PEGBRJE: Deeper Into Space and Deck Defenders
Time for 19
Deeper Into Space is an astronomic roguelike 2D exploration title made by Jeremy Roberts, an indie developer making the most out of Gamemaker. So as the name suggests, players are attempting to delve deep in to the expanse of space with their singular ship, hoping to go as far as possible and discover.. well, anything.
Players will begin on an nondescript planet and begin their journey in to the stars on their triangular ship, and finding a whole lot of nothing at first. As space is expansive, there’s going to be a lot of emptiness to navigate through. To do so, players will be utilizing their forward thruster in the explore mode, searching through asteroid fields and looking for other planets to gain resources and find clues as to where to go next while managing their Hull Strength and O2 levels. The ‘goal’ of sorts is to locate at least a single blue crystal that are scattered throughout the level in various ways so that it can be used as a power source to warp to the next system. There are borders to enclose the player in to the 5x5 grid-like system, which is helpful in such an empty setting. In the vein of a roguelike, each new game’s systems will look vastly different, with only the size of the system being the same across the board. This means that some systems won’t have many planets to dock at, or some may have many that are utterly hostile and will shoot the player down on sight. There are tons of hostile possibilities out there, and the only thing players start off with is their ‘trusty’ main gun; it has an initial randomized spread meaning that there’s going to be a lot of missing. This can be ‘fixed’ with upgrades, which require a specific currency to acquire, granting access to the tech trees that can upgrade many things outside of just shot spread. As with all roguelikes, anything discovered or found is lost upon death, so no need to hoard; grab everything that isn’t bolted to a planet and see how far the journey can go.
Deeper Into Space definitely acquires that feeling of feeling lost while still being unable to understand the general directions needed, thanks especially to the map overlay that gives the grid. Now, this game is currently in Early Access, with its current version being Version 0.3.22a as of the time of writing this, and planned features indicate many more systems, weapons, and other aspects to come. The core gameloop is here however, and it’s a solid approach to space exploration while keeping things simple and fast to pick up and learn. The inclusion of the two types of movement was a fantastic boon, and I am curious to see where the title goes moving forward. If you’re looking for a space-themed roguelike, this might be a good title to look in to.
Deck Defenders is a deck building tower defense made by Natural Power Games, an indie dev and gamedev community based out of Argentina. Made with the power of Unity, players will be utilizing a deck system to building their defenses to stop the hordes of monsters attempting to break in to the Mother cube at the centre.
Deck Defenders doesn’t hide itself and allows players to get right in to the action by deciding a map to play, and just letting them get to it. Clicking on a raised wall allows for players to place a ‘No Element Tower’, which does a relatively decent amount of damage but is otherwise unimpressive. Where the magic happens is in the drawn cards that players can utilize to augment these towers in to destructive, specialized turrets of power. See, all players start with a default deck of cards, and a set amount of resources that they can utilize, which can be viewed like ‘Mana’ from other card games. Both cards and towers need enough resources to be played, but it can only be acquired by 10 for every enemy slayed. Cards are initially only drawn every so often, but players can utilize these resources by ‘paying’ for draws either through cards that give this functionality or by simply clicking on the draw pile. Once the card wanted is acquired and the resource pool has enough, dragging the card on to the tower shows what it upgrades the tower in to, and then begins the transformation upon release. These specialized towers are centred around the elements, such as the ice tower which slows, the Tesla tower allowing for chain lightning, the rapid fire ability of wind, and many more. The elements also have strengths and weakness against each other, as enemies will be elementally coded as well — there’s a chart for that for reference.
Where things get more interesting is in the instances where multiple cards can be played on the same tower. Putting two of the same card on a tower will make it more potent in its current job, but putting two different cards on a tower creates a hybrid tower that does both of the elemental niches at the same time while adjusting the stats to do the same. The best way to describe it is that by making a tower a ‘Water 1 Fire 1’, it does the same thing as if there were two towers side by side, one of fire and one of water, but as a single tower instead of two. This means that it won’t be as effective as a Water 2, but it can save and allow for some elemental issues to be ignored. If familiar with multiclassing from DnD 5e, think of it similar to that. It allows for some sneaky combos, such as Ice/Water or Lightning/Wind that can synergize relatively well with their special effects. If that wasn’t enough, there are even cards that allow for certain stats to be directly upgraded, such as damage, fire rate, and more. This allows for patching up some of the negatives of some elements, such as an element that lacks damage or one that reduces fire rate. Just don’t run out of resources, or it gets really awkward.
Deck Defenders does a fantastic job of balancing out its deckbuilding focus and tower defense gameloop, forcing players to ensure that their deck is built for their playstyle without missing out on certain elements that might be needed against certain enemies. Since players can’t spam towers then, knowing which towers to upgrade and where to place can be crucial the later the game goes on. If you are looking for another tower defense that can incorporate important decsion making, try the 6 levels out and see for yourself. If you don’t own it, the demo is also available to try out.
