Rogue Invader tells the story of a long running war between humans and an alien race known as the Zenos. This story though, is a slightly different narrative than you might expect for a game in which you battle aliens. In a twisted turn of fate you have found yourself at the Zenos home world armed with nothing more than a drop pod, a pistol, and an absurd amount of soldiers to send off to their deaths. It’s your job to make do with what you’ve been given and put a stop to the Zenos once and for all.
We first got our hands on Rogue Invader a few weeks ago at the inaugural Salt Lake Gaming Con. The first thing you notice about the game is its unique aesthetic. The game not only does away with color, it does away with shades of color on top of it, instead using black pixels and spacing to create its gradients. This art style in still frame makes it seem as though it might be at home on something like an Atari 400 or an old Macintosh but the animations are so smooth that once the game starts moving you’d never make the suggestion.
Rogue Invader takes strong influence from that first word in the title, meaning death is not only inevitable, but frequent. It’s difficult to illustrate the feeling of reward roguelikes give you in a fifteen minute demo on a showfloor, so naturally Rogue Invader’s concept didn’t really shine through until we had a bit more adequate time to spend with the game.
As mentioned earlier, in the beginning your equipment is fairly limited, but your reserve of soldiers is quite bountiful. Rogue Invader’s gameplay is primarily based around sending soldiers on what are effectively suicide missions to collect weapons and materials to beam back to the ship which can then be crafted and customized. Every upgrade gets you a little further than the time before.
Before each drop you can customize your loadout and see some information about your soldier ranging from their name to specific perks they bring with them to the fight. Don’t get too attached though, they probably won’t be coming back from this one. Also be mindful of your weapon selection, even after playing for an hour I would still occasionally drop down without a weapon equipped and have to improvise with my fists.
The action itself uses a standard WASD input for movement while you aim your firearm with the mouse. Right clicking will raise your weapon and allow you to shoot. It will also snap you into cover behind rocks that are randomly placed throughout the environment, but with mortars raining down upon you, you probably won’t be holed up behind cover for very long.
There’s still plenty of work to be done before the game releases later this year. There were a few bugs and cumbersome design choices in the press build we received, but nothing that can’t be smoothed out well before launch. The game is actually in remarkably good shape considering development only began eight months ago.
One big factor that that the team still needs to see sealed up is the game’s soundtrack and today Squishy Games has launched a Kickstarter with the intention of paying for the game’s professional composer, a novel concept in a time where Kickstarters are often just vague cash grabs for games that are already feature complete and happening regardless of funding. If you’re interested in helping the team out you can donate here.
