I'm playing it in bed. I'm accidentally missing meetings. I'm squeezing a round before social occasions, in the bathroom, and God help me, right after I wake up. My girlfriend has informed me that she's starting to hate the sound of the same music constantly blasting from my Steam Deck. But instead of playing it less, I'm just sitting down at my computer more. My new Steam obsession is StarVaders, a shockingly excellent reinvention of the retro game, Space Invaders.

I'm guessing comparing StarVaders to a game that's nearly 50 years old is doing little to persuade you to play it. Here's a more modern equivalence: StarVaders and its bite-sized tactics are like playing Into the Breach for the first time. StarVaders is easy to pick up, yet its tightly-wound mechanics make it as compulsively playable as Balatro. StarVaders has immediately become one of the best roguelikes I've ever played.

StarVaders unfolds on a small grid full of aliens who are dead-set on taking over the world. Your job is to stop them from reaching the bottom of the grid. To do that, you're given a deck of cards with varying abilities, like movements, attacks, and general tactics. Each turn, you can play a handful of cards. Unlike most tactics games, however, "losing" does not involve destroyed units or depleted HP.

When your enemies attack you, you'll get a junk card shuffled into your deck that will dwindle your options at some point in the nebulous future. Some of these cards have pesky additional conditions, like granting an invader a shield should you abstain from playing it. Taking damage, then, isn't about managing your resources: it's an evaluation of how much friction you're willing to tolerate in........

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