Nova Drift

Im not good at this game, still having fun though.
Some of the combinations can get really interesting.
Not too much to say that hasn't been shown on the trailer.

Converged thousands of shots into a super- heated, super- massive welding torch.
Forgave any and all munitions in order to ram the emissaries with my spaceship, going about 2s/s (Screens per second.)
Roguelike mode gave me the power to shoot grenades out of my rectum, along with a mine setup that blew any and all bosses straight out of the water.

Its gonna take a bit to amass every upgrade so you can figure out the interactions between them, but by all means, I'd say the experimenting is half the fun of it.

Also, a hint.
The giant swords count as constructs, go wild.

8.5/10

Nova Drift is one of the greatest roguelikes available today.

The core mechanic that defines the genre is build variety and that's also where this game really excels. There are an immense number of viable, interesting, fun builds you can create. You are rewarded for creativity, thoughtfulness and experimentation.

That's the highest praise I can offer for one of these. It's what makes the genre so addictive when it's at it's best.

Well, i guess ive unlocked everything exeppt for my pride. back on to the apocolypse grind

Amazing little gem. Endlessly repeatable. Builds can get crazy and there is a lot of customization possibilities.
Yes it does not have a story. It does not matter.

Take asteroids - You know the arcade game, yeah - and add a insane soundtrack, some of most indepth build crafting I've seen in a rogue like, and a beautiful art style, and boom you get nova drift. This game is truly a experience to play and see. If you are thinking of picking it up please do you won't regret it.

Great game and can be played forever with all the different builds you can make. Wish they added a workshop page for mods tough

I love this game, been playing it for a while, had it in the beginning of early access. It's such a well designed game. The graphics are gorgeous and everything hits all the happy sensory buttons. The glowiness, the space nebula vibes, the popping explosion sounds, the creature inspired bosses, the easy controls (definitely better on keyboard/mouse, can almost play one-handed the entire time)... everything.

The skill trees are so neat to play around with. Endless customization. You can go for strategic builds or just fun ones.

Can't say enough about this game


(Also i think it is easy entry. I am bad at games, i play very casually and sporadically, and even i managed to hit 1 mil score. Not a lot compared to some, but pretty significant.)

relatively replayable, awesome style too, has the arcade type style to it without feeling all that retro as well. the gameplay though? its great. admittedly feels stupid at times, but aside from that it is just.. its perfect.

Pretty good, gives me asteroid vibes, top notch for arcade style lovers.

Extremely fun game, lots of upgrades and combos to explore. You feel like a glass cannon at times, even with defense builds. Let's you feel powerful and weak at the same time, The endgame gets boring with level-ups being few and far between. Aside from that, the build variety and niche strategies lead to a replayable and fun experience, with each run feeling fun and unique.
One note: read upgrades carefully, as some mods completely remove shields or do self-damage. I've accidentally died by taking self-damage upgrades without having any regen.

10/10 worth the price

fantasticly simple - could use some better default controls for some of the more advance maneuvers on KB/M

I honestly can't believe I've played this game for so long and still haven't gotten around to writing a review for it, but here I am finally writing a review. I cannot properly express how good this game is. My 500+ hours of playtime should give you a rough idea of how much replayability Nova Drift has, but in case you need more convincing, this game is also still being updated, and chimeric isn't actively working on any other games as far as I can tell, so all of their attention is being focused on this game. Besides, it's only like $15. Give it a try. You have nothing to lose.

This game has become my game of choice for a quick run of something. I will be honest, the controls were not what I was expecting. I anticipated a twin-stick setup. But after a few minutes of personal adjustment to the scheme, I have come to love the controls. This is a really great game that invokes the same kind of fun I had with Geometry Wars back in the day, but with modern rougelike elements. Highly recommended!

Utterly Fantastic Game!! Would love to add fan created mods.

Surprisingly deep, for what looks like a synth-wave-asteroids-clone on it's surface! Crazy amount of build options and gameplay strategies. This is one elegantly designed gem!

