Software:Tasty Planet: Back for Seconds

Tasty Planet: Back for Seconds
Developer(s)	Dingo Games
Publisher(s)	Dingo Games
Producer(s)	Kris Sayer
Designer(s)	James Sayer Kris Sayer
Programmer(s)	James Sayer
Artist(s)	Kris Sayer
Platform(s)	Windows, Mac OS X
Genre(s)	Arcade
Mode(s)	Single player, Two player

Tasty Planet: Back for Seconds is a top-down video game published by Canadian studio Dingo Games online in September 2010. It is a sequel to the 2006 game Tasty Planet. The game is targeted at ages 8 years and older, and is available for download on Windows and Macintosh systems.

Tasty Planet: Back for Seconds is game focused on the growth of a self-replicating blob of nano-machines, "Grey Goo." The levels follow the Grey Goo as it changes from eating dirt particles to bugs and leaves, and then eventually the rest of the universe. The game is arcade in style, and has both a casual mode, where players can play for leisure without a timer, and the full game which is timed and must be completed before the time runs out to complete the level. There are also bonus levels for each mode which are both unlocked only after completing the timed mode, and the game has a two-player, where both players share in the gray goo's growth.

Plot

The plot is shown solely through comic strips at the beginning or end of some levels. The first comic strip shows a scientist telling his assistant about his new time machine, and also mentioning an accidental discovery, a Grey Goo blob that is sitting under a beaker. The assistant thinks the blob looks hungry, and gives it some candy. The blob eats the candy, then the scientific apparatus on the table, followed by rats, then cats, then larger apparatus, until it's big enough to consume the time machine itself, which makes it travel back in time 65 million years.

The Grey Goo starts small again in the late Cretaceous period, consuming the plants and animals of the area, before consuming a volcano and being hit by a meteor, which prevents the dinosaurs from going extinct. In the present, the scientist and the assistant experience changes in the timeline as they happen in the past. After being hit by the meteor, the grey goo travels through time again, but each time it travels through time it reverts to a small size. It then travels to Egypt, and consumes snakes, mummies, cats, people, buildings, and the pyramids. Next it travels to Ancient Rome, where it consumes a feast, people, then buildings and destroys the city, forcing the Romans to pull together and prevent the fall of the empire. Next it travels to Feudal Japan, where it eats rice, ninjas, and buildings, but also consumes Monsterzilla (Godzilla), removing the world's protection from giant monsters and allowing them to ravage the present. The scientist by this point has figured out that the grey goo has only one jump left, this time to their future, and they must be prepared for it, so he and his assistant preserve their brains so they can survive until the grey goo appears. When it does, far in the future, it is microscopic instead of a few centimeters in diameter as when it usually jumps, but the scientist has prepared tiny robots to destroy the grey goo while it is still small. However, it evades the bots and grows larger, necessitating the scientist's second line of defense: energy weapons grafted onto ants, rats, and cats. It evades those too, growing large enough to consume the scientist and his assistants' brains. Giant humanoid tanks armed with powerful lasers are dispatched to destroy the goo, now several meters in diameter, but it evades the blasts, consumes future technology, people, and cars, and destroys the tanks too, destroying the city. Next, it launches into space, grows on space rocks, destroys humanity's last line of defense - large circular spacecraft that measure roughly 150 kilometers in diameter - then moves on to destroy the moon, inner planets, and the gas giants. Next the grey goo consumes small stars around the sun, then the sun itself, working up to larger stars, gas giants, nebulae, a black hole, star clusters, galaxies, and galaxy clusters. Ripping through the fabric of time, it eats said fabric, and discovers that the fabric of time is resting on the back of a turtle, which is on the back of a slightly larger turtle, and that it's turtles all the way down. It then eats the turtles until they are gone, but since the turtles are never ending, the goo feasts forever, then the game is over.

Objective

The main objective of the game is to get to the size specified by the level. This is done by eating entities that are smaller than the Grey Goo, and avoiding those that would harm it, such as dinosaurs, bacteria and samurai. However, touching a damaging item only removes a small bit of matter for the grey goo, and there's a limit on how much is removed, so on Casual mode, it's impossible to lose the game. Also, the vast majority of the harmful object ignore the grey goo, and only a few, like the bambiraptor, actively pursue it, and nothing in the game can move faster than the grey goo. The level is complete when the Grey Goo has reached the required size or otherwise fulfilled the stage requirements (such as, perhaps, eating a set number of eggs or mummies). On the timed levels, players can also try to achieve the "Medals" for each level by completing the level under a certain time limit, which can be found on the level select menu by mousing over the chosen level. On certain challenge levels, touching a single harmful object results in immediate death.

Levels

Tasty Planet: Back For Seconds is split up into 6 chapters, further split into 48 levels. They are listed largely related to the story, but many of the levels are separate challenges unrelated to the growth of the grey goo, such as a level where the goo must eat hippopotamus babies but avoid the adults until large enough.

1. Modern Era (4 Levels)
2. Cretaceous Era (7 Levels)
3. Egyptian Era (11 Levels)
4. Ancient Rome (8 Levels)
5. Feudal Japan (7 Levels)
6. Far Future (10 Levels)

External links

• Official Tasty Planet: Back for Seconds Website
• Gamefaqs listing