Basingstoke: An Apocalyptic Survival Alien Invasion Game

sohail -

Basingstoke is an apocalyptic alien invasion survival game available on itch. The game is free for Linux users. I’ve played the game for a week or two and found it to too addictive, however, your opinion may vary.

Basingstoke gameplay is about surviving the alien invasion by collecting and looting stuff as you find your way to the destination; maybe harm some of those aliens too if you’d like to.

System requirements

Decent gaming hardware is recommended to enjoy smooth gameplay. The developers haven’t listed those requirements on their itch page but here are the specific data from the same game steam’s page.

  • CPU: An Intel i3 or AMD processor
  • RAM: 8 GB
  • GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 550 or higher with 2GB Memory

​However, for low specs hardware, you can turn off fullscreen mode and resize the window smaller if you want to try out the game. It works.

Install Basingstoke

Basingstoke is available on itch.io. Click the given link and you’ll be directed to its official game page. Select Linux for game download. This may take some time downloading a  428 MB file size depending on your Internet speed

Survive alien invasion

The game starts with you, a normal dude, entering the OMNICORP building. You explore around and notices some cute creatures developed inside the company. And then, things start to go wrong…​You realize you have to survive alien creatures all by yourself. Each level gives you a destination to successfully finish the game. You are given a torch and sandwich at first but later proceeds the game level collecting more tools and weapons along the way. The creatures are irresistible to the sandwich and some edible stuff (which you’ll collect in other levels). You’ll also notice that they are allergic to some utilities we use in day to day life such as perfume.

How to finish the game level?

You can either finish a game level in two ways:

  1. Hide and run to the destination.
  2. Or kill some of the enemies along the way as you head to the destination.

Most game levels require you to find a safe key to unlock the final destination exit door but there are one or two levels that just direct you to just run and get to the destination as fast as you can.

​By the way, you must not be seen by the enemies. One bite and the game is over. Plus there are no checkpoints for respawning, you’ll have to start the whole level over again, however with the exception of insurance policy where you can set yourself a checkpoint so even if you die you can continue from the saved checkpoint again.

Loot to gain

Though the game is depicted as horror-apocalyptic-theme, I don’t feel the player is entitled a “hero” but a thief! As you progress further levels you’ll soon find it hard to avoid detection from some of the alien creatures. For instance, a dog-like creature can outrun and kill you. Sometimes aliens guard your final destination exit door. You can use your looted items for advantage. By either luring the enemies for a short duration or making some damage to them.

​The best option is to loot and collect yourself more items. You never know when you might rely more on them than you thought otherwise. And this also includes collecting from dead people pockets. Better full than empty! You mostly collect coins from people and coins are helpful if you want to recharge certain items running out of stock on your inventory.

Weapons and scrap

There are three categories of looted items:

  1. Utilities
  2. Weapons and
  3. Scraps

You can use weapons and utilities directly after you collect it. Utilities include coins, drinks, lighter, night goggle, GPS goggle, etc But scraps are not usable items, however, they come in handy for crafting more special items.

​I recommend collecting more scraps. They allow you to craft some cool hardcore weapons like a flamethrower, chainsaw, etc and more bombs.

How to beat tiny aliens?

​Tiny aliens can be killed by a nailgun. Just make sure not to stay stationary while shooting at those creatures running to you in groups. So you’d have more time to reload your nailgun.​Sometimes you can melee them but if there are too many, melee is not the best option.

How to beat tougher aliens?

The zombie-like human creature can be killed by guns but for more tougher (and bigger) creatures, you need a shotgun.​Then there is one particular creature called the eye that looks like a squid. That you cannot kill using big guns but with bombs. Avoid detection by that alien because it summons more enemies on you.

Get smarter

I think I have outlined a lot about Basingstoke gameplay. What to loot, how to damage the enemy, what weapons to use and so on. But fortunately, not the whole yet. There are more than many creative ways for you to enjoy this intense kill-the-enemies and exit the level game. That I’ll leave it for you to discover yourself.

Conclusion

Hope you enjoyed reading the article. Basingstoke is a cool apocalyptic game I’ve added on my itch library and I’m hoping you guys might love this game too. By the way, the game is free on Linux system. Go check it out and let me know what you liked about this game in the comment section below.