Good game, good graphics, good gameplay, I just think I should have more upgrades and bosses too. They would tell the most exciting game.

É tipo um Space War do Atari. Mas muito limitado. Vale só de graça.

Razerwire: Nanowars is a retro (80's) action-arcade game that progression addicts are certain to love. The game reminds me of the games that I would play for countless hours as a child. It is the result of a lunchtime, 30-minute a day, project developed by a dev who works on much larger projects. That makes this a bit of a passion project that has been programmed with love.... and that love shines through.


When Razerwire: Nanowars went on sale the developer posted the deal to Reddit's r/Gamedeals and disclosed that the game was a part of an OtakuMaker bundle just as they went bankrupt. Unfortunately, he did not receive the ten thousand keys that he submitted back nor did he ever get paid for them. Other developers from the bundle who also never got paid had the keys revoked. However, knowing that legitimate purchases were made before the bundle was pulled, decided against revoking the keys. This resulted in a loss of hundreds of dollars from the loss of keys nor did he receive payment from OtakuMaker from the legitimate buyers.


Gameplay is simple. The player guides their monomolecular filament (the RazerWire) across the screen protecting its generator from the nanobugs whose sole purpose is to destroy it.

There is a lot of variety in the enemies each with their own intelligence, movement patterns, and level of aggressiveness. For example, some bugs will race towards your generator whilst the usually easier (sometimes not) bugs will hang out at the corner of the screen or go in multiple different ways with some of them just causing a distraction without necessarily heading to your generator. I personally found some of these bugs to be a greater challenge than those who are aggressive from the nanosecond they hit your screen.

Additionally, the further you play into the game the higher the types and total bugs are thrown at you. You're not just going to be seeing the same bugs on the screen at any one time. In order to be successful you're going to need to think on your feet and learn the movement of each bug.

I loved the upgrade system in the game. You can upgrade both your razerwire as well as your generator. You can upgrade these from both a defensive and offensive perspective. Each upgrade comes with a different cost. The player is awarded a unit of currency for every 1000 points that they score within the game. Upgrades cost between 1 and 3 units of currency at the beginning and scale up each time you upgrade.


As I grew up playing Commodore 64, Atari, arcade machines, and other early console games I was hoping for authenticity from the presentation. If a developer is going to bill their game as a 'modern revisitation of the 80s' arcades' then it can't be something super modern. Thankfully, the developer has delivered on this front in spades. It's everything that I could hope for from an 80's style presentation from a graphical perspective. Additional kudos needs to go to the musician, Ottavio Cambieri of Mashmachines[www.mashmachines.com].

The only downside I can see is that the lime green menu background comes off as dangerously garish. However, this is me being more pedantic than anything else.


For a low priced game there aren't many that possess higher levels of replayability. In fact, I would argue that the entirety of the game relies on it. There are multiple reasons for this.

First, at the end of every 'run' the player has the opportunity to start from the most recent checkpoint passed or to start from the beginning. This makes it so that there is never a point that you reach a wave that is too difficult for your ability level. Additionally, resetting to wave zero enables you to retain upgrades, nanopoints, and kills while only losing your score progress.

The downside to this replayability system and resetting scores is that the game gives you multiple (3) save slots. The replayability system almost makes having multiple save slots pointless. However, I'll readily admit that if you have family or friends who share your Steam account that would like to play they'll be able to do so without affecting your save. Simply give them their own slot.


High-Level Accessibility: The game can be played entirely through mouse (and trackpad for laptop users). It also has full controller support. As long as you can push the mouse/trackpad and use the left and right buttons then you can do everything that the game requires you to do.

• Steam Achievements
  
• Steam Leaderboards
  
• Steam Stats
  
• Steam Cloud

There are currently no trading cards available for players.


I purchased the game at its half-price discount thanks to the aforementioned sale. However, the game is cheap when it's not on sale at A$2.95. This makes the 'value for money' discussion kind of mute. At the price point you're not looking for several hundred hours of value.


