Backpack Battles is another clear indie Steam hit

If you enjoyed the idea in Backpack Hero with inventory management, you may want to also take a look at the new Backpack Battles which has a similar basic theme but puts you in PvP battles against other players and it's proven to be quite a hit.

Released into Early Access on Steam with Native Linux support on March 8th, it's already sold over 100,000 copies and it has gained an Overwhelmingly Positive user rating too.

Sorting through a backpack might not initially sound all that exciting perhaps but as I've discovered (personal purchase), it really is quite a clever game. You start simply by picking whichever of the character classes sounds interesting, and then just dive right in.

First up — shopping! You need to fill up that backpack with items. Some directly combine together to make a more powerful weapon, some give other items a buff or your character a plain attribute boost and so on. It's all about finding various fun combinations, of which there's rather a lot. Surprisingly, the shop screen is where I've spent most of my time, because I'm constantly rearranging everything trying to get a better item flow. You get strangely engrossed in working on that synergy. Some items have stars around them as well, and when you get another item of the same type with stars, if you manage to get them into a position where the stars match up — you get a special item boost.

Then when you think your backpack looks good, you'll be entering a PvP battle against an opponent matched by the game that will be the character and bag of another real player and the battle begins.

Everyone seems to start with the same gold, health and so on - so it's all fair game. Each round you gain more gold and health, so you'll always be in with a good chance on your next opponent since you'll match on those very basics. Of course the items you have make a massive difference, and some battles can end up quite one-sided. Or they may seems so, but then you run out of stamina due to your choices and then your opponent can flatten you.

It's an auto-battler too, so you're not actually doing anything directly. The strategy here is, you guessed it, the backpack itself and how you've positioned everything. I really haven't quite gotten the hang of it yet, lots to learn, but very cool. While it doesn't do particularly well at explaining things, it's easy enough to pick up how it all works with a clear interface, I would have just like to have seen something resembling a tutorial just to ease me in a little more. Hasn't put me off though, and clearly a lot of other people aren't having issue either given that it's seen a peak player count of 32,635 in the last 24 hours.

Even though you're not actually involved in the battles, you're just an observer, it can get really intense. And the amount of joy you get when you absolutely annihilate an opponent is quite something. The Backpack Battles don't take long at all, and you can speed them up, but even on the normal speed in some cases we're talking even only 10-20 seconds at times.

Check out the trailer:

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This has just become not only my new favourite coffee-break game, but I'm probably going to end up on this all night. The Linux version runs without any issues, really great to see.

Nice to see another big hit being made with Godot Engine as well! Remember to check out our Godot Engine tag.

Check it out on Steam.