Arcade shooter Nova Drift is a Petri dish in which to spawn the daftest, deadliest spaceship

rockpapershotgun.com:

I'm no shoot 'em up nutter - or "shmutter", as I understand they prefer to be called - but some of the first games I remember playing are shmups. Games like Maelstrom, Ambrosia's Macintosh clone of Asteroids, and the proto-shmup Crystal Quest from Patrick Buckland, who would go onto make Carmageddon. Little did I know that the humble premise of a small 2D spacecraft shooting baddies on a wrap-around screen would reach the glittering heights of Nova Drift. Had you shown me this game back in 1995, I dare say I'd have shmupped myself.

That "glittering heights" line is a touch premature, admittedly, not to say wildly unprofessional. I haven't yet played Nova Drift - it popped up on my radar when it left early access just yesterday. But it does look very good, and the launch Steam reviewer verdicts are highly favourable. The broad premise is that it combines the immediacy of a shmup with the build-crafting aspect of an ARPG, and a touch of roguelite progression. You command "an endlessly evolving bio-mechanical ship", with hundreds of modules and upgrades to choose from as you "ride the wake of a dying star across the void".

Evidently sensing the panic of players for whom the likes of Path Of Exile are a life-shattering commitment, the developers - that's designer Jeffrey Nielson of Chimeric, with Miles Tilmann of publisher Pixeljam Games on music and sound - emphasise that the upgrade and experimentation loop is quick. "Unlike many action-RPGs which can absorb hundreds of hours of time, Nova Drift allows you to take a ship build from inception to execution in a single game session," they explain.

In one run, you might turn your vessel into a battering ram with shields that explode when overloaded, and a burning aura that scales with your velocity. In another run, you might layer up grenade and shrapnel mods to form a fearsome piece of astral artillery, peeling off rounds that detonate into scores of homing projectiles. Individual ship pieces and powers listed on