Super Space Club from Publisher and Developer GrahamOfLegend
Similar to the arcade classic “Asteroids” but with some nice updates and improvements. Great for a pick up and play “endless mode” type gameplay experience whether you have a little bit of time or a lot.
Super Space Club is an endless lo-fi arcade shooter. Think of a colorful version of Asteroids with a lo-fi sound track. Sounds pretty interesting and confusing at the same time.
You start out with one character, one weapon, and one ship. You are able to purchase other characters, weapons, and ships with Stardust (the in-game currency). The characters are your pilot and each has their own special ability. These come in handy for tight situations or quick getaways. Just like the characters, the weapons and ships each have their own pros and cons that take a little time to get used to. Regardless of the combo chosen, the controls are going to be the same.
After the short tutorial, you are provided with a list of objectives/challenges. They start out pretty easy (kill a few enemies, complete a certain amount of waves, etc) and get harder the more of them you complete. There are even some objectives that require specific characters, weapons, or ships.
These objectives will give you a reason to try out the other weapons and characters, but you are very likely to pick a go-to weapon, character, and ship combo and go back to them after completing the objective. I know I did that while grinding for stardust so that I could purchase the rest of the weapons, characters, and ships. The objectives and challenges are a big part of the game’s replayability and help lessen the repetitive grind.
You get Stardust by killing the enemies and collecting it before it disappears which can be a bit of a challenge depending on how many enemies there are and how well you can control your ship. Since there are no difficulty or accessibility options, the amount of grinding needed to earn stardust is heavily skill based. Since earning stardust is required for some of the objectives/challenges and for purchasing additional characters, weapons, and ships, there will be a lot of grinding for stardust to get them all.
After each run you return to the menu and start over. Select your character, weapon, and ship and start at wave 1. Each run is a repeat of the last run. The waves will always have the same number of enemies and the same enemy types as the same wave in your previous runs. The only things that change are colors. This can be seen as a good or bad thing depending on the objectives you are trying to complete. It does get a little boring replaying the same waves and killing the same enemies over and over again. I would love to see a random mode added to the game where the enemies are randomized for each wave.
It took a little while for us to get used to the game’s controls. Your thumb sticks only control which direction your ship faces and they can cause you to spin around quite quickly. If you want to move forward in the direction you’re facing instead of spinning in place, you need to use the boost. The game also has actual “space” physics so whichever direction you shoot, your ship moves a bit in the opposite direction. We found that if we stopped playing for a while it could take a few games to get the hang of things again.
Sadly, there is no story in the game and only a few songs which you end up hearing over and over again. Don’t get me wrong the songs are great and fit the game perfectly I just wish there were more of them.
The art style is simple and colorful. It nails the retro vibe while still feeling new and adding some new additions to a classic formula. Each time you start a new game you have a different color for your ship, the enemies, and the background. We did find a few times where it was harder to play from a visual perspective as the enemies looked very close to the background color making it hard to see where you needed to aim.
One of the interesting additions is that the energy you use to shoot is also what is powering your shields. This keeps you from shooting the whole time, your power does regenerate at a decent pace but there will be times where you have to make a choice to shoot the enemy and hope you kill it or escape with what little shields you have left. You do have a boost that does not deplete the energy so make sure you use that while trying to escape and wait for your shields to recharge. Another great addition is that when your energy gets critical the audio starts to get a little distorted and a little hard to hear like the ship doesn’t have enough power to keep the music playing. You can also hear the music get a little distorted every time you get hit. This is a great example of the little touches added to the formula to make this its own game and not just an update of an old one.
When your energy has been fully depleted (aka you die) your character initiates warp drive to get away which works with the space theme.
Overall, we enjoyed the game and got sucked into the “just one more game” trap only to realize it’s been almost an hour since we planned on stopping. We would love to see more songs added to the game in a DLC or Title update.
Super Space Club is available on Xbox and Steam. A digital copy of this game was provided to SimpleGameReviews for the purposes of reviewing the game.