It’s always easy to understimate just how long games can take to create. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a powerhouse like Grand Theft Auto 6 or something much smaller like Nova Drift, these things are always going to take much longer than planned. Nova Drift had a Kickstarter back in 2017, after which all backers got Steam beta access a couple weeks later. Official Early Access landed in 2019, and after five years of steady updates today sees its official launch into 1.0. It seems like a lot of time for an Asteroids-style shooter, but there’s a lot of depth in the build possibilities of its pick-one-of-several powerup system and tuning it properly takes time.
Becoming Something New, One Powerup After Another
While Vampire Survivors may have popularized the level-up system where you get a selection of options and can only grab one, slowly changing the way a character plays while climbing to ludicrous heights in the power-up tree, it’s by no means the first one to do it. Nova Drift was playing with the idea way back in 2017, and in the intervening years the game has only gotten richer with build possibilities. Gameplay starts out like Asteroids, in that you’re in a single-screen arena that wraps around top to bottom and left to right, controlling a ship that can rotate, thrust, and fire. There are a few asteroids in the first level, but those are quickly pushed aside for enemies that start small but only get bigger and weirder as the game progresses. Which is only fair, seeing as your ship is doing the same thing.
Review: Nova Drift
Nova Drift is a big, endless, beautiful universe of arcade combat, fusing the modern indie gaming style with deepest roots of gaming history.
Most enemies drop twinkly sparks that auto-home in on the ship, and collecting enough earns a level-up. The first three upgrades are dedicated to weapon, shield, and hull, respectively, and that alone is enough to make the ship a completely different beast from when it started. Whether you shoot grenades, a railgun, split-shot, or any number of other weapons should complement the shield you choose. A burning shield that applies damage is good if you plan to get close, while one that reflects shots works nicely in a firefight. Meanwhile the hull type governs whether you’ll want to specialize in drones, mines, and other power-ups that add equipment to the arsenal, or pilot a zippy fighter whose thrusters spread to the side to damage anything they touch. After that the real power-up game begins, and whether you choose to min-max the synergies or pick the ones that sound coolest, the ship is going to evolve into a powerhouse.
It’s still going to explode eventually, of course, because the enemies aren’t slowing down and are quite happy to fill the screen with any number of bullet patterns, but each run is an interesting trip to see just how far you can take it. Now that Nova Drift has reached a full release, in fact, there’s even the possibility of beating the game and getting a proper ending, so maybe death isn’t quite so inevitable as it used to be. The game has come a long, long way in its years of development, and now that it’s done it’s time to sink in properly to wring out every bit of firepower it can provide. For a full retrospective today’s launch also comes with a detailed post-mortem, which you canread on Steamand is highly recommended. There’s also the traditional launch trailer, so if you want to see what kind of weirdness you can create in a run by all means, give it a watch below.
