BroodStar
BroodStar is a classic arcade shoot’em up with heavy roguelike elements. Careful, though… the vastness of space contains many formidable enemies. If you fall along the way, you have to start over — the only thing you’ll bring with you are the upgrade modules you collected in your past runs, in the form of research points that augment your ship. Will they be enough to get you through hordes of unknown creatures and monstrous bosses, and fulfill your quest of defeating the living planet — the BroodStar?
Join us on Discord!Features
- 12 Procedurally Generated Levels with Random Enemies, Events and Bosses
- Challenges and Leaderboards
- 7 Main and 6 Sub Weapon Types
- 200 Unique Upgrades
- Research System
- Seed System
- Challenging Bosses and Boss Variations
- Stage Modifiers and Events
There are 12 campaign stages, each with its own unique theme and enemy types. Keep an eye out for some secret/optional stages as well!
Besides the campaign you can also tackle a few challenge stages with specific setups and separate leaderboards!
Stage Modifiers will change the behavior of the enemies and introduce new hazards. Events such as ambushes, mid-stage bosses and more can spawn during each stage, introducing a new objective when triggered and generously rewarding the player when completed.
Enemies in BroodStar are a variety of standard SHMUP enemies and some more “confrontational” ones. There will be quite a few that aren’t afraid to get in your face and ruin your day. Enemies that spawn in “Infected” stages are even tougher than their normal counterparts, so watch out!
The Upgrades in BroodStar can vary from simple Stat Upgrades that power up your ship, to more advanced types that can grant you powerful Active Items,
Projectile Modifiers or Drone Companions. Most of the Upgrade modules will combine with eachother to create unique combos. There are a ton of combo possibilities so don’t be afraid to experiment!
The Research System will allow you to further power up your ship before each playthrough. Research points are obtained through picking up Modules of any kind and may be spent on any of the 3 available Research Trees: Offense, Defense and Utility.
Each playthrough will have a unique string identifier that determines the generated content. Share this seed with your friends so they can experience the same crazy combos and hardships that you did!
Steam User 3
Getting straight to it, I love Broodstar.
I'm always searching for those rare gems that have near-infinite replayability, and this game has it. No two runs are ever the same (unless you want that, just enter a seed number) and the strategy of mixing and matching modules gives Broodstar so much depth. Want to upgrade your fire rate to insane speeds? Add a homing missile to your secondary weapon slot? Dash through enemies to kill them and boost your damage output? How about flamethrowers spewing out in 8 directions? You can do all that, provided you get the modules for which you seek. Once you get to the later stages (15 per run), you'll probably start to feel invincible if you picked the right build.
I'm definitely a fan of shmups, so Broodstar needed a good shmup core in order to work. Thankfully it does, as controlling your ship is smooth, the game runs great on pretty much anything, and it just feels satisfying to blast your way through hordes of bugs/flies/eyeballs/worms/etc. Even without all the upgrades and stat mechanics this game would work on its own.
Visually it's nothing that will blow you away, but will give you great 90s arcade nostalgia vibes. The CRT filter is a nice touch too, for that old arcadey feel. At first you may feel cramped with the big panels on the sides taking up your screen space, but it helps the aesthetic of a vertical screen cab. Plus there's a lot of useful data of which to keep track.
Can't talk about this game without mentioning the banger of a soundtrack. Most areas have a different theme and they're all killer tunes. Fits the mood perfectly. I subbed to the YT of the artist for this very reason.
To sum it all up, Broodstar takes the shmup category and turns it up to 11. The sheer variety of builds you can create, permanent upgrades to unlock, and secrets to discover makes it a must-buy. Highly recommended.
Steam User 3
The game is enjoyable and relaxing, BUT it is rather raw.
Having "lock" an upgrade and "discard" an upgrade would be awesome.
It would be a significant improvement to have more clear upgrade descriptions and classifications.
It would be pleasant to have a more user-friendly (maybe more modern) UX with an upgrade explanation in a pop-up by hovering over an upgrade icon, etc.
It would be great to get a balance fix, as for now, drone build, laser weapon and tones of other upgrades, in general, are somehow unpleasant and not so efficient.
It's a great game with unique vibes and excellent perspective. I hope developers will find a way to fix, improve, balance and polish. Good luck!
Steam User 2
Fast roguelike with pretty short runs