Void Raiders

Solid arcade action for a reasonable price. Unfortunately, it's sorta outclassed by other similar games like Enter the Gungeon and Nuclear Throne and such, but it holds up well on its own. It's just not exceptional. This is a Toyota Corolla or Camry. It's not K.I.T.T. or the Batmobile. But hey, it's serviceable and you can still take it out on a mild joyride.

Twin stick roguelite shooter a bit similar to Nuclear Throne but with meta progression improving your characters in between runs. Meta progression pretty much guarantees the game will be unbalanced and that it is with everything starting out super easy and then quickly getting very hard if you haven't level up between runs.
The art is fairly nice but the color choices are on some levels very grating on the eyes.

It is just too unpolished to be worth a thumbs up, even at heavy discount.

I could tolerate about 45 minutes of play before giving up and card idling.

A good effort for a first game, but not ready for the big-time.

Feels like if they put another 6 months of polish on it, it might be good, but this game is a lemon.

It's good. Take on trust. You can edit the file "stored.ini" and get more gems and chips.

bloodgemstotal="1002.000000"
vialstotal="10007.000000"
chipstotal="10003.000000"
totalcreds="10083.000000"

I've had this game in my library for quite awhile and never got around to playing it enough to feel comfortable writing a review but I've come to that point now so, here we go.

Void Raiders is a very "light" Rogue-like / "bullet-hell" game. It's a fairly small game that was developed in a short time window. For the time invested in it and the end result however, it's a solid game and I have no complaints about the price I paid for it. (Bought it at the regular price / $4.99, no sale.) This developer has real potential if he can take what he did here and improve upon it in the future.

Void Raiders has 3 characters, each with respective talent trees that you can put points into as you level them up. You pretty much choose one of the characters and are thrown right into a randomly generated dungeon to survive as long as you can (or beat it entirely on the first try?).

You'll fight your way through several floors, retrieving items on that floor which a helpful arrow will point you in the direction of, while wading through swarms of enemies. After which, the elevator will become accessible and you can return to it to ride it down to the next floor.

You'll earn credits which you can use to purchase upgrades inbetween levels, or from vendors throughout the level. None of these are permanent and will all disappear if you die. Your levels and talent tree points are what remain permanent.

Every few floors, you'll encounter a boss. Killing the boss earns you a special kind of currency which can be used at the title screen to permanently upgrade your character's equipment. There are 3 bosses in total.

That's really all there is to this game. Void Raiders is a short and sweet dive which the creator made in I believe just a year's time, working in his spare time. For what it is and for the time invested in it, he's done a very good job with it. The artwork is simple but clean, the game is well programmed and plays flawlessly.

It's a well polished, fun if not bitterly short romp through bullet-ridden mayhem.

One "criticism" is something I read from a few other people too. I know the game was intentionally designed to be fast and hectic but many people I saw felt the enemies should have respawned a bit slower and I share this belief.

Awesome sound track, and gunplay!!!

The movement control in this game is remarkable and great

I love shooters, and roguelikes as well. This game kinda makes you feel overpowered sometimes, especially with the sounds. The maps are randomized so there more replayability, and the difficulty ramps up on the spot as you kill hordes of enemies. My only downside of this game is that there's not much to unlock. I already have all three characters at level 10 (max level cap) and all that is left are the trophies.

If there are a few thing I want this game to have is more unlockables, increase the level cap, and especially more characters.

Other than that, the game is mighty fun. Definitely recommend.

A budget mix of Nuclear Throne with some of the roguelike mechanics of Risk of Rain.

Gameplay consists of blasting baddies on the way to collectables to unlock the elevator to the next floor of baddies. Similar to Risk of Rain, there's a timer at the top of the screen that raises the difficulty of enemies as it ticks upward, so speed is encouraged. Enemies constantly spawn in on top of you, ruining any tactical feel from the top-down action. Damage done by enemies seems to vary between "nothing to worry about" and "oops you died", rarely striking a happy medium.

There are 3 characters, each with 2 very small skill trees of passive abilities to upgrade. The characters are rather bland. Boris, for example, can hold LMB to shoot, or hold RMB to... shoot faster.

The pixel art visuals are amateurish and unattractive. Obstacles such as crates and tables, enemies, and treasure-containing lockers all melt together in a difficult-to-read blob of dark pixels.

There's no tutorial and virtually no explanation of game mechanics. There's a bartender who allows you to select a drink, which gives you various bonuses. One of these is "Start the game with 2 datacores and 2 void cores." I still have no idea what void cores are, though I think they're the green boxes you find as objectives.

