Rogue Sentry

Rogue Sentry

Good, short and tough.

Plenty of secrets to find.

Real player with 29.4 hrs in game


Read More: Best Twin Stick Shooter Action-Adventure Games.


Check out this awesome retro shooter. Apparently most people have been completing it in 2-3 hours but I’m 3 hours in and only 1/2-2/3 through the game. Gameplay is simple but a little unusual (in a good way). Really have a lot of fun with it!

The best way I can describe this is as a “top down metroidvania” with bullet hell elements. Exploring is as fun as clearing rooms. Retro graphics are simplistic but well done. Challenging and very fun.

For more niche curation, follow me at: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/27440015-CSH-Picone/

Real player with 5.6 hrs in game

Rogue Sentry on Steam

Ampersat

Ampersat

Ampersat is a shooty, slashy, RPG-y game mixing old-school/retro and modern sensibilities. A blend of influences from Gauntlet and Smash TV to Zelda and a dash of Angband, this is a handcrafted adventure with much appeal to fans of Roguelites. A labor of love from a solo developer, Ampersat distills some favorite childhood gaming experiences into a fresh, fun hybrid that sees you killing a lot of monsters, finding a lot of loot, freeing captured letters (um, what?) and growing from a world-weary warrior mage into a powerful smashing/blasting machine!

Main Features

  • More than 50 handcrafted levels, many with exploration and light puzzles

  • Optional endless procedural area

  • Original gameplay elements based around freeing and capturing letters

  • Flexible character progression with extensive skill tree

  • Hundreds of unique pieces of loot find, buy, sell and augment

  • Upgradeable town hub

  • Tackle stages in the order you choose

  • 50 unique creature types with individual AI, 10 fiendish bosses

  • Drop-in local async co-op (and online using Steam Remote Play Together) - suitable for young players to team up with their parents

You may notice the main character and enemies are ASCII letters - yes, this is an aesthetic throwback to the original Rogue games, and the blending of these with colorful 3D top-down environments was the idea that first spawned Ampersat. Likewise, Commodore 64 SID chip sound effects are used alongside real-world music for a distinctive experience. But just what is an “ampersat?” It’s the leading contender for the official name of the @ symbol, of course!

Overview

Gentlheim has been invaded by Lord Z, who has surrounded the village with 5 extraplanar towers and the dungeons beneath, filled with evil creatures. Even worse, he has stolen language itself from the townspeople! As the warrior mage Ampersat, you must venture deep into the dungeons and high above the land in the treacherous towers, defeat countless minions and restore language to Gentlheim so the townsfolk can communicate properly and help you defeat Lord Z himself.

Gentlheim

Gentlheim has shops to buy and sell goods; an Inn to heal up, level up, and stash gold to retrieve after death; and a deep Well leading to randomly generated procedural levels. There are various structures you can pay to upgrade and, as language returns to the village, townsfolk who may need something… Gentlheim hides a few surprises for the inquisitive gamer and provides a hub area to approach different stages in any order you like, or revisit levels you’ve already beaten.

The Well is where the “roguish” aesthetics are turned up to 11, providing short, sharp, loot-gathering deep delves once you repair it. There’s an old rumor that something very special is buried at the bottom of the well… but no one has ever reached those depths.

Co-op

Ampersat’s async co-op is true drop-in, drop-out at any time. The second player controls a fairy that hovers around Ampersat and also launches attacks. Will you trust them with your best spell? No? They might steal it anyway… While the fairy’s shots aren’t as powerful and contribute to overheating, it has the huge advantage of being invulnerable. The perfect partner… if you can get along.


Read More: Best Twin Stick Shooter Roguelite Games.


Ampersat on Steam

Cosmoscope

Cosmoscope

Brilliant wee game!

The progression is done really well. New enemies and abilities are dealt to you at a nice pace and the ways to counter them are intuitive. The game brings in new situations and changes dynamics with each new chapter, which keeps it fresh and builds upon your existing knowledge. It has a really unique concept I haven’t seen in any game before with the Kaleidoscope but still has a really retro feel. Like arcade games of old!

Plus the soundtrack is amazing, not distracting but really sets the mood and keeps you in the zone!

Real player with 10.6 hrs in game


Read More: Best Twin Stick Shooter Sci-fi Games.


great soundtrack and quick to get into. just fun in a new spin on a mix of genres!

Real player with 2.5 hrs in game

Cosmoscope on Steam

Desert Pirates

Desert Pirates

Lead a post apocalyptic war convoy made out of badass cars driven by unusual characters. Travel across a dangerous and endless desert filled with resource seeking opponents.

In this experience inspired by movies like Mad Max and spaceship roguelikes, you can expand and improve your convoy, find new cars and swap out their weapons and tools, upgrade, repair and refuel them, feed drivers and give out orders to help everyone survive.

How far can you ride?

Features

  • Unlock and collect badass cars: Find cars to restore in every run, and store them in your garage for later use. The desert is filled with hidden surprises!

  • Make runs with different convoys: Change your Convoy to fit your playstyle! Choose between Soldiers with Nitro, Heavy Soldiers with special weapons, start with additional food or gas, special systems like Shields, Radars, Decoys and more!

