Mine Your Own Business, The Space Warden Demo Is About
Space Warden is the result of almost two years of development by solo dev Branislav Banik. A demo was put out over the Steam Next Fest, and the dev got in touch and asked if I could have a look. With me being so nice, I gave it a look, and here are some words.
It’s 2580, and we’ve left Earth as it was shit. That’s the blunt approach, but basically, we’ve taken all the resources, packed up our stuff on motherships and decided to explore space. After some cruising about, a new resource is found that could be used for good or bad. Tech and medicine advance massively, but an inevitable war kicks in for control of it. Think Dune with fewer houses.
In Space Warden, your job is to hunt down enemy ships and blast ’em, or escort your mining ships to safety. It’s a simple top-down shooter that allows you to destroy the environment around you – not so much in an explosive way, but to manipulate paths and access new areas. Maybe you’re just a destructive son of a bitch? Either way, it’s a nice touch.
Visually it’s a bit like Super Mega Space Blaster Special Turbo, only the maps are larger, giving you free roam to seek out enemies or resources – blasting your way through rocks as and when required. With the keyboard, the spacebar is for your blaster, and Q and E are specials with the appropriate cooldowns. During the… scatty… tutorial, you’ll find that you can rest at some space stations and change your load-outs based on your playstyle/the task at hand.
Space Warden’s gameplay is easy enough, and a tutorial isn’t required, as it’s pretty intuitive when hunting enemies or doing escort missions. In the latter, the mining ship will follow you and awkwardly crash into you every time you stop. Fortunately, this doesn’t cause any damage, but when the enemies arrive, they’ll solely target the mining craft, meaning you have to be quick to destroy them as there’s no ‘self-healing’ option. Once the ship’s damaged, that’s it.
Without any mini-map, you’ll fly about quite swiftly, with the mining ship in tow, gradually latching onto the minerals you’ve been sent out to retrieve. While dashing about the place, I did think the level design was a bit bland without any environmental hazards or points of interest. But then it occurred to me how well the ship glides for an indie game – much better than other top-down shooters, as you aren’t wrestling the controls.
Of course, coming to a halt in space is unlikely, and you’ll inevitably float about in places, but again, Space Warden has managed to get the movement under control. While playing on a gamepad would be more accurate for shooting, combat was straightforward enough, if a little unexciting, as the AI ships will stay in place while you shoot them.
Space Warden was released as a demo during Steam Next Fest. If you’re quick, you can play the demo for yourself now and see what you think. The game will be scheduled for the 16th of March 2023.