Rogue Invader is a very challenging roguelite action game polished in a sleek black-white-grey oldschool style.

Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQK7ZuG2LDE

Obviously some work has been put into the game not to make the game too easy but also in the entertainment thanks to the nice cinematics with appropriate voice acting and also funny dialogues, these cinematics are also quite special in a cartoonish way thanks to this 1 - Bitvisuals.

While the game isn't that easy and will make you replay levels more often than you'd like, there's also an advantageous counterweight that gives us a wide range of upgrades you can give to your character and weapons.
By getting as far as possible while replaying the levels you will also become stronger and more effective faster and so less likely to have to start over from a certain point, but a certain level of upgrades is still required to get further and further in the game .

The AI ​​in the game aren't wimps either, the way they react to your presence and attacks don't feel monotonous at all and you'll have to be patient all the time for those well-aimed shots, this game isn't for the heroic gun slinging cowboys and this also because ammo can be scarce at times, but ammo can be found throughout the level and you can use both a 2nd weapon and throwable weapons as well.

I want to recommend it. I had fun for most of the time I spent on it. It has some flaws, but the killer are the risks of instant death.

Mess up a jump, and you die. Mess up exiting a conveyor belt, and you die. Slightly mistime or mis-space your path through crushers, and you die. Everything else in the game produces death through an accumulation of mistakes, but these spots instantly kill you for the slightest mis-press of a single key.

At first it was a minor annoyance. The only area that guaranteed a forced jumping spot could be skipped. The zigzagging pathways were annoying, but could be navigated safely with care and a bit of preventative enemy clearing or defensive action. Even the spots where the game has you crossing thin zigzagging walkways and then puts hard to hit or sturdy melee enemies in front or behind you.

But then I hit the factory. And I died because I apparently didn't commit to stepping onto a conveyor properly, as the game immediately dropped me off the side. And I nearly died because I didn't exit a conveyor with the right timing, but somehow managed to glitch roll myself to safety from mid-air. And I died to a series of crushers because I stopped a few pixels too soon in the "safe" spot halfway through.

And I realized this just wasn't fun. None of the prior jumping spots were fun, they were just frustrating due to knowing the slightest mistake would end the run regardless of how well I'd been playing. None of the navigating thin zigzagging walkways was fun, it was just another frustration where I had to be careful to not accidentally instantly die due to moving slightly too far in the wrong direction. I'd put up with that stuff because it happened to be rare enough, at least until the Factory.

YOU are the glorious Leader of a big Force of Spaceships!
YOU have battled an Alien Force and reached their Homeplanet!
YOU have thousands of motivated Soldiers to end that Alien Threat!
….. and you have just … one … little … Handgun.
Sounds like a Joke, eh? But badly isn´t……

Welcome to ROGUE INVADER!!!

So, here you are. After long Battles in Space losing every support Ship you finally reach the Alien Homeplanet to put an end to this War.
That leads to the Fact that you have just one Handgun. But hey, you have thousands of Soldiers, that should be done in an easy way, eh?
You wish so, you really wish so, but… no.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2691319698

ROGUE INVADER is a fantastic roguelike Sidescroller .
A Pod delivers you from Space to Planet and you have just to go right, jumping, running, rolling, shooting, fighting, looting, sneaking, exploring and cursing … of course.
Why? Because many of your brave Soldiers will die. And to make it more dramatically, every Soldier, really EVERY Soldier in this game has a full Name, so don´t put them too deep into your heart.
If it is a consolation for you, each gone Member will be remembered in a List with every success they did. You can have a look into it every time.
And NO you can´t raise them from Dead, this is Roguelike. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2691319030

While you fight your Way through the Alien Planet you can collect loot and teleport a limited Number of Loot to your Ship. You have a crafting Station for more Weapons and Equipments. Also you will get that new because of researches that rises your technology.
So if you have the Loot, you can craft better Things to get that Aliens to hell.
By the way, you can also teleport Weapons and Armor to your ship, which the next Soldier can equip in the next run.
The Areas are changing in every run, so each Run is not the Same as before BUT there are Installments that have their Place into it. What i mean, you will encounter the same installments each run, but the Area changes between them. You not only have to Deal with these Aliens, there are also natural Disasters like Lightnings or creatures. You see, there is much Variety in your Runs.
So, make your way, learn from your forward Mistakes and fight your way through the Aliens. Have an eye on your Ammunition and don´t let it overheat

By the way, if you think you have unlimited chilling time, then i have to tell you, you are wrong. From time to Time Planetary Guns are damaging your escorting Ships. Find and stop them. If you loose these Ships, the Airstrikes you will get later are much weaker. You can also repair damaged Ships with loot you get from the Planet.
The Graphics are really, really oldschoollike cool.
It is one hell of a Blast back the C64 or IMac Times. The oldschool Feeling is real. Along with a fantastic and driving Soundtrack.

This Game has also an Alien Boss with a Sense for Black Humor. From time to time he is making comments, when a soldier of yours die. Well done, i like this kind of Humor. Also a great Intro and nice storytelling Clips. Love it.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2691320801

ROGUE INVADER is another Rare Pearl in the Ocean of Games. The Combination of oldschool Gameplay with modern Elements is well done. Controller Support would have been nice, but you have to play it with Key and mouse. Maybe in the Future.

So, if you like a real Challenge with a Game that rewards your Progress, if you like oldschool Gaming and Roguelike Games, then this is for you.
A very big thanks to the Developer for kicking me into the Battleship to lead this Invasion, have had sooooo much fun. Thanks!

And thank YOU for reading.

Fantastic game!

At first I burned through marines like a teenager with a dad's credit card and got frustrated, but as I stewed and thought about it I kept coming back and was always glad I did! Everything button, item, and feature in this game has a purpose, and as you learn how to use them one by one it becomes addicting. Just remember to watch the weather, beam up the best items, and as you weaken the barrier shield you can still choose to spawn at earlier drop locations!