All in all, it feels like an uncompleted Early Access title. With more characters, extended skill trees, a visual makeover, and some mechanical polish the game could be a solid pickup. Ultimately however, you're better off grabbing one of the games that clearly inspired it, such as Nuclear Throne, Risk of Rain, or Neurovoider.

pretty fun and addicted game, some problems with scripts of the enemies (for example, the dead script it's the exact same on everyone) but despite of that, it's pretty cool

This game isn't bad for what it is. My computer seems to have this green line sometimes at the bottom. Also just as a hint, there seems to be a little to much screenshake when shooting. But honestly after a couple minutes i got used to it. I like this game and i reconmend it.

This is good, especially the extreme shooting part, but this game can start to annoy you if you die several times or a lot, which dying a lot in this game can really a fucking pain in the asshole!

HOWEVER, if you want this game, then you can buy it.

I bought this game day of release and honestly after playing it a few times, I really can't stand it. the ability to progress is based less around actual player skill and more about luck. You're pretty much soaking up bullets and hoping you can make it to the next boring objective. the progression system is negligible and you can fully level up your characters after a few agonizing hours of dying on objects that should clearly labeled as solid. I guess the constant waves of enemies are supposed to give you a sense of urgency but i feel like it's a really cheap way of doing so that totally destroys any reason to try and explore levels making this a boring scramble from one objective to the next. maybe if the character progression was a little deeper and there was more ways to deal with the constant bullets other that soaking them up and hiding behind cover that you rarely know was there in the first place it might be playable till then this is the first game I have regretted buying on steam. 4/10

Very well done and constantly updated/evolving twin-stick shooter.

It's a game where you'll not get much help from within the game but for sure in the community. The reason I say this is there are lots of pickups that you get and save from run to run that come into play throughout the run and also equipping your 3 raiders.

It's a bit hard at the start to put this together if you dont' know anything [I picked this up day -1] but once you get used to those and understand how they work; you can tweak your raider with skills and items, both initial setup as well round to round.

I've really gotten to like this and it's a shame that it doesn't log time while offline :( I have way more hours in offline mode as my kids talk to their friends on the account.

It's a great time, it has progression and it's a shmup so what's not to like?

Great early access game with lots of potential. There's a good variety to the play style of each character, and it feels more like an RPG shooter than a bullet hell. Play if you were disappointed with Enter the Gungeon or want something where there's more of a feeling of progress.

this is a pretty fun game, cool feature that you can lvl up your toons, getting new talents, and upgrading thir gear. Hope to see more characters to choose from (more customization for them too maybe!), and more biomes! but really fun so far ^_^

Great Rogue-type twin stick, very addictive gameplay, and I haven't even listened to the soundtrack yet. All the best stuff from my 80s and 90s arcade upbringing in one nice package, I haven't had this much fun since Ikari Warriors. Do yourself a favor and buy it, and support this good effort.

Edit: I add this part at the end in case any other developers read reviews for other games to try to understand what makes something so popular or attractive to users. I would say this developer pays an appropriate amount of attention to the visual effects, not so much that they ovewhelm or that the game loses focus, but it makes a really nice "paint job" on top of great mechanics (which seem very well-tweaked).

A lot of other games, including ones I have bought but not played lately, seem almost to this level, but are just missing that extra variety in the color palette or visual effects to stay up to date with modern games.

Here's a hint -- if the visuals on things like Bejeweled look head and shoulders better than your game, it needs some shine. This developer used relatively low-pixel 8-bit style graphics and gave it the right shine to make it do its magic, with very simple yet effective art. I consider this game to be a model for other developers in its class, and feel very happy with my investment, to the point that I have shown it to coworkers and family. Kudos, and may your competition learn from your efforts.

This may be kinda biased as i have been playing since early alpha but this game is VERY fun and a great early access title. Worth the 5 bucks for sure.

It is a bullet hell rouge lite with permanent character leveling.

First off let me say that this game is extremely fun, and is most definately worth the $5 i spent on it. I honestly was not expecting to much as it seemed a lot like a nuclear throne rip off or something along those lines and did not seem interesting at all, but i said "screw it let me try it and see how i like it!" and i honestly dont regret buying this. it is a really fun game to play and it gets fairly addictive.

Now this isnt to say that it does not have its flaws. this is a early access game so of course there are bugs, i mean even in fully released games there are bugs everywhere. As of this game nothing is really hugely gamebreaking there are moments where u want to smash your keyboard in because of the annoyingness of some of the mobs but that is the fun part of this game. you dont really know what to expect really. As of this review there are only 3 characters, however with 2 customisable trees for each character it adds up to multiple fun ways to play the game. there definetly needs to be more characters / weapons / and levels because after a while killing the same mobs kinda gets old.

Overall though the game is really fun to play so i rate this an 8/10 as far as it being a early access. I definetly recomend you to buy this if you have the $5 and want something entertaining. The creator responds to your feedback and takes into consideration what you say so i see this game having a promising future!

This is a first impression of the game and I will probably write more about it later.