  • Survive the desert: You will need to destroy enemy settlements in order to get the resources you need to repair and refuel your cars, and to keep your followers fed and hydrated.

  • Give orders to your Convoy: Stay together, or split up! Changing orders on the fly can give you an advantage against your enemies. Light RTS mechanics are gaining traction during development (stay tuned!).

  • Classic Roguelike Features: Permadeath, Upgrades, procedurally generated areas. Every playthrough is different.

Desert Pirates on Steam

Space Dance

Space Dance

This is a cool twin stick shooter with great music and a challenging level. The game is going for .99 cents right now with a sale price of .84 cents. It is definitely worth it even if you only pay it for an hour. Imagine all the quarters you would have put in a machine back in the day to continue playing. To get a higher score you have to combine the enemies together and destroy them but doing so makes it more difficult to maneuver around. The screen does get a little crowded which if you could navigate around the enemies will get you more points. My only recommendation so far is I wish there was a manual or tutorial that explained how to play the game but after a few tries I figured it out. I’ve only payed 39 minutes so far but I do plan on playing more.

Real player with 0.7 hrs in game

Neat little game, the link-gun mechanic is pretty cool and makes things interesting while adding some challenge to the gameplay. You link enemies to capture them because they will combo up your score, however, doing this will make it more difficult to maneuver around so you might end up hurting yourself, it’s a neat trade-off.

First Impressions / Gameplay Video

https://youtu.be/GmQIXkkC9Os

– Follow My Steam Curator Here –

Real player with 0.6 hrs in game

Space Dance on Steam

GraveRun

GraveRun

Early access from 2016 so have to assume this is probably all we get. A bit of a shame really as it has a lot going for it. it’s a really fun little twin stick zombie shooter with a bunch of neat mechanics, upgrades and cute pixel graphics. Seems primarily designed for multiplayer/co-op but it’s great fun solo too. Unfortunately probably owing to early access the campaign is pretty short, still pretty fun though.

Some games that don’t get finished you shrug and move on, some are missed that little bit more, this is one of those that had some real promise to it so it’s a shame we didn’t get to see a bit more it even now.

Real player with 4.6 hrs in game

Fun game to kill time, easy to play and get addicted to. Pixelated graphics, smooth gameplay, many different combinations of weapons allows you to regulate the difficulty of playing the game, some are stronger and synergize better with certain weapons. Although coop is recommended, buying the game at full price is not so.

Real player with 2.2 hrs in game

GraveRun on Steam

Altorius

Altorius

Good game, I suppose. But I still can’t finished some because of my lag.

Real player with 4.9 hrs in game

Altorius on Steam

Gridform

Gridform

Gridform is a fast-paced action arcade game restricted to a square arena. Action is fast with predictable enemies with exploitable interactions. Like your own ship, enemies die in a single hit.

Campaign

  • Gridform’s primary campaign features a large, interconnected grid of over 75 levels. Each level is designed to test your skills in a unique and exciting way by presenting you with unique win and fail objectives.

  • Unlock additional weapons to complement your strategy.

  • Fight against huge bosses that break the rules.

Gridform is designed to be a challenging game. You will die, but you will learn.

Gridform on Steam

Alien Death Mob

Alien Death Mob

This is one of the fastest and most relentless twinstick shooters I’ve played! There are a lot of levels, powers ups, and enemy types. I especially dig that each level looks very unique and has its own layout.

Staying alive can be difficult, but the game doesn’t penalize you much for dying. Scoring is way more important than surviving, and you are encouraged to collect score multiplier items as quickly as possible even if you have to die to do it.

I love that the power ups get dropped out of little cars that drive across the screen.

Real player with 5.9 hrs in game

Alien Death Mob is a brutalist construction of the twin-stick masterworks before it, which it smelts and reforges into a true arcade experience recontextualized for the home computer.

It asks you not to “win”, but to “shoot”. It asks you not to “finish the level”, but to “get points”. When you get points, you collect stars. With stars, you can play new levels. That’s the foundation of Alien Death Mob, a lovingly crafted showcase of the purest, hardest, most transparent materials with which a game should be made.

Real player with 5.8 hrs in game

Alien Death Mob on Steam

Rainbow Laser Disco Dungeon

Rainbow Laser Disco Dungeon

In Rainbow Laser Disco Dungeon we take on the challenge of saving the entire world from an evil robot invasion through the power of dance! An amazing assortment of electronica music drops the beat down on the robovaders in time with the music. Hi-hats, cymbal clashes, and big ol thumps add custom instruments as you play through the lives of the incoming robohordes. The game is pretty great, simple, and you can even add your own music to it!

I got this game for free on keymailer and it turned out to be a great choice.

Real player with 7.3 hrs in game

If you enjoy any of the four words in the title, this is probably a good game for you. A simple yet enthralling aesthetic, a bangin' soundtrack, and addictive gameplay reminiscent of games like Crypt of the NecroDancer, The Binding of Isaac, BPM: Bullets Per Minute, etc. I’ll certainly be dancing some nights away with this one.

Real player with 1.7 hrs in game

Rainbow Laser Disco Dungeon on Steam