I came with low expectations. I wanted to support a developer who did the right thing by gamers and to have a few minutes of low-value gaming fun. I thought I would then delete the game and it'd be +1 to my Steam game count. Anything more was gravy. I definitely have gravy. Razerwire: Nanowars is a game that I will keep installed on both my laptop and desktop. It's the perfect little throwback action arcade game that I will play for a few minutes during work hours when I need a quick pick me up. If you're looking for something similar in a game then you've come to the right place. An easy recommendation.


Personal Note: This is my first review since gaining a permanent disability. From now on my reviews will feature a disability accessibility component.

Razerwire: Nanowars is the Steam debut of Screwdriver&Pigeons and that should come as no surprise to me, since both the title and its developer have been quite creative with their naming conventions and the contents of the arcade casual I shall be reviewing today. Appearances are deceiving, of course. I actually had fun, in spite of my initial reservations.

There isn’t a story to Razerwire: Nanowars. I would have appreciated at least a static wall of text with some Sci-Fi technobabble, since the power-up descriptions fit that bill. Alas, no introduction whatsoever. Can’t say that I’m disappointed as I wasn’t expecting a narrative to a title which emulates the arcade feel of games from several decades ago. Indeed, I wasn’t even born when arcade cabinets were all the rage in gaming.

Feel free to imagine whatever scenario floats your boat. I’ll just go with “evil alien insects are attacking and humanity’s only hope is a shoddy satellite with a laser wire attached to it.” Quite the Space Bug Catcher, in fact. Nanobugs, sorry. Which means that our brave defender is a satellite operated by ants. I’m reading too much into this, right? Okay, nothing to see here, move along citizen.

My money’s on Unity, since “something” is telling me that Razerwire: Nanowars isn’t powered by the Unreal Engine. Regardless of this, the game looks the part and even features several visual filters that can bring back the memories of long past gaming days. You can play with no filter at all, but where’s the fun in that? Feast your eyes on all that frantic action from the perspective of the Arcade, the ‘80s or my favorite, the “Old TV” filter which almost made me smack the monitor in hopes of finally rendering those colors without glitches.

I’m kidding of course, since the effect is both intended and well simulated. Razerwire: Nanowars really shines when it just focuses on simulating something that it’s not. Is that a bad thing? Well, I’ve had my share of contemporary arcades that didn’t even undertake this minimal effort, so I’m tilting the scales in Razerwire’s favor. No unplanned bugs or glitches and definitely no crashes or frame rate drops. It all went smoothly and it scales perfectly on 4K resolution.

Synthwave music. The soundtrack actually contains ten songs, but I was far too busy just handling the on-screen onslaught, so I couldn’t really notice if those songs were very different from one another. What I can tell you though, is that they never bothered me either. No reason to mute the sounds and listen to something else. As far as the audio section is concerned, I couldn’t ask more from this genre.

As simplistic as it may seem, the gameplay offers a fresh perspective, at least through the fact that you aren’t shooting back at those waves of menacing bugs. There’s no actual “pew pew” in Razerwire: Nanowars, but you can toggle some missiles or plasma shots which aren’t as accurate as one would expect. No, the main defense and offense against your foes, remains that laser cord that disintegrates aliens upon touch. Consider it a “windscreen wiper” to a certain extent. Levels are calculated by how many waves of insects you’ve overcome. Game progress gets autosaved after each consecutive set of 20 waves.

That is truly helpful, since the satellite has no regenerable health or access to self-repair modules. The structural integrity it loses, can’t be recovered until the invevitable restart from previous checkpoint. The first 100 waves may be a relative breeze, but from there onwards, expect to “die” a couple of times until you survive 20 more waves for that autosave. Enemy types are well diversified and they move and attack in distinctive patterns which force players to constantly adapt their approach and also remain alert to cloaking and teleporting aliens.

Of course there’s a high score system and a leaderboard. What arcade (casual or not) could do without one? Quick reflexes save the day, as long as you got both the skill and patience to advance upon that ladder. If you play for fun however, you can simply rejoice at the unlocking of new power-ups which spice things even further. Upgrades to health, recovery time (for the wire) or several automated weapons, can be unlocked by natural game progression. A thousand score points yield an upgrade point which can be invested in the titular power-ups.

