A Review and Dev Interview: Broadside Renegades

This ain't your dad's Vampire Survivors. We take a look at a hidden gem and talk to the developer about the development process.

​The diligent reader will know that GamingOnLinux is no stranger to the Vampire-Survivors-like genre. Liam has been captivated by several titles, and the author of this article once made an (unsuccessful) attempt to name the genre. In brief, this group of games attempt to combine run-based roguelike upgrades with hordes of encroaching enemies that get steadily more difficult to survive. The genre has matured considerably over the past five years, so much so that it is rare that one breaks through enough to re-capture that original spark.

Enter Broadside Renegades, a new horde survival game hybrid by indie developer Joseph Renzi. I had the fortune to get an interview from Joseph about his game, which you will find below the review section.

The Review: Broadside Renegades

Gameplay

In Broadside Renegades you play as a pirate out to loot the galaxy. You kill enemies and collect coins to level up and choose between a selection of randomized weapon upgrades and passive abilities. You unlock passive meta-upgrades between runs like more HP, faster speed, and so on. There's a danger meter that ramps up the longer you play, which means more and scarier enemies. You are virtually guaranteed to die, but hopefully not before you turn your ship from a plinking little tugboat into a rocket-propelled Death Star that spews missiles, lasers, drones, cannons, mines, sentient plasma, and all manner of horrifying space ordnance. This is done alongside great pixel art and an absolutely slapping original score. So far so good- these are all elements of a good Horde Survival game.

However, there are also features that distinguish Broadside Renegades from its horde survival competitors. First, the combat is much more active than your typical horde game. Most player ships have a primary active ability that you need to aim to use. You manually control your ship's speed, which changes how quickly you can turn. The dogfighting is much more skill-based and feels more like Starsector or Space Pirates and Zombies than your usual horde survivor.

"Bah," I see you typing in the comments, "there are plenty of games that combine more active combat with horde survival." I beg your patience, reader. Broadside Renegades has a number of other features that bring it to the cutting edge of the genre.

Spaceships That Switch Up Your Style

The first ship is a slow-moving brick in which you manoeuvre your sides to the enemy to hit them with broadside attacks. This is a fitting starter ship, as playing it feels like you're a pirate sailing captain ship bringing your broadside cannons to bear on your enemies. Personally, I couldn’t wait to get out of it and into something more agile.

The ships you will unlock, though, play completely differently. My current favourite, the rail gun ship, is extremely fast in a line but slow to corner, and has to stop and transform to fire a huge spike through enemies. This, combined with a shield ability, favours long-range hit and run attacks.

Next is a high-agility ship that dodgerolls and can flip 180 degrees. The gameplay here is space dogfighting, getting behind enemy ships and pulling off crazy dodgeroll stunts through blobs of enemies. Close-range weapons are your friend here. There's a literal space tank where you manually rotate the turret independently of the ship’s orientation. This favors a kiting playstyle with midrage damage. There’s a fighter that shoots waves of torpedoes. The most recent ship I unlocked has a giant steel beam across its prow for hurtling yourself into smaller fighter craft, which sends them careening off into space very satisfactorily.

New and New-ish Mechanics

Perhaps my favourite mechanic that is entirely new to the genre (as far as we are aware) are "scavenger" ships. These ships putter about the arena with no weapons, scooping up any XP coins they find before making their way to a jump gate to escape. If you find and kill one, all the XP they looted is yours for the taking. This is by far my favourite solution to the problem this genre has with XP being scattered all across the map. The genre solution is to add some kind magnet pickup which collects all the XP strewn across the map. Having these scavengers is a great solution to this problem because it turns the magnet-pickup into a much more active gameplay mechanic. Each scavenger ship is like a miniature flying magnet pickup, and if you don't find them in time they might escape with your hard-earned XP.

There are other great additions as well. There are two basic resources for you to loot: fuel and gold (XP). Fuel allows you to escape and move to the next level, while XP makes you more powerful. This means there is a strategic trade-off between staying in a level longer to power up, or focusing on fuel so you can progress to the next stage while minimally increasing the danger meter.

There are also bosses that appear which you can fight or flee from (although they will chase you to the next stage and demean you if you decide to run). There are different factions of enemies that have distinct ships and combat styles. There are different kinds of stages with different dangers and visual appeal. There is full mouse-only mode support. There is controller support. Did I mention the soundtrack is fantastic?

After about 10 hours in the game we reached out to Joseph Renzi for an interview on his game and the development process. There has been some light editing for clarity and conciseness.

Developer Interview

GOL: First off, tell us something about yourself and how you got into video game development.

JR: I have always loved world building and making little pen and paper games for my friends, or my little brother. I originally intended to get into concept art as I love worldbuilding, but around 2021 I came down with an autoimmune disease pretty bad (Ulcerative Colitis). More or less, being stuck inside for a solid year made me eventually just dive in solo. I was always waiting for coder friends to be open to work on a project, but it's hard to convince people making good money at their day job to commit to a game project. Luckily I ended up liking the coding part too!

