Satellite Rush

Satellite Rush is a top-down shooter that features some rogue-lite mechanics such as permadeath and randomized levels. These features are complemented with a great looking set of pixel art, a pretty fitting soundtrack and what could be described as a retro inspired sci-fi setting.
You play as an office worker who is captured by aliens and taken aboard the Satellite Moebius, an arena where you’ll have to fight for your life against waves of alien enemies. The concept is pretty simple, your objective is to, hopefully, get out of the arena alive but while attempting to achieve that goal you’ll also have to entertain the alien crowd. As you start killing enemies in quick succession the crowd will eventually start throwing power ups and weapons into the arena, so it is in your best interest to kill as many enemies as quickly as possible.
Upon entering the game you’ll have to choose one of 3 doors to enter, with each one leading you through a different path and eventually to a different boss. If you manage to defeat the boss you’ll be able to choose one of 3 different upgrades and after that you’ll be teleported to the first room and you’ll be prompted to enter one of the two remaining doors. This time the path you’ll choose will have more and thougher enemies and if you manage to the defeat the second boss the process repeats itself, eventually leading to a final boss. Each one of these paths has a different colour assigned to them, and it is that colour which will determine what kind of coins enemies drop when they die. Once you get a certain amount of them you’ll unlock new items.
In terms of gameplay, Satellite Rush is pretty straightforward and anyone that has played Isaac or any other game in this genre will feel right at home. The only thing I believe I’ve never saw in other games like this is the fact that when you shoot your character actually slows down, so you can’t just run around shooting enemies while they follow you because they might catch up. You use WASD to move around, arrow keys to shoot and you also have a designated key to pick up and use items. In terms of weapons, while you’ll most likely spend a lot of your time with the basic pistol, you’ll also spend a lot of time with weapons the crowd throws at you such as, machine guns, shotungs, rocket launchers, flame throwers, and other sorts of crazy weapons such as laser based weapons that fire in a V shape. Besides that, the crowd will also give you power ups which are a one time consumable item such as, bombs and shields. Considering you’ll be able to keep the alien crowd entertained, the gameplay will vary a lot, one second you’ll be firing rockets from afar against enemies that explode when die they and the next second you’ll pick up a shotgun and you’ll have to go close to the enemies in order for the bullets to actually hit them.
Satellite Rush is a pretty fun game to play given the fact that is still in early access, and that kind of leads to one of my complaints about the game. As of right now, you’ll probably see everything the game has to offer in less than 10 hours, but I’m hoping that before the game releases it will have more enemy types (which there are quite a few already), more power ups, more boss types, more weapons and perhaps a little bit more of variety in each level.
Overall, I think that for its current price there is no going wrong with this one, especially if you’re a fan of the genre. It manages to keep the gameplay diversified enough so that you don’t feel like you’re doing the same thing over and over (even though you kind of are) and the game seems to go towards a humorous retro setting. If you’re not sure you’ll enjoy it just pick it up and if under 2 hours the game doesn’t manage to grab you just ask for a refund, for me all it took was a few minutes.

Summary: (longer version below)
Definitely an entertaining title worth playing if you're a fan of sci-fi, roguelikes and an achievement hunter. It retains a charm without adding too much content.

Achievements:
Cloud Saving:
Trading Cards:
Workshop:


YES
NO
YES
NO

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In-Depth:
Appearing in a space arena is some sort of conscious monkey-thing, pitted against various mechanical enemies, fighting to win over the crowd and eventually become the star of the show.
The gameplay is very similar to The Binding of Isaac, but it offers little variety. There aren't many enemy types nor items and finishing the game itself doesn't take a lot of time but it becomes extremely hard. Despite being somewhat shallow, the game is still very enjoyable, offering a great soundtrack as well as achievements which are very fair and not grindy.