They have a three star rating and as you can imagine, both unlocking and maxing them out, takes A LOT of time. I should mention that the “line holder” must never touch the foes directly, or it will suffer a temporary malfunction which leaves the satellite vulnerable to bug attacks. No worries, there are at least 500 waves inscribed on a Steam Achievement. Good luck getting to that point though. You’ll need it.

Definitely not a straightforward affair, Razerwire: Nanowars still gets repetitive faster than I’d like to admit. Playing it in “short bursts” might cancel out this issue. The incentives for progressing to insane levels/waves are there and they don’t require that much grinding. Theoretically, even if you’re constantly failing the waves before the next autosave, you still gain upgrade points that eventually allow you some breathing room.

Naturally, I suggest you focus on fully upgrading the health pool of the main structure as well as minimizing the downtime of its auxiliary “weapon”. What more can I say? Razerwire is more than decently priced for what it offers and I can only hope that it’ll sell enough units, to warrant the introduction of Steam Trading Cards along the already present Achievements.

+ Steam Achievements.
+ Pleasant visuals and sounds.
+ Replay value through upgrades.
+ Just the right amount of challenge.

- Becomes repetitive rather fast.
- No Steam Trading Cards yet.

Rating 70/100

This review was submitted for Imperial Reviews and The Inner Circle Games Network[www.ticgn.com] through the generous contribution of Gavin.

I bought this on sale (so 39p instead of 79p!), turned down the volume, put on some podcasts, and 100%ed it in an afternoon - and enjoyed pretty much the whole experience.

The only part that I came to dread happening was the "scrambled" controls, which never failed to frustrate me, but that's by design. I decided that it was better to sit still & take damage than try to move & get destroyed...

Sure, the game is simple (& can be a bit of a grind depending on what upgrades you're focusing on), but there's more than enough depth in the variety of enemies & powerups, along with whether you choose to defend close to your base or prefer to reach out further to chase score combos & collect items.

It's fun in the way that Nickervision arcade games are fun - it does one thing, does it well, doesn't outstay its welcome, but could always fill a few minutes if you like chasing high scores after all the achievements have been unlocked.

My 4 years old son say:

"oh oh, this game is beatiful!"
"use the missile daddy! use the missile!"
"be careful or the red ball (the mine) will hurt you!"

My year old baby starts dancing when the music during the waves play.

Isn't this enough to buy the game? ;)

Razerwire Nanowars is a simple but funny game. You have to survive wave after wave from a ton of insects, all spiced up by useful powerups, growing difficulty and a 80s style music that you never get tired of. Don't be discouraged if you have to repeat some waves several times: you probably just have to unlock the correct powerups to go further!

Music: 9
Graphic: 9
Gameplay: 8 (some powerups balance is needed, but the dev is active, hope's coming soon)
Price: 10 (on this price range it is not guaranteed to find polished products)

Enjoy!!

bought this because it had cool cover art to go along with my profile. Game is cheap, so why not? Also figured, why not give it a try.

It was actually pretty fun at first, never really played anything like it. Enjoyed the colors and style quite a bit. However, even in full screen the cursor strays to my other monitors when playing, making it rather irritating and practically impossible to play unless i have only the one monitor on.

I'd like to give it a thumbs up and i know nothing really about being a dev but i kinda figured something like fullscreen mode should work in 2021.

EDIT: fullscreen works :D

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Razerwire:Nanowars is an never-ending arcade style, yet casual, score chaser/time waster with a simple mechanic. You use the fine line created by a stationary base and your cursor to kill a neverending onslaught of Nanobugs.

Fortunately your run is never cut too short, it's only as long as you want it to be. Each 1000 points you gain upgrade points, enough upgrade points will make you better in some way or another. And there are checkpoints with infinite continues, so you can just keep playing and playing and playing, as if you have nothing better to do.

