LONESTAR

If someone calls this FTL meets Slay the Spire slap them. It is nothing like either of those games.
Lonestar is a turn-based game about numbers and everything else is set dressing.
Your ship consists of 3 rows that produce a number of attack power and the same goes for the enemy.
You subtract the losers power from the winners power in a row and whatever is left is dealt as damage.
Everything you do in this game has the purpose of making those numbers go up in various ways.
Core among them is the units on your ship. Little blocks with spaces for number cards.
You draw numbers from your number deck and add them to a unit.
So the "deck building" aspect of it all is literally just what numbers you have.
And you might do an entire run without changing the numbers in your deck at all.
There are wacky passive buffs, but the units then are where the complexity and build strategy are.
As a boring example the very first one you will probably see is a unit that says "when you add 2 identical numbers add + 2"
On that same ship is another unit that can make numbers go up and puts them back in your hand and there is your first combo, make the numbers go up in the right way to have 2 identical ones for a bonus.
And then of course there are many many different units with different synergies that you try to get throughout the run.
The passive buffs need the right unit to become useful but if you can combo they get VERY useful.
There is an added layer, the number cards have colors and you can only put in numbers into a unit of the right color or a "stronger" color.
And a strong unit will have slots of higher tier colors. So balancing your number deck and units around each other can be important.
The enemy then for the most part is less interesting. They just have their own fancy way of making numbers but your strategy is mostly unchanged. You need a big number to win the damage race.
That being said a small part of them are absolute ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that will mess up your entire build.
Unwinnable situations are rare but possible.
The game lets you restart a battle as many times as you want and even switch around which units you have equipped.
But sometimes the enemies numbers are just too big no matter what you do.
And I think that can be a problem but is in the nature of turn-based roguelikes.
You are at the mercy of the loot you picked up during a run and maybe your luck just sucked and you cant combo hard enough.
Now no matter how "skilled" you are if the highest number you can produce is a 17 but the enemy hits you with a 26 every time there is nothing to do about it.
Meta-progression is handled very well in this one.
Often a roguelike will add more and more stuff to find during a run but in turn make synergys increasingly unlikely.
So often your reward for playing is making the game worse.
In here all the randomization happens before the run even starts.
You get a random pilot with an ability specific to them and 2 random bonuses.
You can reroll your selection until you get something that seems good and all unlocks are just more pilots and more random bonuses, so your actual run will still have the same units and synergies.
A consequence of this is that there is not that much longevity to this game.
Sure the many pliots can offer wacky twists but for the most part you have seen those enemies before,
you have seen those units before and you have used that strat before.
The music is servicable and the story non-existent. Many dialogue blurbs and enemy briefings are just jokes and references.
Which is completely ok, I think the devs succeeded in wanting to make a fun little game and would not be surprised if a few updates shook things up and added variety in the future.
So really the question is do you want to spend a couple dollars on a fun little roguelike that sets itself apart from others that you can play for a day or two and then put away?
I do.

