The Montana Chronicles: Montana's Croatoa

Game Play

Building on classical maze crawlers, Montana's Croatoa is an attempt to break away from grid based movement in dungeon crawling puzzle based games. In real time the player must escape from the maze of enemies with limited sight. To make things more difficult, in each level the player must activate a switch which will power the elevator to the next floor. A variety of enemies makes each level it's own challenge.

The Story

Have you ever heard of Montana's Croatoa? They say the myth started as a fairy tale to keep children out of the abandon mines. But as with every fairy tale, there is an origin to it. In 1950, a mining community north of Helena, MT just up and vanished. The offical report was that there was a gas leak inside the mine that caused the entire facility to be closed. But there's one missing part in that report, how did they abandon the mine if they never left?

Follow the story of the only survivor of Montana's Croatoa.

The Weaponized Strains and Infections

The Reanimation Strain
The concept came from the fungi that reanimates dead ants, known as the Ophiocordyceps unilateralis. This fungi was spliced with dandelion dna which led to a fast reproducing reanimation strain without the fungi extremties. When paired with a virus that turns the infected victim's immune system against itself, a very deadly localized strain is developed.

The Vine Strain
The vine strain is based after the weed known as morning glory, these strains have hardened tips and will pierce further into you than the claws of the basic reanimated.

The Flytrap Strain
The flytrap strain is derived from the plant known as the venus flytrap. The flytrap is slow and easy to dodge, but if the target is slowed or in the dark, makes for a perfect ambush.

The Spore Shooter
This advanced strain needs no sustiance to sproute. It fires spores in four directions and waits until it hears the spores hit to fire again.


The Spiders
Spiders that have been infected with the basic strain, be cautious around them. They are faster than you and if you are bit by one, you will eventually die.

The Pollen Spreader
This strain is based after the basic dandelion has gone to seed. Every second a target breathes in the pollen the harder it becomes to take the next breath. Soon the body begins to attack itself quickly killing the target. Once attacked the Spreader juts out thorns that impales the attacker.

The GUI

In the upper right corner are lights that will tell you: if the elevator has been powered, if you have picked up the ingame object, and if you can overcharge your headlamp for temporary more sight.

In the middle of the screen is the current time spent in level

In the upper left corner of the screen is the current best time ingame, 9999.99 means the level hasn't been beaten yet.

Across the bottom will show you current attacks and current health.

Infomation On the Game

125 puzzle corridors from 5 different mine shafts.
In each level the player must reach the exit elevator; however, to power the elevator the player must find a switch within the level and activate it. Each level also features an in game item that you can pick up that will give some detail into the game, be it a simple lump of coal or researchers observation notes on what the outbreak was.

Each mine shaft's corridors are based by that shaft's name: clay, drowned, blood, webbed, and blackened.

System Requirements

Game requires a mid grade graphics card. Runs fine on a mac from 2012.