Asteroids... But Roguelite

Game is misnamed, It should be called "Asteroids... But Roguelike." I'm probably being pedantic, misinformed, or both, but I always thought roguelite implied some persistence between runs, while roguelike meant every run was fresh, with no carry over, other than player experience. There is no carry-over of anything tangible here. While I really enjoy roguelite games, I don't really care for roguelikes. It's a subtle distinction, I know, but to me it makes all the difference. I get it, i probably should've done more research before purchasing, but it was less than 5 bucks, so i"m not really bothered. It is a good game, but the negative review is for the title. If you don't mind starting anew each time, then go for it!

The progression/choice is super cool. It captures this feeling I like from games like Asteroids and Galaga, but adds a whole new dimension where score matters (because you get money for upgrades from it), and you're given meaningful choices. There's a couple ways I've played it; 1. just trying to get the perfect score streak/multiplier through precision, or 2. brute forcing it with epic upgrades. I am #2 on the leaderboard at the time of my writing, and I felt somewhat godlike with my bombs, shotgun lasers, sniper, shield, max health, etc... I didn't expect to get this much play time out of it, and I think I'll be playing it quite a bit more.

I originally bought this game back when it was first released on Itch.io, and it's definitely had some improvements since. Unfortunately that also means several exploits/cheap tactics I used to use to reach the top of the leaderboard, have been patched. I suppose it was inevitable. ------------------------- Asteroids... But Roguelite is exactly what it claims to be, and it does a damn good job at it. It starts you off as a weak ship, and you find yourself needing to increase your power at a very quick pace to stand a challenge against enemies. The core gameplay loop comes in wave-based shops. During the wave of enemies/asteroids, you get money, and you use that money at the shop to buy new upgrades at the end of the wave. These upgrades can drastically improve your ships viability enough to survive the proceeding wave. Rinse and repeat. The upgrades come in a wide variety; anything from new weapons, changing your ships stats, or even manipulating the overall quantity of asteroids. When I play a round, I feel like most- if not all- my choices towards upgrades matter. Sometimes I choose to decrease the asteroids that spawn in, so I can stay safe, and only focus on enemy ships - or the if I'm feeling more daring, I can increase the asteroid spawn rate, so I can destroy more, and get rewarded more money to use for future upgrades. If I don't feel like going that route, I can instead focus on gearing up my ship with a variety of weapons. I haven't tested all of them, but I can tell there's several different strategies you can try to go for, and each of them seems viable enough to try them at least once. As a little bonus, I haven't had to worry about any frame drops despite how intense it got for me spamming bullets/bombs/lasers, and several bugs/exploits have been fixed since reporting to the developer when it was in an earlier state, so we can tell the developer cares about the game. With all that said, I'd argue Asteroids... But Roguelite is definitely worth your 5 bucks.

I liked it :)

Fun game. The space ship feels good to play, different weapons are fun to use. After playing it for a little bit you can get pretty good at it. Especially making good use of the edges of the screen to get teleported to the other side provide some good options for smart plays. There is a pretty big difference in how difficult some of the bosses are, but that does also add another layer of luck to it, which does fit the game.

Really fun twin stick shooters that adds roguelike elements

Asteroids... But Roguelite is like the eponymous game of its class in a sub-sub-genre of shmup that includes Space Smash and Burst Drive -- in the class of 'really close to Asteroids where it's a single screen playing field, but then there is deep gameplay in the powerups you can pick up but you're not -required- to understand them, just soak them up and enjoy the fireworks'.

Quickly ramps up from starting with a single laser with reasonably long reload, to adding on an additional weapon (bomb/multi-laser spread/mine launcher etc.) that allows you to start chaining some sweet combo kills on enemies and asteroids. Blowing up stuff gives you money, at the end of the wave, you get offered a selection of gear to purchase for the next wave. After a few waves, enemies get tougher and you need to get deadlier. After my first hour of improving, I'm consistently getting to wave 3 and I get enough money per wave to get the good weapons. You end up with 3-4 decent weapons that quickly start wiping large parts of the screen with the AOE/exploision-based projectiles. However, the boss level enemies from previous waves are now more common, so the challenge is there to keep you interested. You yourself need to level up in your ability to dodge and correctly prioritize targeting enemies to stay alive. [b]Not a roguelite[/b], your progress doesn't persist through each run, but I prefer it this way. The time invested is put towards improving as a player rather than unlocking more powerful gear to make future runs easier. I'm currently top 11 on the leaderboard, I'm going to push for top 5 if I can! I bought this with a 25% discount and have no regrets, a nice game to pick up and play for a few minutes, that can last longer if you get a good run going!

+1 :)

A fun and simple game. The controls are easy enough, I wish the go to aiming system did not involve the mouse, but it works.