Deadweight

A three-chapter heist, chase, and siege — every resource only ever runs out.

Every second is borrowed. Every dollar makes you slower. Get in, get rich, get out — before the clock runs out, your ammo runs dry, or your own legs give out under everything you tried to carry. And that's just Chapter 1. By the end you'll be running a highway full of police on a shrinking fuel tank, then holding a helipad against wave after wave of them until a helicopter finally gets you out.

Deadweight is a top-down bullet-hell trilogy built entirely around things that only ever run out — three chapters, three different countdown resources, one throughline: there is no "topping up," only pickups that trade one problem for another.

Chapter 1 — The Heist. Your level timer counts down. Your health counts down. Your ammo counts down. And the cash you can't resist scooping up on the way? It counts against you too — every stack you grab makes you heavier, slower, and easier to hit. Fight or flee through a bank guarded by trigger-happy security; a guard who spots you stays alerted and chases, all the way to the vault if it has to. Crack the safe, then decide whether everything in your pockets is worth the walk back to the door.

Chapter 2 — The Getaway. The clock is gone — now it's distance to the safehouse, with a highway full of police closing in behind you. Your car's health takes its place, worn down by how close pursuers get. Fuel is the twist: you start with less than the drive needs, so the cans scattered down the highway are mandatory, not optional — but every one you grab adds weight the car never sheds again, permanently blunting your top speed. Ram a pursuer hard enough and it spins out into traffic, taking others down with it — the one way to remove a threat instead of just outrunning it.

Chapter 3 — The Escape. The last stand. You hold an outdoor helipad compound against waves of police while an extraction countdown ticks toward zero — the one clock in this whole game you actually want to reach. Ammo, health, and armor are the comeback levers here, resupplied by wave loot you have to leave cover to collect. Assailants pathfind around your barricades, so cover buys time, not a permanent wall. And hitting zero doesn't win it outright — it just sends the helicopter in. You still have to reach it, and board it, before the run is over.

What's here:

• A risk/reward loop repeated three different ways — a countdown clock, a countdown distance, and (the one twist) a countdown you want to reach zero
• Guards and police that pathfind for real — around walls, around cover, and straight at your last known position
• Three difficulty tiers (Easy/Medium/Hard) retuning fire rate, timers, and your resource margins throughout all three chapters
• Every pickup makes a trade: cash for speed, fuel for permanent weight, wave loot for time spent exposed — nothing tops you up for free

Built for GMTK Game Jam 2026 (theme: "Count Down"), then finished into a complete three-chapter arc after the jam.

Controls: WASD / arrow keys to move throughout. Chapters 1 and 3 add mouse to aim and shoot, and E to interact; Chapter 2 is drive-only — steer with the same keys, no separate aim or shoot.

Credits: Environment and character art adapted from the "Modern Bank Tileset" pack and CraftPix's "TDS Modern Pixel Game Kit" (both licensed asset packs, used per their terms). Level 2's vehicles and road art are from the "Awesome Car Pack" by Unlucky Studio (licensed asset pack, used per its terms). Gunfire sound effects from the "Realistic Weapons Bundle" (GameDevMarket). Alarm bell sound ("1950's Bank Alarm Bell" by TheSupremeMuffinPooter, Freesound, CC0) from a bank-robbery scene in the 1956 film "No Road Back". Police siren ("Police siren.mp3" by MultiMax2121, freesound.org/s/156869, CC0). Level 3 siege sound effects, all Freesound, all CC0: pickup chime ("Coin Pickup Sound" by Davidsraba, freesound.org/s/347172), empty-gun click ("Empty Gun Shot" by KlawyKogut, freesound.org/s/154934), player-hit grunt ("Male Grunts" by Kodack, freesound.org/s/256603), barricade break ("Crate Break 1.wav" by kevinkace, freesound.org/s/66777), rescue stinger ("Victory Bells Chords Success" by Licorne_En_Fer, freesound.org/s/647709), overrun stinger ("Game Over 4" by melokacool, freesound.org/s/620792), the extraction heartbeat loop ("heartbeat-60bpm.wav" by loudernoises, freesound.org/s/332821), and the extraction helicopter's engine/rotor loop ("Helicopter Loop.flac" by qubodup, freesound.org/s/187678, extracted from US Government footage). No generative AI art or audio was used anywhere in this game, per the jam's rules.