Void Raiders is a top down mouse-aim shooter-RPG with random level layouts and item drops, persistent character progression and lots and lots of bullets.I played a pre-release alpha build and was immediately enamoured of it, and for five bucks, this early access build is an excellent foundation. Though it lacks plot or characterization of any kind at present, it has good enough music and spritework to convey a sense of style: a dark, neon-lit, occasionally rain-soaked metropolis on... Neptune?

It has three playable characters- Boris the Brawler, Tina the Gunslinger and Gudrun the Bladedancer, and of the three thus far I have had the most success with Boris, whose upgrades slowly turn him into a bullet-spewing tank. Tina puts out even more shots with her dual guns and has an entertaining special ability that causes her to spray bullets everywhere around her. Gudrun, with proper use of her blade-dashing and bullet-reflecting, is surprisingly survivable, and has a shotgun for when her sword isn't enough, but if you can't effectively use her sword to intercept incoming shots, she's by far the most fragile of the three.

Stages are split up into floors. On each floor you must obtain a certain number of key items, either these metal boxes with pink lights or these glowing green datacubes, before the elevator to the next floor becomes available. Enemies respawn endlessly, but you get xp for every kill. They drop cash, ammo and the occasional health pickup. Cash can be used to purchase stat-boosting (more damage, higher crit chance, health back on critical hits, etc) items from in-level vendors, one item per vendor, and you also get a choice of three items to buy between floors. However, you don't know what you're getting if you buy the in-level items, and in roguelike fashion, these items are lost when you die.

There's another review on here mentions the somewhat sluggish player movment, noting that you often have no choice but to "take the hits", and I'm inclined to agree, but if anything that's the game's only real shortcoming apart from not-yet-added features. However, I personally feel like the current level cap of 10 for each character is a tad low- admiteddly, leveling only gives you skill points, with the actual stat increases instead coming from upgrading your armor using components earned from defeating the bosses. I can only hope these upgrades have no cap, or at least a high one, as the game still becomes very difficult in later stages. Interestingly, I noticed that the difficulty increases not per stage but rather at certain time intervals in the length of your run- if you waste time, things will only get harder, but you might miss out on extra funding and items.

I've played a lot of roguelikes and am glad to see another one with character experience and skills that carry over between runs. I hope that, like Rogue Legacy, or Galak-Z's arcade mode, victory in this game is an eventuallity, or at least a reasonable possibilty as in Ziggurat.

Edit: the developers have addressed some of the issues on day 2 after launch.
---

Wait to buy and instead wishlist this game, for now. The price is totally great for the product given at this point, but if you are leary of anything that comes with Early Access, I'd totally wait. Although Void Raiders is its own thing, there is alot of influence of Nuclear Throne here (which is wayyy better at this point, but then again its been around a long time and basically created a subgenre spawning games like this one).

Essentially, you get to choose out of three playable characters (more to come) which all have their own stats and unique weapons. Like Nuclear Throne you have a primary and secondary weapon. They all feel different which is good. The cool thing about the characters is that they have metagame permanent RPG-style level up ability with a small tech-tree that you can kind of choose how to build the character (its really limited, but fun none-the-less). Otherwise this is pretty much a spray-and-pray affair.

Pros:
+Price is really cheap for the level of content.
+The fun factor definately increases with time. It starts out really really slow.
+Level up system is fun, although it needs to be modified - currently it can simply be boiled down to a 1st level grind. You can (and I did for a bit) just sit on the first level over and over to grind XP to level up. It may actually be the smart thing to do, idk.

Meh:
=For the boasting about the music, its ok, but considering all the great music in indie gaming; I wouldn't buy the soundtrack.
=The pixel art can be a bit muddy at times. Sometimes its hard to know what is the top of a box and the side, etc. Sometimes the art overall is simple (in particular I am talking about the actual playable character models).

Cons:
-Overall, the game needs more of its own identity. Yeah it seperates itself a bit from Nuclear Throne, but when it does, it mostly just goes into some other mechanic thats been done by some more successful game(s). This can be corrected.
-Most importantly, your character is too slow and/or the bullets are too fast. Even with speed upgrades, many times I just have to take the bullets. There is no sprint or dodge-roll. It seriously eliminates alot of the strategy. It makes it brute force, when it should be anything but.
-There is polish that could be easily done, that needs to be. For example, characters that are non-selectable at the moment should have a tool-tip that says 'coming soon' etc. It can be confusing. Shops apparently are also not available, although it looks like it. I mean, is it a glitch? Is it me? Are they available or not? It would take moments to make a tooltip for these situations. Its still not the best, but the developer's explained the shrines to me.
-The level load times should be reduced (it breaks momentum), and the small 'cutscene' scanning the level is functionless and just wastes time. What are you trying to show us?
-No options menu or graphics options, etc. Found this thanks to dev help
-I get a bit of lag on both my gaming rig and mid-end laptop. No bigs, but it should be noted.

Its cheap, and the content is there but needs further refinement. I will not refund or anything, and look forward to this game further seperating itself from competitors and really becoming its own thing.

Peace,