Starmax - Tangleroots - a sci-fi roguelike bag-builder where you explore hostile planets and scavenge for resources

[u/adamramberg]

Hey everyone!

I'm Adam, one half of Tangleroots, a small studio in Sweden making a sci-fi roguelike bag-builder. We launched our Steam page this Thursday while at Sweden Game Conference, and we are thrilled to finally have the game out in the wild.

We want to bring our own flavour to the deckbuilder genre. In regular deckbuilders like Slay the Spire, you draw cards each turn that have effects and cost resources to play. In our game you instead draw resources each turn and spend them to activate effects on your buildings and events.

In each run (mission) you land on a hostile planet, and your goal is to ship cargo before your base is overrun. You start with a set of buildings and expand your base with new ones from blueprints, which you learn by defeating the creatures attacking your base. While a creature occupies a building it blocks you from using it. You don't have to deal with it the same turn, but it does hurt your engine while it sits there. Our goal is for players to find different strategies and interesting synergies, and to build an engine out of their tokens (the resources you draw) and buildings. Token colors mean different things: red can defend, yellow can build, blue can ship and purple can do anything. So there is some resource management in balancing how many of each color you have in your bag.

I feel like we have found a quite simple core loop and core mechanics, but with a deep design space. There are some concepts to get used to, but players who enjoy deckbuilders and get past that initial hurdle seem to enjoy it.

• 🔗 Steam link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5300900/Starmax/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=rgames&utm_campaign=announce
• 📹 Announcement trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlTi9UJkkn0
• 🎮 Gameplay - our OG playtester played a run on announcement day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVELZ9YBcRc

We are now entering a new phase of the project, working towards a polished demo on Steam. If this sounds like something for you, wishlist it to get notified when the demo drops. Happy to answer any questions about the game or gamedev in general! (The game is written in Odin and we have some tech we're proud of, so I could go on a nerd roll about that.) Thanks a bunch!