Excellent arcade-style space shooter. The visuals are vibrant, and frame rate smooth even when there are hundreds of enemies and projectiles crossing the screen. You can play with a controller, but I find the keyboard&mouse combo fast and accurate. Random power-ups keep each playthrough unique and challenging. Loads of unlockable challenge modes and even more upgrades. Trying different tactics is fun. I'll use long-range homing missiles one game, a short-range flak cannon the next, and generate drones to fight for me the game after that. Doesn't take too long to do one playthrough, so it's great for a work break. Very enjoyable for me. Highly recommend.

Highly addictive. Fun to experiment. Great game feel.
Every round is satisfying

Absolutely delightful, and more than enough content to be worth the price tag. If your adhd or general psych demand explosions and shiny colors then I can't recommend this enough.

Amazing game, really well made and fun to play, the amount of different builds you can do is insane. Graphics also look amazing. Definitely didnt get addicted and played 20hrs in 4 days.

Before purchasing I was hesitant, as a few reviews called out the ship controls. I'm very glad I did purchase, as the control thing is not a bug or a poor design, rather its a fantastic modern take on a classic arcade game "Asteroids" and it's ship control scheme.

Works perfect on Steam Deck.

A lot of the complaints and negative reviews about this game focus on the controls. I read several negative reviews and they all said basically the same thing. After reading a comment (I believe on Reddit) by the dev, he said he wanted to pattern the game after the old, classic Asteroids game in preference to the 'twin stick' games people are used to today, and it seemed that was what led to the complaints. I had believed then the issue was generational and, being an old guy in my 50s I figured, no problem, I'm an old Asteroids guy myself, I can't handle twin-stick, this should be right up my alley!

It turns out, I was dead wrong. This isn't a generational thing. This isn't twin-stick vs classic. This isn't Asteroids. Let me re-iterate again, I owned and played the original Asteroids at home and in the old-time arcades with real-life quarters. I owned a Pong game machine and a Commodore 128, I know me some Asteroids fella. And this ain't it. I still play RTS games and have some reasonable dexterity and micro, so it's not an age thing either. This is a truly bad, or at least tragically difficult, controls thing.

Yes you can reset key bindings, and I did, several times, trying different layouts. It didn't matter much. The problem is, there are too many things you need to control, that you end up needing two hands to do it all, which, I mean that makes it a twin stick anyway! It's just a worse version of it. Whether your hands are on two sticks, or one hand on your arrow keys and another hand on WASD, that's two hands, that's twin stick, just on keys.

Secondarily, the controls are extremely touchy, and jumpy. When I say jumpy, I mean jumpier than a virgin on prom night. Holy smokes. When you start moving forward, you're going at Millennium Falcon levels of speed. I dunno how many parsecs it is but good lord is it uncontrollably fast. The other issue is, you can 'warp' through the edges of the screen but the enemy can't - it screws with your brain when you go flying through a wall that the enemy bounced off of, right in front of your eyes. It just makes no sense and when you're as uncontrollable as you are in this game, it just makes it 10x worse to regain control.

The last semi-negative (and I will get to some positives) is the upgrades are not really clearly explained. I am sure it's a learning curve thing but, nobody likes playing through their first time and not knowing the mechanics in the slightest.

For the good - the game is damned fun, when I can control my ship. I want to love this game. It looks freakin' awesome, it has great audio and sound, the visuals are incredible and it just feels like there's the makings for a great bunch of runs, fails, and fun.

:edit: turns out I did refund this game, as much as I hated to do it. Reason being, beyond the abysmal controls I came to finds that although there are three branches of upgrades for your ship, (engines, shields, weapons) upgrading the shields to become weapons themselves far out-balances the other builds (making them almost useless) and make control much less important. It just breaks the game. maybe I'd get better with controls but, it won't change the balance of the game, or, imbalance.

My recommendation though is, carefully consider the controls. It really is as bad as the complaints say. It's not an age or style thing, it's rough. And I get it, it's a choice or style by the devs, and this is nothing personal, I wish you guys continued success. However these controls are an absolute travesty, bordering on criminally bad.