Once I got to the point where I was no longer just throwing marines into the meat grinder I started a new invasion, and suddenly my marines were lasting 30, 45, even 60 minutes. Levels that were once unbearably hard are now a breeze thanks to familiarity and my stuff being almost fully upgraded. But then I venture forward into undiscovered territory and the challenge returns as I discover more to be learned.

Thanks a lot devs! You've now taken 28 hours of my life and are going to be taking a lot more until I beat this game.

I enjoy this as it reminds me of playing one of those side scrolling classic iMac games.

Levels can get repetitive as there is very little randomization. But the combat is classic old fun.

The resource looting mechanics can use some rework. You only can carry so much resources at a time and only provided with only 4 beamers (to beam up loot to your base) per run. You can't pick up additional loot beams, unless you find a dead comrade from the last level that was carrying beamers. It could be nice if there are checkpoints. Like being able to the Zeno's beamer to beam up resources material loot only at the very least. I think that could fix the balance.

Which leads me to the next thing. Being able to experiment and craft things is worthless, since you end up with so little resources.

In summary after a repetitive level design and unbalanced loot mechanics, it can burn you out quickly. Best to play in small bursts. However the classic gameplay loop makes up for it.

I'd say get it when it goes on sale or more content (such as level biomes etc) has been added and loot mechanics has been reworked.

I wanna gush a bit here. It was out of complete luck that I came across this game in a Fanatical bundle. This is the best game no one told me about. And I must say I find it HIGHLY OFFENSIVE that no one told me about it either. (lol) This is a game that EVERYONE should own and be talking about. Especially at its beyond reasonable price point.

So far, I’m in the double digits of deaths and can’t get enough. And I picked hard difficulty like a true fan of rougelikes/soulslikes should 💪. I’ve longed for a game with the classic XCOM style equipment management, cover system, but with a real-time action/gunplay take. Rogue Invader is up there with the likes of top tier games like Helldivers and Synthetic. Yet the game has such an insane amount of systems going on that the replay value is higher and off the charts than them. Add in the great voice acting and comedy… What an absolute gem this game is!

Thank you so much for giving us the privilege and opportunity to get to play such a game. It blends a special combination of mechanics that’s an absolute dream come true for me.

Whoa, retro graphics hide a real gem over here!

Game is a combo between _tactical_ shooter and XCom-lite base management. During combat part, you have to use cover (half cover and full cover) that lets you avoid shots, aim and shoot for body parts, and manage your tiny supplies of ammo, weaponry, grenades, items and armour. You die very quickly so - pretty much as game tells you directly - don't play John Wick, John Rambo or John Matrix. Don't be a John :D

One important thing you do, is use teleport pods (limited number) to teleport equipment back to the base, and then either recycle it for resources or research it for new tech. Since pods are REALLY limited in the beginning, very soon (3rd soldier) you'll start wondering whether it makes sense to spend a pod on Zeno Rifle, or wait and send up a stack of scrap, or maybe some new item you never saw before. Pretty cool!

During base phase, you figure out what you want to build out of resources you have, disassemble or research tech, and design guns with mods. Then, you equip a new soldier and voila... rinse and repeat.

Pretty darn good game, strong recommendation!

+
Interesting graphic style

-
Curved shelter system
Unnecessary jumps and precipices
Poor random

7/10 Only at a good discount

Halo for poor schoolchildren.)

Overall I have sunk 40 hours into the game at the time of this review and enjoyed most of it. I don't tend to play many rogue likes but played this as a beta tester at the recommendation of a friend and found it more enjoyable than I expected it to be. Rather than just play for testing and debug purposes(what I did the first 10 hours) I started to play more to progress and beat the game and found myself driven to come back each night till I did. Its not perfect, but it is still a fun and well made game.

The game strikes a fun balance between serious genocidal game play and humorous cinematic elements, but is not for the faint of heart. There is a bit of a ramp-up required to be able to reliably progress far into the game, but once you understand and master the basic skills needed progress becomes consistent rewarding.

Rogue Invader shines best in its mid-game content when you first begin to venture into the later levels and have a variety of weapons and upgrades at your disposal. At this point it becomes more exploratory as you search for key points of interest in the game to attack and experiment on which guns and mods work best for your playstyle.

Pros:
Visuals
Humorous dialog and engaging story
Variety of moddable weapons with multiple viable loadouts
Some procedurally generated areas to mix things up each drop
Good AI
Research tree for upgrading character and craftable gear

Cons:
Early game ramp-up: Some game elements can feel punishing the first playthrough. Also, the early game map feels slightly repetitive due to certain fixed points of interest always being generated(Thematically makes sense and most later areas do not feel this way)

Overall impression:
Well worth getting and playing. Like most games it requires some time before you feel comfortable and confident in engagements but feels rewarding as you push deeper into the enemies base. The dev team has said they are planning to update the early game feel soon which should address what I felt it biggest cons were and should make this into a solid gem of a game.

This one is a lot of fun. I was a little confused by inventory management and how to collect resources, but that's largely because I haven't seen many games with this approach before. Destroying enemy stuff for scrap and sending it back in, researching guns instead of losing them to deaths. About an hour in, I began to grasp what I was doing and how to do it well.

I'm reminded a lot of XCOM in both the research/gathering elements and the combat. Careful aiming and dealing with cover seems to work better than running and gunning.

The color scheme (or deliberate lack thereof) is interesting. I can see being put off by it, but it works and looks great in motion and cutscenes too. The UI is hurt the most by it; some color there would have made things more approachable out the gate.

Will definitely be going back to play some more. It might get repetitive if you're struggling, but good runs can get some real distance.