GOL: Give us your one-sentence pitch for Broadside Renegades

JR: Broadside Renegades combines the auto-firing weapons of bullet heaven games with skill based active abilities to get you into space battles as fast as possible!

GOL: How did you develop the game? Is this your first solo game? How was the experience of developing?

JR: It's my first solo game (and game in general). It was a learning experience all around, from art to coding to design (I still don't know how to social media). I developed it mostly on nights and weekends over the course of about 18 months. Before that I worked on eight ideas that I felt I could finish at some point, and luckily many of those ideas gave me tools (and sometimes even code) I could port over to Broadside Renegades. There was a lot of burnout, but it was worth it to get something out there into the world.

GOL: The game works perfectly well via Proton. Was Linux or Steam Deck compatibility something that was on your radar during development?

JR: I had a lot of people around me raving about Steam Decks when I was developing, so I considered Steam Deck compatibility pretty important. I believe roughly a third of my players use a Steam Deck to play. I am impressed that Gamemaker didn't really require me to do anything for Linux in particular; the version you're running is actually the out-of-the-box Windows build. I was lucky enough that two of my testers both preferred Steam Deck, so I knew at launch it at least didn't have critical failures!

GOL: What feature of the game are you most proud of, or turned out better than expected? What feature did you find surprisingly difficult to implement?

JR: For better-than-expected it's actually the post-launch mouse steering system. I severely underestimated how much demand there was for mouse controls, assuming WASD or controller was sufficient given the arcade style of the game. Now it's primarily how I play if I'm not testing a feature with the other control sets. The boat-like steering feels much more intuitive with a mouse cursor.

Menus across the board are significantly more difficult for me than I'd like to admit, but I've learned a lot in the process. Menus (and polishing menus) took much more time than I had budgeted.

GOL: BR has a chaotic mix of genres. What were the big inspirations behind BR? What are some of your favourite games to play?

JR: Vampire Survivors is the most obvious. Originally the main concept was just that but with angles (hence the ship controls and broadsides). The game getting harder with time probably came from how many hundreds of hours I've put into Risk of Rain 1, its sequel, and Risk of Rain Returns. The original concept was actually very inspired by Star Sector, which is much less apparent in the final game. Not necessarily for BR specifically, but games from the Trese Brothers really inspired me creatively in general to get into development. Templar Battleforce in my mind stands next to bigger projects like XCOM (which I also love), despite being from a much smaller development team. I hope eventually I can bite off a bigger project like that myself. (Interviewer note: Trese Brothers are also the author's favourite indie development team, and always support Linux with native builds. Check out their gameography on steam and their newest project: a turn-based tactical cyberpunk simulation, Cyber Knights).

GOL: BR has an amazing soundtrack that really complements the gameplay. How did you find your musical artist and what was it like working with them?

JR: He usually goes by Joseph Lee/Dramamine. I showed my original trailer with my "developer music" to my friends, and my composer pretty much demanded that I fix it. It was a first game project for both of us and I am pretty blown away with every track. It helped a lot that he was enthusiastic about the closed demo builds, so he sort of came to get the feel for the battle tracks just from playing the game himself. It's also a good lesson that we can't do everything ourselves. I cannot emphasize how bad my own music was.

GOL: Any final thoughts on the development process?

JR: Mainly that I encourage anybody even a little bit curious about game development to just jump in. Work-life balance is essential though. My biggest lesson learned was how easy it was to burn myself out trying to do everything solo with a day job. Set realistic time frames, especially if you don't have a publisher/deadline. Finishing a project is as important for learning as they say it is.

Conclusion

So, what are the negatives? The most significant factor for your enjoyment will be whether you enjoy the combat system, which is significantly more active than your usual horde survival game, but not as complex as larger games like Starsector. I find that BR strikes a good balance between the two, but that’s subjective. Less subjective are a few persistent bugs, notably with audio, that might impact your enjoyment. In particular, some of the audio mixing is still a bit wonky, with some effects sounding too loud or quiet relative to others. There is also a bug where the rail gun sound effect plays twice for a single shot in some instances. Mouse support was added recently to the game, and there is one clickable menu button that could not be clicked. The developer is responsive, though, so I expect these bugs to be ironed out.

So, for those who skipped everything above, the short version is that Broadside Renegades is an instant pickup for fans of space fighters and horde survival fans. I haven’t talked much about the negatives, but there are some. Some of the brighter level backgrounds make the HUD difficult to see. The sound mixing is inconsistent and still being patched. The railgun sound effect sometimes plays twice instead of once. That said, the developer is very active on steam and pushing out updates. The game is also affordably priced at around the Vampire Survivors price point.

There's one final thing to mention. The game is criminally underappreciated, with six reviews at the time of writing (all positive). This is a chance to pick up a great game that you can mention at fancy dinner parties when the topic of undiscovered gems comes up. It's sure to impress.