A retro armoured-combat game built with Avalonia UI v12 and styled with the Pipboy.Avalonia CRT theme library. Every tank, bullet, and explosion is drawn from pure vector geometry — no sprites, no bitmaps. Play it directly in your browser via WebAssembly, or run it natively on the desktop.
You command a single tank on a tile-based battlefield. Choose from 100 hand-crafted stages, each with a unique map layout. Destroy all enemy tanks to advance through waves. Enemy tanks come in four tiers — each with a distinct silhouette and color scheme — and grow progressively more dangerous as waves escalate.
| Mode | Description |
|---|---|
| Classic | Survive infinite waves across your chosen stage. No victory — only glory. |
| Defense | A scripted 10-wave campaign. Clear a wave to pick a Field Upgrade for your tank. |
100 preset stages are available from a dedicated Stage Select screen (accessible before each deployment). Each stage features an intentionally designed Battle City-style map — symmetric corridors, strategic water channels, forest ambush pockets, steel fortifications, and ice fields. A bilingual stage announcement ("STAGE 1 / 第一关") is displayed at the start of each new game.
| Rating | Enemy Bullet Speed | Fire Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Rookie (新兵) | ~160 px/s — very easy to dodge | Half of base |
| Veteran (老兵) | ~200 px/s — manageable | 30 % slower than base |
| Elite (精英) | 288–352 px/s — close to player speed | 15 % faster than base |
Player bullet speed is always 288 px/s regardless of difficulty.
Destroyed enemies randomly drop one of seven power-ups:
| Icon | Name | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| ★ | Shield | Your tank becomes invulnerable temporarily |
| ⏸ | Freeze | All enemies stop moving and firing |
| ⬛ | Fortress | Reinforces your base walls with steel |
| ▲ | Overload | Increases bullet speed for a limited time |
| ❤ | Life | Grants an extra life (max 5) |
| ◎ | Repair | Fully restores your hull integrity |
| ⚡ | Extra Shell | Permanently adds one simultaneous bullet |
After each wave, choose one of three random upgrades:
Armor Plating · Nitro Boosters · Rapid Fire · Dual Cannon · Armour Piercing · Repair Kit
In Defense mode certain waves grant you an allied tank. Allies navigate the map autonomously using A* pathfinding and engage enemies without any input required.
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
W A S D / Arrow keys |
Move / navigate menus |
Space |
Fire |
Enter |
Confirm / Start |
P |
Pause / Resume |
Esc |
Exit overlay / return |
L |
Toggle English / 中文 |
The entire UI is themed with Pipboy.Avalonia — a custom Avalonia theme library that delivers a retro amber CRT terminal aesthetic.
| Component | Role in Iron Vault |
|---|---|
PipboyTheme |
Global amber colour palette, button styles, panel borders |
PipboyWindow |
Chrome-less title bar with Win11 snap support (desktop only) |
CrtDisplay |
Post-processing layer over the game canvas: scanlines, scan beam, static noise, vignette |
SegmentedBar |
Discrete HP bar in the HUD |
The primary accent colour is set to amber #FFA500 at startup via PipboyThemeManager.
Iron Vault is split into four projects:
IronVault.Core — pure C#, zero UI dependency (engine, ECS, maps, localisation)
IronVault.Renderer — Avalonia DrawingContext rendering (tanks, tiles, bullets, FX)
IronVault.Desktop — .NET 10 desktop host (Window, audio, DI container)
IronVault.Browser — .NET 10 WebAssembly host (single-view, audio stub)
All graphics are drawn with Avalonia's DrawingContext API — no bitmaps, no hardware-specific code — making the renderer AOT- and WASM-safe. See docs/ARCHITECTURE.md for the full design breakdown.
git clone https://github.com/NeverMorewd/IronVault
cd IronVault
dotnet run --project src/IronVault.Desktopdotnet workload install wasm-tools
dotnet publish src/IronVault.Browser -c Release -o publish
# Serve publish/wwwroot/ with any static HTTP serverMIT