NEXT JUMP: Shmup Tactics
Well now, it’s time to review yet another roguelike… or is it a turn-based strategy game? Bullet-hell? Yep, Next Jump: Shmup Tactics is all three of these things at once. These genres seem like they absolutely should not go together… it sounds totally nonsensical. But not only is the combination viable, but it works out really well here.
In this game, your overall goal is to reach the Dragon Mothership and defeat it, because apparently they stole your space beer (???) and ran off with it. Like any good shmup, this means a long battle through about a kersquillion enemy ships on your way to fight the boss at the end. As this game is part roguelike, everything is procedural, so you’ll be getting a very different experience every time.
– Real player with 9.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Shoot 'Em Up Turn-Based Games.
This is a fantastic game if you like small-scale turn-based tactical battles in space. The core gameplay is turn-based shoot ‘em up with simplified FTL-like sector jumping in between the skirmishes. It’s not really much like FTL except superficially. It’s a great game nonetheless!
First, the downsides. It’s a relatively short game. It’s very replayable but even if you like it, you probably won’t play for many tens of hours. It’s also cheap though.
The battle map is small and doesn’t contain much except various enemies. Not realy a downside in my opinion, just a game design choice. Think of the map as a chess board.
– Real player with 8.9 hrs in game
Zero Wrath Vendetta
Fun and simple gameplay with a charming space rock opera setting.
– Real player with 1.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Shoot 'Em Up 2D Games.
Super Space Towers
Hello World… Working in the QA department for this game was a delight. If I could sum up the game in one word, it would be “Satisfying”!
Piloting the ship is more satisfying than an Instagram ### as the mechanics are very smooth and the graphics are polished. All visuals in the game are very well crafted and are easy on the eye. The sounds effects and visuals work together in perfect sync to create an amazing gameplay experience.
I love the simple, yet hard to master mechanics and the speed-running aspects of the game. It’s a great challenge to top the leaderboards and this gives the game an enjoyable arcade like feel!
– Real player with 24.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Shoot 'Em Up Collectathon Games.
So few games like this, with the Thrust / Asteroids type control. Creamy playability and the cargo pickup / dropoff mechanism adds a unique extra dimension to the already awesome physics.
Graphics are crisp and polished, with a cool Nebulus-style rotating tower type effect. Enemies, pods and bubbles etc. sound and flash and satisfyingly when you shoot them. There are some neat design elements such as the elegantly curved platforms of Level 7, the rising water when you shoot water pods, and the slingshot style puzzle from one of the extra levels.
– Real player with 17.4 hrs in game
wonShot
If you like to blast enemy ships with a giant laser in a small casual game with pixel graphics and dark humor, then you will spend several hours in this game.
For fans of the genre.
P.S.
LIST OF SPACE GAMES
The largest and most structured list of space games you can see here:
- Curator of games about space in Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/37277628-Space-Experience/
Reviews on all space games.
A huge number of lists and categories.
The most complete information both among those games that have already been released and among the new products.
– Real player with 34.2 hrs in game
Very casual arcade-style action game with a light puzzle element. Each level is a sky full of enemies, take as many down as possible with one shot from your laser under time pressure.
Graphics - pixel style, simple but cool. Well-detailed ships. Smooth special effects. Good use of color and design overall.
Sound - amazing. music changes depending on how good your shot is. Memorable sound design overall, will stick with me.
Controls - too simple to critique. Some controller support which works well enough but it probably functions best overall with a mouse. FWIW i cranked my DPI way up because the laser aims very slowly. Not sure if it made a difference. The controls are simple but the overall experience of doing the thing you do (being the death star, basically) is exciting and has good feedback.
– Real player with 7.0 hrs in game
InvaderSwarm
Another shoot ‘em up. Good for stress relieving.
– Real player with 6.1 hrs in game
5/10
unexpectedly for me this basic functionality seems ok to play through ;)
-
ship upgrade
-
weapon upgrade
% after game-over = failure, ship LVLs are lost
-
no Help or explanations how system works
-
weapon upgrades seems faulty
-
not enough resources to buy weapons when restarting LVL
-
repetitive BOSS fights are annoying! xD
– Real player with 2.1 hrs in game
Spark and Sparkle
Amazing little game that I’m so glad I found out about. Vertical shooter mixed with a jigsaw puzzle? Will that work? Really? YES, yes it does!
Great SNES/Retro visuals and soundtrack are just icing on the cake!
Get this game!
EDIT: Would love some updates/DLC for it!!
– Real player with 33.4 hrs in game
Really fun VS Shoot’em up with a twist.
The chaotic combination of puzzle solving and STG gameplay makes for very tense and exciting situations where matches can easily flip from one players advantage to another in a flash.
Art style and soundtrack are fantastic in an adorable cutesy way.
