StarVaders is a premium strategy PC game by StarVaders Studios and is a deckbuilding adventure featuring roguelike elements and tactical card-based gameplay. In it, players will be piloting a mech in order to defend the Earth from swarms of alien invaders and save humanity from annihilation.

Inspired by Slay the Spire and Into the Breach, StarVaders offers tactical turn-based battles on grid-based levels and a sci-fi theme to round out its story. There are hundreds of cards to collect that allow players to come up with all kinds of strategies and unique combinations for different situations and encounters. 

Slay the aliens

StarVaders essentially combines deckbuilding card game mechanics with tactical turn-based combat, set in the future wherein the world is being invaded by aliens. You play as a mech pilot and have been tasked with defending Earth from waves of hostile extraterrestrial visitors from space. Choose from 10 pilots with unique traits, quirky personalities, and distinct play styles to bring into battle.

Combat in StarVaders happens on grid-based battlefields wherein enemies are continuously descending. Choose from three mech types and push back as you zip around, attacking everything within your radius. Collect over 200 cards to augment your attacks to create devastating combos, and utilize over 100 game-altering artifacts and modifiers to help tip the scales in your favor and gain an advantage in tricky situations.

Throughout your gameplay, you will get Chrono Tokens, which you can use to activate your Rewind Time abilities. They let you either re-do a turn during battle or refresh the shop to check out more items to unlock. All that said, the diversity of its card selection has also negatively impacted the gameplay due to poor game balance, which needs to be addressed as soon as possible.

Updates and Beta

It hasn't been long since its full release, but Starvaders already has its first update coming very soon. Some of the things you can expect include a menu dedicated to customization options for the new Sandbox Settings. Here, you can add more granular post-apocalypse challenges with smaller steps between difficulty levels, ban specific bosses from appearing, and even try your hand with the new Post-Impossible difficulty.

Other additions include the summer-themed neutral pack, as well as new pilot-specific common artifacts for each pilot in the game. If you don't like it, you can at least disable it in the aforementioned Sandbox Settings. The developers are also working on optimizing the game even further, with reports of players experiencing lags, stutters, and even memory leaks for some.

Lastly, the game will be introducing a new Beta Build alongside the coming update, which will serve as a platform for playtesting before new updates get sent out to players. This move will help ensure fewer issues and bugs make it to the stable build and reduce the need for hotfixes, which in turn will be a win-win for both gamers and developers.

Familiar yet fun

In conclusion, StarVaders takes what's best from various game genres to create a game that offers a familiar yet fun experience. It tries to do enough new things to make it stand out from its contemporaries with its fresh take on old and tried gameplay formulas. If you're a fan of these types of games, give this one a try and see what it has to offer yourself.