I will premise this by saying: I feel this is a game moreso geared towards those well-versed in roguelikes and/or deck builders already. It lacks an amount of prettying polish that leaves it a little rough around the edges, with boring visuals and a story so forgettable I couldn’t for the life of me tell you what it’s about other than “spaceship fights”.
That being said, the mechanics and QOL pieces in this game give a die-hard roguelike fan a great game to dig into. The concept is simple: place the numbers you draw each turn into your lasers to increase their power. Make your number bigger than your opponent’s to deal damage. There’s all sorts of different ways to get to that beautiful churning engine point that we all love in these types of games- using positioning of your guns, or even your ship; accruing treasures (relics) to augment your ship; and even upgrading your numbers to draw bigger and better ones are just a few ways to make a winning strategy. You really hit a big “a-ha” moment the first time you generate a flood of energy all in one turn.
I strongly appreciate that this game’s per-run progression is heavily altered from the typical Slay the Spire map feel that’s becoming a little too pervasive. You have to fight 4 enemies per galaxy for 3 galaxies to win a run, and it’s always in the same difficulty curve of enemies each galaxy. It has a wide enough variety of enemies and bosses though that you don’t feel like you’re facing the same ones over and over, and different enemies really force different strategies- sometimes even remapping where your guns are to optimize for a fight. In-between enemies, you have a number of vacation days to spend on various events, mixing up the traditional branching tree navigation of roguelikes.
The three ships you can use aren’t too different from one another, but there’s a ton of captains you can use, with some unique to their ship type. I haven’t used anywhere near all of them, and some seem pretty lackluster to top tier options (Dango all the way baby!), but with as many options as you have, it’s inevitable some won’t make the cut. Though it is nice to have some that are wildly different playstyles for replayability!
There’s a meta progression system, pretty standard for the genre. You unlock new captains, new units, new treasures for succeeding. As you keep winning, you unlock new difficulty levels (your ascension levels), and they really provide a challenge as you climb the ranks.
The part I really want to point out is the various QOL features in the game. As someone who doesn’t put in the effort to mod games, there are a lot of small fun things I feel you’d normally have to add in yourself. For starters, all the damage you and your enemy are going to take/deal is very clearly displayed. The UI is fairly simple, making for a nice and easy to learn experience- and an excellent Steam Deck game! There’s an in-game save scum feature that just lets you retry a fight with no penalty. As someone who admittedly has done so in many a Slay the Spire run, just offering a quick reset button if I make a stupid misplay or want to try a boss again adds to my willingness to push the difficulty in this game. There’s also an optional post-game boss rush where you fight several bosses back-to-back with no healing in between. As someone who’s often sad at the end of a particularity busted run, it’s awesome to have a little victory lap when you’ve got that beautiful 1-turn-kill ship up and running.
To summarize: overall, I think if you've sunk tons of time into Balatro, FTL, Slay the Spire, Hades, or any number of other rogues and are looking for something new, Lonestar is a great little game that’s designed for you. I don’t think it’s in my all-time greatest hits of the genre, but it’s absolutely been a great way to fill the gap while waiting on something else big and new to come out. I can see this being a pick up and put down rogue I’ll keep coming back to every now and then, and definitely recommend it for us devoted roguelike fans!

If you like slay the spire, and also are not annoyed by lane mechanics, this is a reaaaaaally good game to pick up. The nature of the energy generation and the arsenal management is really satisfying, managing to create interesting engine potential in a single player rouge-like while removing some of the insanely salt inducing low-rolls of traditional deckbuilders.

A fun roguelike.
Instead of cards or dice you draw machines for your space ship. Machines can be placed into a limited number of slots along three lanes. Their placement can influence your power in that lane (that you'll try to use to overpower the enemy in that lane) or have side effects on adjacent machines, usually in a specific direction.
Battle rounds consist of you getting a random amount of three types of energy, though you can influence your 'deck' of energy. You'll try to match that energy to your machines, converting or amplifying it, feeding it to your weapons to generate power or to special machines for extra effects that can modify the base rules of engagement.
In all three lanes your power is then compared to the enemy power, and the loser in each lane takes damage depending on the power difference.
Each run, you'll face several enemies from a roster of enemy types; each type has special rules that you have to adjust your semi-random loadout to.
A single run is good for half an hour or so of fun, though you can exit-save after each fight. Which makes it a great brain-teaser for easily manageable chunks of fun.

This is an outstandig roguelike, with both the length, unlockables, build variety and choice to be up there with the big games of the genre. It´s a blast, don´t sleep on this.

This game is amazing. I want to say it is a cross between Slay the Spire and FTL, but it isn't really either of those things at all, so that is helpful I am sure. You pick from a number of pilots (each with their own special ability plus two other random abilities each run), grab from a few different ships, and run at three different zones with 2 normal enemies, a sub boss, and an end boss each. Each one enemy gives you some coins, a weapon or other ship mod, and some "treasure" which is usually some kind of passive bonus to combat or vacation or shopping or whatever. I can't recommend it enough!

I've been searching for a game that tickled the same itch as Slay The Spire and after many coming up short, this is it.