If this looks at all like the kind of game you like, you will probably like it. The roguelike elements are great and there are tons of unlocks and weird combos that change how you play. It has a lot of interesting influences. It's like the old Asteroids game in terms of moving around and looping back to the other side of the screen when you fly off the edge (and there are even some actual asteroids to bring you into nostalgia-land), but it also obviously hearts modern bullet hell upgrader games like Vampire Survivors. Sometimes it feels like the old game Galaga, if anyone remembers that, with tons of starships flying patterns around you. Sure, you die all the time, but it's so much fun to get blown up that you won't even complain about it.

Really fun trying out different builds, and there's tons to try out. Overall great arcade-style game to have fun sessions on.

Really reccommend. For warframe fans + people who want to itch that shooter roguelike, this was exactly what I was looking for even when I wasn't sure what to get. Amazing community on the discord as well. Been great so far, and I'm still invested

Honestly this game is just fun.

The controls may be a little bit hard to wrap your head around but after some time it will feel natural, smooth even.
Music slaps too and the new weapons and upgrades are always a blast to play with.
Best of all the game gets updates frequently enough so you can alway be hyped to play the next one.

Gameplay is like a refined "survivors" type game with interesting enemies and bosses, and controls that are hard to get the hang of but very fun when you do. One of the builds you can make is just ramming your ship into enemy ships at very high speed and it's great.

Game is kindof just bland. Graphics are flashy but actually pretty basic. The "mod trees" are very small (4 things) , and I think this was a missed opportunity to have an actual "tech tree" with interconnecting parts. Many of the weapons feels very underwhelming.

Easily one of the most addicting 'just one more run' rogue-like games out there. The skill floor is very low, whilst the ceiling is through the roof, with each different run being capable of being something wildly different due to the variety of weapons and mutations you can build up to.

So fun! NOT a twin-stick shooter so I am enjoying it a ton. It's basically like... Asteroids + Roguelite + Arcade action so this is right up my alley. Fast paced, lots going on. Some of the weapons seem to be a lot stronger than others as to be expected. Fun fun fun!

It's very pretty, lots of explosions, and lots of variety, it's not a bad game. I just wouldn't recommend it. If you enjoy tight movement and gameplay that rewards skill, DON'T pick this game up. As cute as the variety is, it doesn't matter what shield or weapon you have, sh!t controls are sh!t, the luck of this "rogue-lite" is based on if the enemy/comet spawns on top of you, not about what you role.

You don't get overpowered and want to quit the run, the enemies become bullet sponges and do insane damage, the laziest form of difficulty, and it plays more like a puzzle game then it does a rogue-lite. Just search "best builds nova drift" and then roll for those, no matter what your run will end. Games like these are supposed to support experimentation, but there are very clear strategies and their incredibly easy to get to with the amount of rerolls but it's not satsifying.

And Unholy dregs, who TF thinks making a 20 minute game should result in HALF a level? Ridiculously stupid, I'm gated away from experiencing the game in full because ... ? 13 hours and I still don't have everything unlocked (sO MuCh cONtEnT 🤪). 13 hours of pretty explosions and being ended by some enemy pinballing me into another enemy/bullet/singularity/comet, such a waste of time.

I have to admit, I didn't really know what I was buying. I saw space roguelite game, colorful explosions, overwhelmingly positive reviews overall and clicked buy when it was on sale.

So... this is asteroids. I used to play it in the waiting room at the dentists office in like 1987.

They beefed it up with new colors, enemy models, weapons, and now roguelite meta-progression elements.... but at the heart of it, it is still asteroids. Do you like asteroids? Then you'll enjoy this.

But if you don't think to yourself "gee whiz, I wish I could play asteroids again," then no matter how colorful or flashy this is, it probably won't make you all that happy.

They did a good job amping up asteroids and making it a roguelite. But just be aware of what it is at its heart.

Big fan of the rougelike elements in this game, there's also so many upgrade options and paths to choose that it makes it easy to sink time into this very enjoyable game

It's like playing the game Asteroids, but you can crash into stuff to destroy it. Also, tons of upgrades to customize the destruction. But I like to just crash into stuff.

I beat the game on my first run. Though these games are typically about beating the run with harder modes enabled.