– Real player with 29.1 hrs in game
INVERSUS Deluxe
This game is what arcade games strive to be: easy to learn, but difficult to master. This super simple eight button control setup takes seconds for any veteran game to figure out and even someone new to games should be able to understand it in under a minute. Four buttons to move, four buttons to shoot. What could be easier? While each map starts out nice and easy with some slow enemies that aren’t very harmful, the pace picks up fairly quickly, introducing faster and more complicated enemies. With the chain-combo and hit streak mechanics, this is both a blessing and a curse. The game rewards you for pulling off risky maneuvers, but itsn’t going to hand you lots of opportunities for easy points. I keep finding myself backing into a corner trying to lure large groups of basic enemies together to get one large combo just to get hit from behind by a newly-spawned enemy from a spot I just wasn’t paying enough attention to. After that, I have to fight to take back any chunk of the map I can so that I’m not locked into a tiny space and picked off easily by even the most basic enemies.
– Real player with 171.3 hrs in game
Wow i got to play this at pax east and it was a lot of fun. Playing that again i feel like its even more polished and awesome now! They managed to make the single player REALLY enjoyable for high score chasers like myself cant wait to dive back in. I also got to dive into some multiplayer which i was really excited for. Someone named Gongon poped into my game and we went back and forth at it for about an hour stright !!! keep in mind matches last what, maybe 2 minutes or so ? so you can do the math how many matches we played ! You can tell after a while we were both playing mind games and trying different strats on each other, what a blast.
– Real player with 22.0 hrs in game
Soft Body
If you love games that sound amazing and feel good to play, this is probably your game of the year. It’s a bullet hell like no other; a game where you don’t shoot your enemies but try to get close enough to touch them without getting shot. And you do it by controlling two snakes at once, one with each hand.
Getting good at Soft Body is like a form of meditation. As you start to get better at it, you stop focusing on controlling one snake at a time, and you wind up controlling both simultaneously, not looking at either one. Then the game starts to throw challenges at you where you need to be moving and dodging and attacking with both of them at once.
– Real player with 144.9 hrs in game
This game is so damn good. The level design and controls are as smooth as an ice cold glass of Dr. Pepper on a summer day. It’s not meant to be an easy game, and the difficulty curve of Soft Game leaves something to be desired, but Hard Game is definitely where Soft Body shines. Tasks that are infuriatingly difficult at first eventually lighten up, only to be stacked on top of one another in rapid succession. There’s no feeling better than grinding out later-game levels and then returning to earlier ones just to find that you’ve become a LITERAL GOD all of a sudden. Add on to that the Halloween levels featuring not a single bullets, and multiple secrets I still haven’t even discovered the meaning of yet, and you’ve got yourself a game that’s worth far more than its asking price. 100% recommended buy.
– Real player with 66.1 hrs in game
Brother Wings
I personally purchased this game. I reviewed it for my 99 Cent Gaming series.
Being a big lover of all things SHMUPs I couldn’t wait to take this game on for my first impression series. I was really afraid I’d be unfair in my review due to this love but decided I would give it my best go. Somehow, I still came away from this highly disappointed.
For starters, Time Attack mode does not work as described. Selecting this mode did not show any timer and no indicator that you were nearing the required number of enemies to reset it. At first I thought Infinity Mode was selected by accident. It wasn’t. To make sure I even played Time Attack mode without killing any enemies for a couple of minutes with no consequence.
– Real player with 5.1 hrs in game
Let’s talk about promising games …
Brother Wings came as a cheap and simple game, a good way to acquire letter and achievements in the steam, however with the passing of the updates it is a commitment of the developer of the game to offer better and more complete content.
Yes we have a simple game and without many technical challenges, but I think this is a great request for those who have little time between their day to day tasks, as well as for those who have to wait for the loading screens of the big games . In addition we have an artistic dedication explendida in the development of the game.
– Real player with 3.9 hrs in game
Cannon Lab 13
I have a CANNON, i have a BALL.
Uuuh!
CANNONBALL!
I have a LABOR, i have a CANNONBALL.
Uuuh!
LABORCANNONBALL!
Yeah i know, it was bad introduction.
For those who don’t know this gag, search für Pineapple Pen on Youtube. ^^
Enough of Bad Wyvern Jokes, but i have your Attention, do i?
So, welcome to CANNONLAB 13.
A game where you shoot a BALL with a CANNON in a LABOR.
No that is NOT a Joke.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2370134218
Behind CANNONLAB 13 lies a Game that can be addicting and raging in one Breathe.
– Real player with 5.2 hrs in game
Information / Review English
Cannon Lab 13 is a Puzzle / Simulation game developed by AvvaNextGen.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2375621008
Gameplay / Story
A secret laboratory, isolated from the outside world. Few know that it even exists. The name is: Kanonenlabor 13. This is exactly where the story takes place. In this laboratory, experiments are carried out to examine the behavior of an ultra-bouncing ball after being shot with a special cannon. Your goal and task is to logically solve puzzles in 20 different levels, in which you as a player have to think logically in order to get the ball into a hole without making a certain number of attempts or to shoot. The game is accompanied by a suitable graphic style and background music. It should be mentioned that the game is a bit reminiscent of Portal and has similarities.
– Real player with 5.0 hrs in game