It's one of those strange-looking games with such a simple mechanic that you feel like asking yourself, "well, what's the point?" But then you play and you play, and you keep playing. Even though you know there are 3 save slots, and you can come back a different time, you just keep playing anyway.

This game does get kind of dull after a while. As I said, if you pick this up, know that it's a dullish time waster. It's not bad, it's not great. But it's passable, and it feels less intense because of the check points available.

Gamepad is supported, but mouse is the way to go with this game. Your cursor will only move so fast with the joystick.

Visuals are interesting, you can choose no filter, in which you get pixelated backgrounds but the foreground stuff is crisp and clear. You can toggle among Old TV, Arcade, or Retro styles as you wish. The Old TV setting is almost in gray scale, with some streaking rainbow effect from poor magnetization of the electron beam onto the phorphorescent surface. Pretty cool in appearance, I do have to say.
Music sounds like it came from an original arcade game.

I don't know who would be a good audience. It's not a hardcore arcade game like you expect those coin-sucking machines from the 80s to be. It's very casual with an arcade look. But it's not casual enough that someone who only plays point-n-click games should play. You start running into quick deaths in higher levels.

I guess you could always choose to restart the save file from the first wave instead of continuing. Or you could keep an on-going save file and use another to restart new games. You have 3 to choose from.

At 1.99 USD, it's reasonable. You know from the trailer what you are getting. If you think you will be getting more, well, perhaps you will play at lengthy intervals trying to upgrade everything or try to get the achievements. I think it's a reasonable price for this game. The different filters look nice and nostalgic.

Razerwire:Nanowars is basically an one-action endless time-waster with a slow progression system. Some people high up in the leaderboards must be playing for their whole lives, but that's okay. To each his/her own, I guess. I think it's passable for what it is meant to be. I would give it a 6/10.

Here's a video of me trying the game out for the first time:
https://youtu.be/sExO37_yWFg

I received the product for free. I did not receive any compensation to write this review. The opinions represented here are entirely my own and were not influenced in any way.

Razerwire: Nanowars is a new high score game with cool colors and some neat ideas. It's pretty casual..

Razerwire: Nanowars is a game that I was a bit suspicious of at first because of the low price. I checked the unity asset store and couldn't find anything like this. So I gave it a try and it was actually okay.

You have to defend a space station from space bugs that are coming to destroy you for unknown reasons. You move the mouse cursor around and a laser fires from your space station to the cursor and everything gets sliced up in the laser beam between the two points. It's a pretty neat style of gameplay.

Graphically the game is okay, the enemies are cool and I love the look of the space station as well as the color schemes used. I was not a huge fan of the backgrounds, mostly because they seemed a bit odd with the different sized pixels but as a background they worked alright and you could easily see the enemies over top of it. The music was okay too.

It's got some rogue-lite mechanics where you earn a type of in-game currency during each gameplay session and can spend it outside of the game to permanently upgrade your ship so the next time you will be more powerful.

At first, I was a bit dissapointed that I couldn't find any leaderboards in the game, this is a high score style game and leaderboards are always one of the features you don't want to be without. There was steam leaderboards but they are actually not very easy to access and the whole steam leaderboard system itself is a bit clunky and needs major improvement.. BUT WAIT, I turned the game on the next day and on the main screen I saw a new button there called "LEADERBOARDS". There was an update and a button was added that brought the leaderboards in-game so you don't have to mess around with the steam leaderboard system. I was so happy to see this, they updated it over night and it was very much appreciated.

Suddenly I have more reason to go back in and play some more. While it is cool unlocking new features, weapons, and stat boosts from the gameplay I find it more fun trying to go after scores on leaderboards, especially friend leaderboards. This game has global and friend leaderboards, so that's good.

While this game is okay, I do think it could be greatly expanded on. This is a neat style of gameplay and I think if the developers grew this idea into a much larger game or even used this style of gameplay mixed with others in a sequal of some sort it would be pretty cool.

I would say that if you like high score types of games, this one is okay. If you want something a little different from the usuals this has a somewhat unique style of gameplay that you may find interesting.