Indie Hour - Grind Survivors
Hey it's Tarrmu and welcome to another episode of Indie Hour where we talk about the latest independent video games that may have passed you by, and in today's video we're going to be talking about Grind Survivors a Rogue-like, bullet hell that has elements of Survivor-like game too, developed by Pushka Studios.
Before diving into the the video, I want to preface that I have received a review code for this game through Keymailer and Pushka games, at the time of recording I've had around 5 hours with the game, and still have content to unlock. So with that disclaimer out of the way I want to say thank you to Pushka Studios and Assemble Entertainment for the code, and now get on with the video.
Grind Survivors is yet another one of these types of games that from the first hour sinks its claws into you and taps into that dopamine hit that this genre of game is known for. Grind Survivors in many ways does feel familiar if you have played Vampire Survivors or more recently Megabonk, leaning more to the Vampire Survivors end. But take the Castlevania inspired backdrop, and swap it for a Doom inspired setting. The music is a thumper, the enemies are demonic and is covered in all of the hallmarks of a metal shooter like Doom.
Grind Survivors throws you into the top-down perspective where you're playing one of three playable characters and at the time of recording these impressions, I only have really experienced one of these characters. The same can be said for the maps where there are three maps which are unlocked upon completing the prior map. Each map comes with different difficulty tiers spanning from level 1 through to 5 and with each of these level dropping weapons that correlate to the respective tier.
One thing that Grind Survivors does that I absolutely have, and haven't really seen in the genre before is this sense of build-crafting that comes to preparing for a run. So you'll have weapons that you get as drops with different tiers spanning from common to epic. There are runes which are perks that you can assign which can be mixed and matched and the amount you can hold, can be expanded through currencies that you acquire from a run. Lastly you can refine your weapons both with individual stats, along with overall broader stats for the weapon. The upgrades work in an interesting way. You'll acquire a resource called ash which is used to upgrade your weapons, and the interesting component to this form of progression is that there is an element of risk and gambling tied to upgrading your weapon. You'll be given a percentage for the chance of your upgrade failing the more that you progress and upgrade, and failing an upgrade sets it back and requires you to spend and run that gamble all over again. It is something that I can imagine being frustrating for some, but it kept me interested and weighing up the risks. Lastly Grind Survivors also comes with a skill-tree which is also a component that improves many of the base stats across all of your characters, and is probably the one stream of progression which I'd consider a little redundant and generic. It'd be cool to see trees that build more expansive and unique upgrades with future updates.
All of this progression to say that you can tailor your loadout, and hop into a run with a bunch of meta-progression to build you up which feeds into each sequential run. The gameplay itself is structured in a tried and true way that anyone who is familiar with this genre will be at home with. You'll be picking up ashes and weapons which can be inspected outside of runs, enemies and the waves grow more intense as time marches on. You'll face various bosses which generally will come onto the scene in 5 minute intervals. On top of that you'll have the progression inside of your run, you'll be picking up orbs to level up and buff your character with increased reload speed, incendiary rounds, or cursed energy which are damage types, and as you level up you can stack and iterate on these abilities, along with other abilities that synergize with other abilities. There is a good chunk to play around with, not to mention there are alters which work similar to the alters in something like Megabonk which you hover around for a period of time, and then are able to receive a particular ability say increased reload speed, attack speed and things of this nature.
At the time of writing this script I've invested around 4 hours into the game, and I can see myself putting in another 20, and I do think that there is a solid amount of time that can be placed into this game, and I'd love to see how this game evolves and any new characters and maps they introduce here. Because Grind Survivors has a solid foundation that has a lot of places it can build upon and grow, and the time that I've had with it, I can enjoy, and one that I do recommend if you enjoy this genre.
