This is gonna seem weird. I was a big fan of Slay the Spire, but not so much grid-based tactical roguelike Into the Breach, which I found pseudo-glitchy but apparently it was a feature not a bug. I didn’t get it, I guess, even though I put 100 hours into and, separately finished Defense Grid 2 on Hard mode twice (I’m a fan of TD games for whatever reason – maybe because I produce events and it’s like prepping for future eventualities and limiting liability).
In Defense Of
I am also a fan of deck builders – irl tabletop ones like Clank! (I like Catacombs in particular) and Aeon’s End. I loved the UI in Slay the Spire with its arcy vectory thing for targets. I was an early player of Zach Barth’s seminal Ironclad Tactics (which was way too early for its time, nearly bankrupted Zachtronics, but paved the road for the rest of these) and the video game port of Tainted Grail: Conquest with its super moody design and fascinating card options and RPG-style progression.
So when StarVaders came up for review before the team, I snagged it (before TheOvermatt, who covered Monster Train could).
From its big, chunky graphics, I questioned if StarVaders might be a mobile game port trying to cash in on the Spirelike craze. I noted that it was Space Invaders-like but as a deck builder. Hmm…interesting. I used to play Space Invaders for real quarters when it was in arcades. I loved how they had color gel stickers on the glass to add color to the game.
But even though the game marketing noted the Space Invader influence, it appeared to me more like the successful indie tabletop hit Under Falling Skies – a very long board game where you are taking down columns of invading alien spacecraft by rolling dice and placing them for a variety of counterattacks and defense.
Except in StarVaders, you are building a combat and defense deck. Gunners will manage heat – their decks build heat like a Gatling gun or rocket booster, burning the cards in your hand and immediately ending your turn. So keep an eye on each card’s heat indicator and manage those attack spams!
Of course, you’ll be able to earn or purchase heat mitigation and management cards, even as you can acquire other cards that affect other cards or actions you take.
Enemies generate Doom when they end a turn, having reached any of the bottom three rows, and 5 Dooms spell…Doom!
They’re Everywhere!
Enemy combatants may switch lanes, split into smaller pieces, and scatter, dash you, project (like in Spire) where they will attack next, and come with shields that need to be broken, among many other forms of attack and defense. You can use bombs and detonators to fool enemies into triggering friendly fire.
Similarly to the now well-established genre, and in the legacy of card games like Star Realms, you will build a deck, cull the weak or newbie cards, choose new, more powerful cards when completing levels or sets of levels, and upgrade others.
Moreover, you can chain attacks to build powerful combo bonuses and even spend a so-called Chrono-token to rewind back to a moment where you were absolutely crushing it (or made a terrible choice), so you can give it another go. Nice touch (and a nice way to mitigate the soul-crushing vibe-killer that a Roguelike can have, even if you like them for that reason.)
There are a surprising number of market upgrades, and a galactic procedurally generated challenging selection map lets you choose various game scenarios that also let you preview the different incentives and mobs they contain. You’ll meet interesting characters and unlock different pilots to play. And all easy to read from a distance and understand at a glance.
One itty bitty UI gripe? When I drag out from my card to attack, that cool arcy vector thing does not emanate from my player position but from the card position in the hand row below. In Spire, this is fine because the path connects the source to the destination.
Technically, that is true here, too, but it can be confusing because the path is not aligned with the player’s position from where the attack is, in fact, emanating but instead, it’s the card, which can be confusing. Maybe there could be a second ghosty arc from the player to the target?
It works. It works well. With a welcoming tutorial phase, few design decisions impeding early progress or gameplay, lots of variety and semi-randomly varied challenges, a flow state comes easily, and a a couple of good mini-play seshes behind you before you know it. Maybe, unlike Into the Breach, it is just the right level of fun without weird “it’s not a tumor” quirks that I could lose a long, challenging session to without fully understanding why.
The Verdict
StarVaders’ apparent childlike aesthetic conceals a much more interesting and complex game than it implies at first blush.
Many successful games are a mashup of two or more previously well-liked ideas merged with a thematic twist and an overarching armature to unify them. That is what StarVaders does, but it also teeters on something new, and it does it well. Enjoy saving the neighborhood!
StarVaders is available for Windows PS and MacOS on Steam