I don't feel any motivation to do more runs. The way you control your ship just feels sloppy/awkward and unfun.

I much prefer a more traditional style of SHMUP mixed with roguelite like Gunlocked was.

Scratches an itch started by space invaders decades ago. I've sunk countless hours into this thing and came to write a review and see all these insane combos on the video above that I can't even piece together how to create. Really just an excellent game with infinite possibility, I wish the devs would delve into world building so I can explore in the builds I love, but in the meantime the carnage is glorious.

It's really fun and replayable. Highly recommend for relaxation.

This is one of my favorites in the rogue-like genre. Imagine a modern day Galaga bullet hell but on steroids...

The variety of builds and upgrades makes every run enjoyable and engaging.

Looking forward to further updates that bring even more content to this awesome game!

its just a good game, not much to say, controls well, good enemy design, cool bosses, cool builds. engineering is fair and balanced.

Very good game, it's the classic game Asteroids combined with modern RPG elements, decent fanbase, some internet memes in here

Every single build you can make in this game can get ridiculous, and it's great. I've barely scratched the surface on crazy builds and had a huge amount of fun.

Good controller game for quick play or a deep dive fixation with enough variation the the game specifications to feel like there will always be new depths and strategies to explore. A good application of a rogue light skills tree progression.

Super fun game that allows the player to experiment with different combinations of upgrades. The game rewards you for coming up with unique builds and it feels great to play. A huge variation of enemy types makes runs feel unique and the draft mode allows the player to experiment. 10/10 game!

insanely fun when you get a good build, and not even that hard to do so. 100% would reccomend for anyone interested in arcade shooters or roguelikes, even just the demo is really fun if you dont want to buy.

Game is really great -- crunchy, cool upgrades, good vibes. I'm very excited for any upcoming DLC.
However, I feel that build variety is somewhat lacking. In a typical full run, I would usually max out all upgrades in my niece, and was forced to spec into something else to continue growing stronger. Some of the later unlocks mitigate this, but the game just needs more upgrades, I think. Like, twice as much, with more complex trees. As it is, most game-winning builds are somewhat generalists, which is less fun.

Good game. Works well with controllers. Though changing the control scheme to twin stick style would benefit the game greatly. Also eagerly waiting for some kind of beam weapon and more body types.

It's a fun game but the it does not have enough to keep you playing for long. you can beat the game pretty early on, but the unlock grind is incredible slow. you'll see like 98% of the enemies after you get your first win, and they are always in same wave order with the same final boss, so there is no randomness among enemies. You could beat the game 60 times and still not unlock everything, but most of the unlocks later on are just combos so they don't add variety or mix up how you play. because the lack of enemy variety between runs, and no randomness to mix up waves, the game play loops is terrible.

- the grind required to unlock everything should be way less.
- the exp you get each run is achingly low even with modifiers.
- most unlocks are combos that should be auto unlocked when you unlock both required upgrades.
- the only randomness in the game is the upgrades you pick, makes for weak game play loop.

Some of my best runs:
- Cloaked ship with a giant critical hit railgun to one-shot anything
- Battlecruiser with batteries of missile launchers on both sides, filling the screen with massive missile swarms
- Small ship that spawned drones, turrets, and interceptors and threw giant spinning homing shurikens all over the place
- Superspeed ship with a halo of burning fire that gets hotter the faster you go. Just zoom, no think.

So much variety and it's all fun

Good Game, Incredible game even, play this FOR REAL

Such an amazing love letter to roguelikes, immense build variety, numerous enemy combinations, simple score and unlock system, and a dev that released a full game years ago and continues to build on it, making massive content updates that makes the game feel constantly fresh.

It's a 10/10 game for me. Starts with a simple Asteroids mechanic but each run evolves into a wildly different build & play-style. Deeper than it looks, read all the little text to understand the breadth of crazy synergies you can do with a build. It nails that roguelite experience where each run feels fresh and new. Just enough RNG that you can never 100% steer the run one specific way, you have to let the run guide you...and hope you don't get Crucible. I hate that guy. Great distinctive art style, love all the enemy designs, and the music is dope. Can't recommend enough!