Stardust Defenders

Goat Force Gaming Review: 🍕 Is the game fun? Absolutely. 🍕 Does it offer a nice meta progression treadmill? YES! 🍕 Will I enjoy the game if I like other similar roguelites? If you enjoy bullet heavens and tower defense--you'll love this! Here's some gameplay from my roguelite-focused channel in case helpful in your decision: https://youtu.be/8Vqg0JWirt8

It's okay but there's not much depth and the pacing isn't great. It also falls into the mistake every game of this genre has except it's worse in this case since you have towers spread throughout the map killing things for you: having to pick up the exp drops.

Typical "just one more try" type of game. If you like Roguelikes and/or Tower Defense games, this one is for you! I'd like to see some quality of life updates in the future. Maybe seeing range and damage of a tower, when clicking it. Keep up the good work!

Nice enough game but total lack of interaction from developer kind of spoils it. One ask from a paying customer for joystick support, no answer.

Stardust Defenders is a very catching take on the Tower Defense genre. Adding up a dash of rogue lite progression into the mix and the intensity of a survival shooter for some punch, I found myself playing "just one more run" of it for longer than I care to admit. You'll play the role of a guardian (you have several to choose from and each have different attacks) with the objective of protecting the ancient tree from an incessant horde of evil monsters. To complement the guardian, you have access to spirits when leveling up. They can placed on the field and will attack nearby enemies. Being able to set up combinations of spirits and combo their attacks and effects makes for a really fun experience.

I liked the approach to the tower defense genre mixing elements of roguelikes and bullet heaven. I lost a lot on my first runs and I was a bit upset since I thought I didn't do anything wrong but then I started rushing different tower combinations , locating them in different locations and buying metagame upgrades and finally was able to beat it.

Fun little game easy to learn but hard to master. A tower defense but very dynamic, a nice different approach.

TLDR: just want a gameplay video? its below the review (i make it to first boss on the fiery guardian run) A slightly different take on the typical bullet hell/swarm genre. Instead of your character being the important one, the mighty tree in the middle is. Your character can be used to body block shots taken at the tree while you progressively gain more RNG unlocks to whack down more towers to defend. [b]In game and meta unlocks[/b] There are two unlocks in the game currently: in game EXP unlocks and out of game META unlocks. EXP system: the exp system is the typical slay enemies to gain experience orbs in order to level up and unlock a set of randomized upgrades. These upgrades can be slightly tailored through META unlocks. You start with 3 random slots. I believe its split in to two categories: Towers and Upgrades. I've played for roughly 2 some hours and do not recall seeing upgrades and towers offered during the same level up. META upgrades: meta upgrades bolster your typical hero, tower, experience gain, but also stuff like amount of slots to choose from upon level up and the ability to lock spirits you do not enjoy during the run. Lets say you hate berserker spirit. When it comes up during the selection process you can choose to ban it and it will never appear again during that run. You may also improve how many re-rolls you get. This reroll is per run and not per level up. [b]Getting new towers or heroes[/b] To get new towers or heroes you must accomplish certain "tasks" which are basically use X amount of Y towers or gain upgrade level X for 'flowering' for instance. Its a rather straight forward system without much grind but does rely a bit on RNG to unlock. Its entirely possible you never get flowering 8-10 if you're bad with luck or skill (since it means you have to last longer to get to that point of having it be level 8-10). [b]How do the towers feel?[/b] Once I figured out that placing certain towers closer to the tree and others more towards the edges of the map they felt pretty good. The upgrades from level ups also drastically alter how the towers feel. That little weak star spirit can start chucking out some serious HADOKENs when juiced enough. My favorite is the psychic spirit since it doesn't rely on trajectory. The towers do have travel time on firing and their shtos can also be absorbed by big logs or rocks! placement is crucial. [b]How does the Guardian feel[/b] You can gain new guardians as you play and my favorite is the fiery guardian. He super chucks fireballs at a rapid pace. Each Guardian felt decent to use if you play them to their strength. I suffered using the default Guardian though, but I feel if you purposely let your tree take damage he might become quite strong. Each guardian has their own playstyle and I enjoy that. [b]enemies[/b] In my playthroughs I have made it to the second boss and have so far encountered flies, spiders of all kinds, and different mushrooms alongside two bosses. Some of the enemies movement pattern changes depending on what kind of spider they are for example. Some spiders charge straight. Some run zig zags. Others even do that little fibonaci spiral thing. Some enemies even fire projectiles that you have to body block! Enemy typing felt good. [b]Whats wrong/suggestions for the game[/b] I don't have any actual complaints about the game. -I think the only one I noticed is that WASD moves your character faster than mouse movements. -When the character is at the edge of the map it will "bounce" if trying to move against the edge. This can be fixed by doing a quick check if the movement vector would impact the edge and ignoring the movement value if so. -I would like to see a new META upgrade thats similar to re-roll. Just have it be like 3 levels MAX and allows you to pick to specifically re-roll for tower or upgrades. Sometimes I want towers 3 level ups in a row ya know? [b]Conclusion[/b] I play this game while I render videos for youtube typically. Its extremely low system requirements means I can max out my CPU while suffering no lag/input issues. The RNG nature doesn't feel like too much of a detriment since you can juice your Guardian with META upgrades to make it feel better. I like how your Guardian isn't the one taking damage since I tend to lose my characters position a fair bit. All in all its a fun play. For 5 bucks you can't go wrong here. I get better as the video progresses, i swear! https://youtu.be/2ytMU8NPSt8

I think the game is pretty cool and unique for a small indie game. The mechanics are solid and provide a nice mix between tower defense and roguelite bullet heaven gameplay.

Fun, simple and engaging tower defense game. I found it strangely addictive and gratifying to build my fairy garden and watch the bullet hell break loose!