StarVaders

It would seem that Balatro developer LocalThunk has excellent taste in indie games. After singing the praises of Animal Well last year, they’ve been trying to encourage people to get in on the action with StarVaders as well, and to be fair, they’re not wrong. For those unaware of this new title, it basically combines the roguelike deckbuilding of something like Slay the Spire or Monster Train and combines it with… Space Invaders. Yes, you play as the pilot of a mech that’s trying to protect the earth from aliens!

Now, if I’m honest, I’m not always the biggest fan of games that go, ‘What if we took roguelike deckbuilding and combined it with blank?” Yes, there have been some excellent games to come from that format—looking at you again, Balatro—but there have been many others that take a pretty decent idea but implement it poorly, hoping that the popularity of the genre will be enough for people to give their game a try. I usually much prefer it when deckbuilders are, well, built on their own merit. Monster Train and Wildfrost are good examples: they’re no knock-offs of Slay the Spire, but the inspiration is clear.

But that’s about where the negativity of this review will end. StarVaders is an absolute riot of a game, from the banging soundtrack that will pump you up for battle to the addictive gameplay where two enthralling genres meet. It helps that the presentation is completely on point here as well, with the game’s vibrant colours creating a sci-fi world that doesn’t shy away from the heavier themes but also invokes a sense of adventure that used to be prevalent in sci-fi before it went all depressing. I am not against the darker side of the genre, far from it, but from time to time I do enjoy the colourful spectacle of a universe waiting to be explored.

The game starts with only one pilot available, Roxy the gunner. As she’s tinkering with her mech, invaders from outer space descend upon our planet, and she is asked to fight on our behalf. As she charges into battle, we are introduced to how the game plays. As with any deckbuilder, StarVaders gives you a starting deck of cards, to which you can add two more starting cards from a selection of five. Then, you are presented with a grid on the screen, with the aliens moving down one row each turn, as they are wont to do in the original Space Invaders.

You manoeuvre your mech around, shooting bullets, lobbing bombs, and using other powers at your disposal in a bid to keep the incoming enemy at bay. When the invaders reach the bottom three rows and aren’t killed on your turn, they will add doom to a bar in the top left of your screen. This basically comes down to them evading your defence and being able to attack those below you, so doom does seem like the appropriate name for it. Gather enough doom over the course of a run, and you will be knocked out.

Runs always take the same shape: they are divided into three levels, and on each level you’ll have three basic fights, a shopping spree, and a boss battle. Now for the regular battles, you do have some options to influence your long-term strategy. Before each battle, you’ll be able to choose which fight to join, and these fights all have different bonuses for completion, whether that be an attack card, a movement card, or even lowering your doom. It’s a slightly more basic approach than something like Slay the Spire, but it works to the game’s advantage.

Because full runs don’t take all that long to complete—I think my longest run was about 45 minutes—it encourages you to start a new one, and a new one, and a new one. You’ll need to replay this game over and over to fully appreciate it, as you’ll unlock more pilots in more classes, and of course, you’ll also encounter more enemy types as well.

I think the amount of available enemy types is one of the big attractions in StarVaders. Yes, you have your typical Space Invader-style enemies, but then there are variations on them, where for example, an enemy will attack on each turn instead of every other turn. Then there are completely different enemies, some of which will split into more creatures when hit, some of which throw bombs at you, and so much more. The amount of new enemies and new features to take into consideration is always introduced at a steady pace, meaning you never get overwhelmed by the amount of new things to think of.

The number of different pilots is another big plus, with different classes all having multiple pilots, each with their own loadout and gameplay complexity. Do you prefer going direct, or would you rather take a more intricate route to victory? It’s all here at your disposal. I also like that you have to earn all of these new elements, that the game doesn’t just give you everything from the start. When you unlock new pilots, you know you’ve earned the right to play as them.

With both Skogdal and StarVaders releasing this week, and As We Descend and Monster Train 2 to follow quite soon, and the early access release of Slay the Spire 2 on the horizon as well, these are exciting times for deckbuilding fans. The fact that none of these recent releases have disappointed so far means that it’s going to be quite the battle to see which game sticks most with players. But StarVaders has proven that it is very much up for the fight.