7/10
A very fun and well done game, but that could be a lot better with a more balanced difficulty and more upgrade options.
The premise of the game is simple: you were captured to participate in an alien battle royale and to earn your freedom, you must fight your way through waves of enemies and three bosses. As you defeat enemies and the crowd cheers on you, you'll get power-ups and weapons to use. Weapons run out quickly but the faster you kill enemies, the more items the crowd will give you. And at the end of each section, you'll fight a boss. Defeating a boss makes the next dungeons harder in some way, so once you've learned about each boss and what they change after they're defeated, knowing the proper boss order becomes important. And as you defeat enemies, you collect some special coins that will then unlock new weapons and items to use.
As a fast-paced roguelike game, Satellite Rush is a really fun game to play, with a challenge level that will keep you on your toes at all times. The game isn't very long, but because of how difficult it is, it requires some time to beat as the player gets a little better on each attempt.
That's where the game's two main issues arise.
The first is how extremely unbalanced the difficulty level is. Of course, as a roguelike game that isn't very long, some challenge is to be expected, otherwise the game would be completed way too quickly. However, even with that considered, the game can be extremely unfair to the player, as the player is often thrown in rooms that are absolutely crammed with enemies, sometimes with literally nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. And because the game becomes harder as the player progresses through it, there are times when the difficulty becomes almost unbearable.
It would have been a lot better if the game had difficulty levels to choose from or unlockable difficulties (you defeat the game once and the next game has a higher difficulty).
The second issue is the lack of upgrades. You unlock three weapons, then three items and that's it. It's pretty easy to unlock those and once those are unlocked, there is no other use for the coins you collect. Also, items obtained after you defeat a boss are fixed - which isn't bad per se, but some more variety would have been good.
One solution to this would be to have the coins collected after all items are unlocked become usable to buy upgrades for the character - as an example, using red coins for health upgrades, purple coins for fire rate and green coins for speed. That way, the coins would still have some use and the player could use those to beat the game if the game is too hard for him/her.
Despite these issues, it's still an extremely fun game to play and highly recommended.

This game proposes a challenging environment. With each victory, the difficulty ramps up. The gameplay is addictive and it builds upon strong design principles: easy to learn, hard to master.
Stages are generated randomly. Each time you cross the portal to challenge a boss "dungeon" will be different.
If you miss top-down shooters like Super Smash TV, Satellite Rush is the game for you.

Kumeric Labs is an independent development studio from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Their studio is one that was founded out of a number of friendships who had a shared passion of gaming. The studio was established back in 2012 with five fresh university graduates. Less than twelve months later the quintet decided to turn their passion into a reality by deciding to create a permanent dedicated gaming studio. In the time since they have added seven more people to their team bringing it to a well rounded twelve passionate staff members. Satellite Rush is their debut title.
It is a top-down shooter that features pixel art graphics, randomized levels and roguelike elements. The team have endeavored to mesh a number of well known games and media into one singular title with influences taken from Super Smash TV, Binding of Isaac and Douglas Adams with a garnish of sci-fi imaginarium. The player gets to take control of an abducted office worker and play through Satellite Moebius which is an intergalactic space arena where he must destroy enemy aliens and robots that have been programmed to kill you in order to cheer up the television show’s audience.
I’ve found the game to this end to be a highly enjoyable experience. If you’re good at games such as the aforementioned The Binding of Isaac you’ll find yourself at home almost immediately. The game play can be fast and frantic which keeps you on your toes constantly. Players determine which of three doors – red, green and blue – they wish to go through and complete each room in the corridor chain before returning to tackle the next chosen door. You need to clear each arena before you can take on the next challenge but in order to do that you are aided by the dropping of various power ups and tools when you kill certain enemies. One of the smaller problems that I had with this system was that rather than having a certain time to use these power ups you’ll lose their ability when you move into the next room. I’d like to see the abilities featured on a clear timer rather than losing them because many of the power up weapons will unlock when you’ve just cleared a room making many drops almost entirely pointless.
The graphics, sound and atmosphere are almost perfect for the game in its present state. There have been some very wise game design decisions implemented into the game already. The game is colorful and vibrant without being overly so. The level design has been carefully thought out and meshes quite well with the atmosphere. One of my favorite aspects of the game is the sheer amount of enemy types. They help present new challenges in each randomized room making no two rooms let alone full games ever truly alike. Thus far I haven’t particularly noticed any of the typical downsides that this can often lead to such as games or rooms feeling unfair.
At $4.99 Satellite Rush is exceptionally well priced for the quality of its content having successfully passed from Steam Greenlight into Early Access. The game has a lot of potential and room for growth, even being as solid as it is already, and a game that I am eager to keep up to date on.
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Satellite Rush is a lightweight twin-stick shooter with a few little quirks to distinguish it from its competition. The most significant distinction is in the interstellar audience cheering the player on. This audience is the source for all of the power-ups acquired - keep them excited, and they'll throw you a steady stream of weapons. Since your default pea shooter is pretty unimpressive, you will want those weapons, and that means playing a little more aggressively than in some other twin-sticks.
All in all, Satellite Rush is a short game, but it can also be deceptively difficult. There are three arenas that can be cleared in any order, and while the first one is generally pretty easy, completing one of them adds additional challenges into the game that make subsequent arenas significantly more challenging.

Satellite Rush is a simple game. I didn't think of it much in the beginning, but the difficulty really gave me motivation to complete it. It's a very short but challenging game. I believe that the game is worth the $5 if yo're looking for a niche game to play for an hour or so.