, a whole game under 13 kilobytes. We rebuilt it from its kontra-engine sources and put it on igrasu.ru in Russian: HUD labels, wave titles and buttons switch language on the fly, and the canvas scales as a square to any screen. On a phone you move with a D-pad and strike with a big button, or just tap the scene. Up top are language, sound and fullscreen. Turn on the demo and watch the autopilot carve through the waves to the finale.