The deckbuilding gods have unleashed good karma upon the land: Balatro solo developer LocalThunk recently praised the poker roguelike's early supporter Pengonauts for his new deckbuilder, which is already collecting seriously positive reviews.
"I TOLD YALL THIS GAME WOULD SLAP," LocalThunk posts on Bluesky alongside an image of Pengonauts' builder, StarVaders, and its 100% "critics recommend" rating at the time.
"Just as an aside for how indie devs support each other behind the scenes," LocalThunk continues, "the dev for StarVaders @pengonauts.com was the 4th person to join the Balatro Discord when it had, like, 20 wishlists and has been super supportive every moment since."
"Best part of gamedev is the friends you make along the way," Pengonauts agrees in his own Bluesky post.
Its Steam description describes StarVaders as an "endlessly replayable roguelike" in which players use mechs against alien invaders, as one does, fine-tuning their explosive decks to blast enemies away during tactical grid-based combat.
"Discover game-breaking combos, rewind time to alter your fate, and protect the future of humanity," continues the game's Steam description.
At the moment, a bit less than a week after its launch, StarVaders sits at an impressive Very Positive Steam rating with nearly 400 reviews, one of which says "this game genuinely blows me away. I can't even say enough good things about this."
"There must be like 500+ cards," the review continues, "This game is insane." And it's glittering with the LocalThunk seal of approval – what more could you really ask for?
"I looked it up and said ah, f***": As Balatro took over the world, another publisher was sweating over its own card roguelike – which LocalThunk then promoted himself.
